APPENDIX. SINCE the former part of this work was printed, the Author has been favoured, by a respectable gentleman, with an important improvement in the mode of writing the Vowels. This improvement, it is hoped, will furnish that desideratum which has been generally pointed out in all Systems of Shorthand; namely, simplicity and perspicuity, connected with brevity, in the representation of vowels. "The following arrangement of vowel characters, though simple to behold, is the result of upwards of twenty years' practice in writing Taylor's System, and during a considerable part of which time the writer made it his study to attain the result which is now set forth. Its simplicity, perspicuity, and brevity will be apparent, by considering "1st. That in most Systems where only one character, or more properly, a point, has been used to represent the five vowels, perspicuity has been wanting, especially in the use of vowels' places where the writing has been expeditiously executed. Here perspicuity is retained, agreeably to the illustrations below. "2nd. That two characters, though they might be made to represent the five vowels, yet would be less simple than the three now given, in the collective distinction of the vowels, for one of two characters must necessarily represent more vowels than by a proper arrangement would be represented by one of three. The great object then to be attained, and which it is presumed is here realized, is, to embrace in the formation of three characters the simplicity of two. Now, the following representation of the vowels embrace, properly, but two characters, viz. a point and a comma, while by the line of direction in which the comma is drawn, it forms two characters itself, as easily and expeditiously made as the point. "That the advantages of the following arrangements further are, that the a cannot be taken for the e when the point stands alone, the e being at all times a component part of a word; and when the point is written in conjunction with consonants, at the beginning or end of a word, only one of two letters is to be determined; namely, a or e. "The same remarks are applicable to the character for o and u. "The character for i will always be representative of i only, (except y, at the end of words,) whether written alone or in conjunction with con sonants. "These characters are written parallel with the horizontal line of writing, at the beginning and end of words. VOWELS. a, e, i, o, u. "The characters for i, and o, u, as above, will be found to resemble the characters for e, and a, as represented in Mr. Blair's System, Plate 4:" CAMBERWELL. H. R. G. |