[223] _Logopandecteision_, or an INTRODUCTION to the UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. Digested into these Six several Books, Neaudethaumata, Chrestasebeia, Cleronomaporia, Chryseomystes, Neleodicastes, and Philoponauxesis. By Sir Thomas Urquhart of _Cromartie_, Knight. Now lately contrived and published, both for his own utilie, and that of all pregnant and ingenious Spirits. _Credere quaerenti nonne haic justissima res est? Qui non plura cupit, quam ratio ipsa jubet._ _Englished thus_, To grant him his demands, were it not just? Who craves no more, then [than] reason says he must. _London._ Printed, and are to be sold by _Giles Calvert_ at the _Black Spread Eagle_ at the west-end of _Pauls_; and by _Richard Tomlins_ at the Sun and Bible near Pye-corner. 1653.
[224] Eleven genders seem nine more than are necessary, and the use of such a large number suggests to one that in Sir Thomas's Universal Language the distinctions in question were to receive an undue amount of attention. At the same time, fault has been found with our English language for being somewhat defective in accentuating these distinctions; and an attempt to correct this shortcoming, to a certain extent, has been made by Southey in _The Doctor_. He proposed to anglicise the orthography of the female garment, "which is indeed the sister to the shirt," and then to utilise the hint offered in its new form: thus _Hemise_ and _Shemise_. In letter-writing every person knows that male and female letters have a distinct character; they should therefore, he thought, be generally distinguished thus, _Hepistle_ and _Shepistle_. And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two sexes, he proposed _Penmanship_ and _Penwomanship_. Erroneous opinions in religion being promulgated in this country by women as well as men, the teachers of such false doctrine may be divided into _Heresiarchs_ and _Sheresiarchs_, so that we should speak of the _Heresy_ of the Quakers and the _Sheresy_ of Joanna Southcote's people. The troublesome affection of the diaphragm, which every one has experienced, is, upon the same principle, to be called, according to the sex of the patient, _Hecups_, or _Shecups_, which, upon the principle of making our language truly British, is better than the more classical form of _Hiccups_ and _Hæcups_. In its objective use the word becomes Hiscups or Hercups; and in like manner Histerics should be altered into Herterics, the complaint never being masculine. It is perhaps a little surprising that this suggestion should have lain before the British public for half a century, and have been left unutilised.