He left a widow, whose name was Margaret, and two sons, Timothy Bright, barrister-at-law, of Melton-super-Montem in Yorkshire, and Titus Bright, who graduated M.D. at Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1611, and practised at Beverley. He had also a daughter Elizabeth.
Subjoined is a list of his works:
- 'An Abridgment of John Foxe's "Booke of Acts and Monumentes of the Church,"' London, 1581, 1589, 4to; dedicated to Sir Francis Walsingham.
- 'Hygieina, id est De Sanitate tuenda, Medicinæ pars prima,' London, 1581, 8vo; dedicated to Lord Burghley.
- 'Therapeutica; hoc est de Sanitate restituenda, Medicinæ pars altera;' also with the title 'Medicinæ Therapeuticæ pars: De Dyscrasia Corporis Humani,' London, 1583, 8vo; dedicated to Lord Burghley. Both parts reprinted at Frankfort, 1688-9, and at Mayence 1647.
- 'In Physicam Gvlielmi Adolphi Scribonii, post secundam editionem ab autore denuò copiosissimè adauctam, & in iii. Libros distinctam, Animaduersiones,' Cambridge, 1584, 8vo; Frankfort, 1593, 8vo; dedication to Sir Philip Sidney, dated from Ipswich.
- 'A Treatise of Melancholie, Containing the cavses thereof, & reasons of the strange effects it worketh in our minds and bodies: with the phisicke cure, and spirituall consolation for such as haue thereto adioyned an afflicted conscience,' London (Thomas Vautrollier), 1586, 8vo; another edition, printed the same year by John Windet. This is said to be the work which suggested Burton's well-known 'Anatomy of Melancholy.'
- 'Characterie. An Arte of shorte, swifte, and secrete writing by character. Inuented by Timothe Bright, Doctor of Phisicke. Imprinted at London by I. Windet, the Assigne of Tim. Bright, 1588. Cum priuilegio Regiæ maiestatis. Forbidding all others to print the same,' 24mo.
- 'Animadversiones de Traduce,' in Goclenius's Ψυχολογία, Marpurg, 1590, 1594, 1597.
Bright will ever be held in remembrance as the inventor of modern shorthand-writing. The art of writing by signs originated among the Greeks, who called it σημειογραφία. Few specimens of Greek shorthand are extant, and little is known on the subject. From the Greeks the knowledge of the art passed to the Romans, among whom it was introduced by Cicero, who devised many characters, which were termed notæ Tironianæ, from Cicero's freedman Tiro, a great proficient in the art. In the darkness which overwhelmed the world on the fall of the Roman empire the knowledge of the notæ was utterly lost, and therefore Bright may be justly regarded as an original inventor, inasmuch as the secret of the ancient shorthand was not unravelled until the beginning of the present century. Only one copy of Bright's 'Characterie' (1588) is known to be in existence. It formerly belonged to the Shakespearean scholar, Francis Douce, and is now preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It is a small volume, in good preservation, but the shorthand signs are all written in ink which is rapidly fading. Transcripts of it in manuscript are possessed by Mr. J. E. Bailey, F.S.A., Mr. Edward Pocknell, and Dr. Westby-Gibson. In the dedication of this rare, and now famous, book to Queen Elizabeth, the author thus describes the nature and objects of his invention: 'Cicero did account it worthie his labour, and no less profitable to the Roman common weale (Most gratious Soueraigne) to inuent a speedie kinde of wryting by Character, as Plutarch reporteth in the life of Cato the yonger. This invention was increased afterwards by Seneca; that the number of characters grue to 7000. Whether through iniurie of time, or that men gaue it over for tediousness of learning, nothing remaineth extant of Ciceros invention at this day. Upon consideration of the great vse of such a kinde of writing I haue inuented the like: of fewe Characters, short and easie, euery Character answering a word: My Inuention meere English, without precept or imitation of any. The uses are diuers: Short that a swifte hande may therewith write orations, or publike actions of speach, vttered as becometh the grauitie of such actions, verbatim. Secrete as no kinde of wryting like. And herein (besides other properties) excelling the wryting by letters and Alphabet, in that, Nations of strange languages, may hereby communicate their meaning together in writing, though of sundrie tongues.' Queen Elizabeth, by letters patent dated 26 July 1588, granted to Bright for a period of fifteen years the exclusive privilege of teaching and of printing books, 'in or by Character not before this tyme commonlye knowne and vsed by anye other oure subiects' (Patent Roll, 30 Eliz. part 12). An elaborate explanation of Bright's system is given by Mr. Edward Pocknell in the magazine 'Shorthand' for May 1884. The system has an alphabetical basis, but as the signs for the letters are not sufficiently simple to be capable of being readily joined to one another, the method is only alphabetical as regards the initial letter of each word, the remainder of the 'character' representing the word being purely arbitrary. In fact, the alphabet was too clumsy to be regularly applied to the whole of a word, as was done only fourteen years later by John Willis, whose scheme, explained in the 'Art of Stenographie' (1602), is the foundation of all the later systems of shorthand. Among the Lans-
