AN INTRODUCTION TO

BYROM'S

SHORT-HAND.

PART THE FIRST.

AS the attention of the Reader, on opening a Treatise of Short-hand, will naturally, in the first instance, be drawn to an examination of the Scheme of its Alphabet, it may not be amiss briefly to premise, that the Inventor of the present System, the late JoHN BYROM, A. M. and F.R.S., both in the selection of his various characters, and in the appropriation of them to their respective consonants, spared no pains in adjusting the whole of his Alphabet to the utmost nicety, by such an exact attention to trials and amendments as were absolutely necessary to ascertain a decided preference to any other which could possibly have been adopted. On this account, it is presumed that no change can now be made, either in the selection of the Short-hand marks. or in the peculiar appropriation of them to the different consonants, but what would be attended, on the whole, with considerable disadvantage.

B

OUR Short-hand Alphabet, then, consists of the following consonants, namely, b, d, for v, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s or ≈, t, w, x, y; also the double consonants, ch, sh, and th. The letters b, h, j, w, x, sh, and th, are represented, in Short-hand, by two characters each, and the consonant 1, by three difierent characters. In general, the different characters assigned to one and the same letter are designed to facilitate the joining of different consonants in any given word, one of the characters being sometimes more convenient, and sometimes the other, for that purpose.

WE have observed that there are two marks or characters, allotted to the consonant b. When these marks are used singly, they denote, respectively, the two common words, be, and but. In all other cases the writer is at liberty to employ either the one or the other character, optionally, as may appear to him most convenient in joining, them with other consonant letters. The character which represents the consonant d, when it is written singly, not being joined to, or connected with, any other Short-hand mark, stands for the very common word, and. The same character is also used, at the beginning of words, to denote the prepositions, ad-, de-, or dis-; and, at the end of words, it denotes the termination -ed. Most of the other Short-hand

characters have, in like manner, the same threefold power of denoting, first, a common word; second, a preposition, (which, in long-hand, is prefixed to a word, and becomes a constituent part of it;) and, third, a termination, being the ending or latter part of a word. The same Short-hand characters, however, when they are used in composition, that is, being actually joined to other consonants, or having vowel points annexed to them, represent, neither more nor less, than the particular and individual consonant which is assigned to each mark, according to the Table of the Alphabet, which exhibits, at one view, all the Short-hand characters, with the various words, prepositions, and terminations, represented by them. The Shorthand Alphabet is also printed separately, on a card, forming, in all cases, an easy and very convenient mode of reference. The next consonant, it may be observed, is for v, the latter being, in general, represented by the same mark as f; though, occasionally, it may be useful to distinguish it from the former, by making the stroke a little thicker. A similar distinction is also occasionally made, whenever it may appear either useful or necessary, between the letters s and z, which having nearly the same power, are generally signified, by one and the same horizontal straight line. When

they are distinguished from each other, the letter z is made a little thicker than the s.

THERE are two characters assigned to each of the looped letters, h, j, w, and sh, in one of which the loop or twirl is at the top, and in the other, at the lower extremity, or bottom, of the line. The first character only, for each of those letters, having the twirl at the top of the line, is that which is invariably used in composition, that is, when they are respectively joined to other Short-hand marks.

THE three characters which are appropriated to the single consonant 7, are occasionally used, at the option of the Writer, to denote that letter, being severally joined to other characters, according to the nature of those marks with which they may happen to be connected.

In:

THESE general observations on the Shorthand characters may suffice, for the present, as more particular remarks will hereafter be made on each single character, as they respectively occur in the usual order of the consonants. the mean time, however, it will be necessary to explain the method of representing, as occasion may require, the different vowels, whether initial, intermediate, or final, since, without that knowledge, every attempt, either to read or write words in which vowels are used, would certainly be premature and ineffectual.

Of Vowels.

Containing Directions for ascertaining their respective Positions, with an improved Method of representing, in Shorthand, Diphthongs or double Vowels, and of distinguishing the different Vowels, when they are used singly, to represent words.

ALL the perpendicular and inclined letters, in Short-hand, are made to touch, as it were, two imaginary horizontal lines, running parallel to each other, and whose distance or breadth is determined by the length of the Shorthand t; thus,

DESCEZI & &c.

THE space between these two parallel lines, in which are comprised all the Short-hand characters, is supposed to be divided into five equal parts, reckoning from the top to the bottom, correspondiug to the five vowels, a, e, i, o, and u. The first position, at the top of the line, is assigned to the vowel a; the next, or second position, being a little lower, that is, between the top and the middle of the Short-hand line, is the place of the vowel e; the middle, or third position, is the vowel i; a little lower, between the middle and the bottom, o; and the fifth or last position, at the bottom of the line, u.These five different positions of the vowel points are easily distinguished and remembered.The vowels, used singly, denote, first, at the top