Currant verba licet, manus est velocior illis; LONDON: WILLIAM CROFTS, 19, CHANCERY LANE. 1832. PREFACE. As the utility of any art becomes more appreciated, the desire to know its principles will be more generally diffused amongst all classes of the community. And if the art be not only importantly useful in its results; but at the same time, highly interesting in its practice, this desire must of course, more widely extend itself. Stenography, in the present day, claims and receives attention on both these grounds. It forms a part of public and private tuition: seldom a year passes without several treatises on Short-hand issuing from the press; some professing originality, others announcing alterations and improveNor do the demands on public notice stop here, for in the streets of this metropolis, and the numerous cities and towns of Great Britain, the cards, and placards, of professors, tell us that this art may be learned in a few lessons. Some of these announcements are of the most diverting description. Lectures too have been delivered in several of our institutions on the sub ments. ject of Stenography, and most recently at Exeter Hall. In this boasted "march-of-mind" age, it must have been observed, that it characteristics are, not only to know, and to know much, but to acquire knowledge with unwonted rapidity. With whatever success other branches of knowledge may have been studied on this plan, it has not happened to the editor of this volume to meet, in his practice, any who have become good stenographers by such a mode of tuition. In his own case, and he believes in that of others, perfection in the art has been attained only by long and persevering practice. This remark is intended to apply exclusively to those who use Short-hand for the purpose of reporting; for a very slight attention to the art, will soon enable the student to keep memoranda, diaries, copies of letters, &c. in short-hand characters. Some explanation, perhaps apology, may be thought necessary with regard to the motives which induced the editor to lend his humble aid to the publication of the present work. In the course of a long and diligent professional practice, he has been repeatedly solicited to give instructions in Short-hand, which he invariably declined. The questions, "Which do you consider the best system?" and "Whose system do you write?" have been so constantly put to him, that he long ago intended to republish the system now laid before the public, which was invented by the late Samuel Taylor, originally published by subscription, in 1786. The chief merit of the system is its admirable simplicity. If all the works on Stenography were examined and compared, it would be found that the principles of the art taken in the abstract were the same, the difference consisting only in the transposition of the characters; but on the judicious management of them depends the value of the system. All stenographic cyphers must be formed from the dot, the line, and the circle. In looking over the alphabets of other systems, the editor recognizes the same characters as those in Taylor's System; the only difference being in their not representing the same letters. Taylor, in forming the present system, evidently never lost sight of the language to which it was to be applied. He has succeeded so far as to give the simplest characters for letters the most frequently used. The simplest form of character is derived from the dot, which stands for the five vowels, besides y when sounded as a vowel; the next is formed from the line, as \; a third is from the line with the loop added to it, as from the circle, unn The quickly written in this system, is z, being a horizontal line, thus less than 2800 or 2900 words. scarcely be called a character,) represents the vowels, used in about 3400 words. The character which takes the longest time, and requires the most care in forming with accuracy, is that formed from the circle; but the number of words in which it can be employed is the smallest, namely, about 1008. The following table will perhaps give at one view the powers of the stenographic alphabet according to this system : ; and the last, that formed character most easily and that representing cs and and it is used in no Again, the dot, (which can |