A New Scheme of Short-Hand Author:John Palmer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. On Comparative Short-hand. TH E Art of Short-hand was in- vented, for the purpoje of committing to writing our own thoughts, or the verbal or w... more »ritten difcourfes of others, -with the greateji poffible dif- patcb, confident with an eafy legibility. So that " Legibiliry and Expedition are the cffential properties of Shorthand." . If this idea of its defign had been duly attended to, the art might probably have been brought to its ne plus ultra long ago : at leaft we mould not in that cafe have feen fo many very imperfeft Secrety is merely an accidental effeŁt of fbort-hand; and when any particular fcheme is nude public, this cited is in a good meafure de- ftroyed with refpeft to that fcheme. chapter{Section 4imperfetl fchemes of fwift-writing, nor have heard fo many wbimfical objections raifed againft them, by numbers who efteem themfelves proficients in fhort-hand. Almoft every one who underftands barely enough of this art, to be able to write after fome particular fcheme with tolerable propriety, is ready to pals judgment to the difadvantage of a different fcheme, on the flighted infpection of a fpecimen ; without being at all aware of the impropriety of fo hafty a decifion, or once reflecting how many circumftances muft be attended to, before any juft compari- fon can be drawn between them. fLeauty.—An inferiority in point of beauty is ufually confidered by fuch peribns, as decifive againft any method of fhort-writing. And it will be ponfefied that beauty is a defirable property, except by thofe who prac- fife a fcheme which has no pretenfions toto it. Mr. Byrom has fomewhere obferved, that " fhortnefs and beauty are the fame;" and every difciple of his is frequently repeating this maxim after him ; many of them, I am perfuaded, without unde...« less