Alexander Gil, the Elder (1565–1635) Logonomia Anglica. Qua Gentis sermo facilius addiscitur … Second edition. (London: John Beale, 1621). pp.102-3.

Alexander Gil was Milton’s headmaster at St Paul’s School from 1620 until Milton left for Cambridge in 1624. Gil’s son Alexander (later an accomplished neo-Latin poet) was a contemporary of Milton’s at St Paul’s and they became good friends. Logonomia Anglica is a combined grammar and rhetoric of the English language. The second edition of 1621 (displayed here) was published while Milton was still Gil’s pupil. It pioneers a phonetic system of spelling reform for the English language, which ‘may have influenced Milton’s individualistic spelling: Gil’s “sutl” (instead of subtle or subtil), for instance, may account for Milton’s “suttle”’ (Oxford
DNB). The main text is in Latin, but Gil draws his examples from a variety of English poets, including Daniel, Harington, Sidney, and most frequently Spenser, whose Faerie Queene is no. 2 in the exhibition.

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