A METHODICAL HEBREW GRAMMAR without Points. [with:] THE UNIVERSAL ENGLISH SHORT-HAND, or the way of writing English in the most easy, concise, regular, & beautiful manner, applicable to any other language, but particularly adjused to our own. Invented by John Byrom. 1767.. Cet article n’est pas disponible.A METHODICAL HEBREW GRAMMAR without Points. [with:] THE UNIVERSAL ENGLISH SHORT-HAND, or the way of writing English in the most easy, concise, regular, & beautiful manner, applicable to any other language, but particularly adjused to our own. Invented by John Byrom. 1767.

Manuscript in ink (200 x 160mm), neatly written in ink in a very regular and legible hand; two parts in the volume: pp. [ii], 33, [14], [1] blank; [40]; bound in contemporary marbled boards, calf spine (very worn but still holding), vellum corners. A finely-written manuscript Hebrew grammar, copied from a work by John Parkhurst (1762) and an abridged manuscript version of Byrom's Universal English Short-Hand (1767), written out by an English country clergyman. The Rev. Edward Spencer (1740-1819) became Rector of Wingfield (then known as Winkfield), Wiltshire, in 1775 and remained there until his death forty-four years later. (He was succeeded by his son, who had been his curate, and who stayed until his death in 1842.) The study of Hebrew was and to some extent still is a rite of passage for students of Christian theology, and it is perhaps to be expected that a young Anglican clergyman would retain an interest in the language. Edward Spencer had been ordained at the age of 22, in 1762, before attending St Edmund Hall, Oxford six years later. He started a school there, as some rural clergy did, and one of his pupils was Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859), who was sent there by his mother in 1799. The reasons for this are 'obscure' according to Grevel Lindop in ODNB, and it was not a success: he had flourished at the grammar school in Bath, where his Greek was admired, but he regarded Spencer's school as a drop in status and quality. He left after only a year, but his time there was, in a sense, momentous, for it was in 1800 that he first read Lyrical Ballads: it was an experience which changed his life. Provenance. Inscription on upper free endpaper: 'Edward Spencer Winkfield' (in pencil) and (in ink) '9 Nov. 1770'. Later inscription: 'Jos: Bur: Spencer E Libris Edwardo Spencer Winkfield' (possibly the inscription of a son or grandson).…