STENOGRAPHY, or the art of short-writing, is a term com pounded of two Greek words, crrimfs, contracted, and 7pdApegv, to write. The invention of stenography among the Greeks is generally assigned to Xenophon the historian; but it is said that the art was first practised by Pythagoras, and that the poet Ennius was the first who adopted a system of short writing by which a person was enabled to follow a speaker. It is said, though upon no very certain testimony, that ho commenced by employing eleven hundred marks of his own invention, and inermaed the number as circumstances required.
There are also writers who ascribe the invention of the art to Cicero ; and it wan certainly practised by him on account both of its brevity and seeresy. He reminds (' Ad. Att.,' xiii. 32) his friend Attieua that he wrote (sib, espsslwv) by signs. The art was com municated by Cicero to Tiro, his freedman, who made considerable improvements in it, and is said to have been likewise the first person who applied it to the purpose of taking down public speeehes. Euse bius attributes the invention to Tiro. The oration of Cato relative to the Catilinarian conspiracy was preserved by means of shorthand. The art was subsequently improved, and stenography became a fashion able accomplishment with the Romans. There is extant a work on the shorthand (rota' of the Romans) attributed to Tiro and Seneca, and printed in Gruter's' Collection of Inscriptions.' Most of the writers of that age allude to the stenographic art in their works. Horace points out its brevity ; and Ovid mentions its advantages in point of secresy. It is also commended by Ausonius, Martial, Manilius, and others. [NOTARY.] The Roman shorthand was very different from our own : the abbreviations, in general, appear to have resembled those adopted in ordinary writing, and which frequently occur in ancient manu scripts, as well as in early editions of Latin works. A very large collection of manuscript abbreviations is printed at the end of GOschen's edition of Gains ; and specimens of ancient Roman stenography are given in Lewis's Historical Account of Shorthand.' Some passages in
the Roman writers, which have been supposed to refer to shorthand, appear to refer to writing in cipher.
The first English treatise on Stenography was published in 1588, by Dr. Timothy Bright, and dedicated to Queeu Elizabeth. It was en titled ' Charaeterie, or the Art of Short, Swift, and Secret Writing ;'. and consisted exclusively of arbitrary characters, each of which repre sented a word. Two years afterwards appeared The Writing School master,' in three parts, by Peter Bale. The system of Bale, like that of his predecessor Bright, was formed of arbitrary characters, instead of a combination of elementary marks or signs. Both systems were exceedingly crude, and difficult of attainment ; requiring, as they did, for their practical application, a remarkable tenacity of memory ; but they displayed great ingenuity as first attempts. The earliest effort to form a regular shorthand alphabet appears to have been made by John Willis, who in 1602 published The Art of Stenographic, or Short Writing, by Spelling Characterie.' The work went through numerous editions. The alphabet was fanned of the most difficult and complex characters, which were ill adapted for joining, their formation con suming treble the time required for forming the characters in any of the modern systems of moderate celebrity. Willis was followed by a host of imitators, none of whom, however, effected any material improvement. In 1618 appeared a treatise upon Stenography by Edmond Willis, which was followed in 1630 by that of Witt ; in 1633 by that of Dix ; and by a great number of others at short intervals. That of Rich, published in 1654, was praised by Locke. In 1753 was published the system of Mr. Thomas Gurney, which has since been so very extensively practised by various members of his family and others, in the houses of parliament, the courts of law, &e.