H.

O, my dear Sir, the bishop is by no means for our present purpose. His Introduction is a very elegant little treatise, well compiled and abridged for the object which alone he had in view; and highly useful to Ladies and Gentlemen for their conversation and correspondence; but affording no assistance whatever to reason or the human understanding: nor did he profess it. In the same manner an intelligent tasty milliner, at the court end of the town, may best inform a lady, what the fashion is, and how they wear the things at present; but she can give her little or no account perhaps of the materials and manufacture of the stuffs in which she deals;-nor does the lady wish to know.

The bishop's account of the verbs (which he formed as well as he could from B. Jonson and Wallis) is the most trifling and most erroneous part of his performance. He was not himself satisfied with it; but says-"This distribution and account, if it be just."

He laid down in the beginning a false rule: and the consequent irregularities, with which he charges the verbs, are therefore of his own making.

Our ancestors did not deal so copiously in Adjectives and Participles, as we their descendants now do. The only method which they had to make a past participle, was by adding ED or EN to the verb: and they added either the one or the other indifferently, as they pleased (the one being as regular as the other) to any verb which they employed and they added them either to the indicative mood of the verb, or to the past tense. Shak-ed or

:

Shak-en, Smytt-ed or Smytt-en, Grow-ed or Grow-en, Holded or Hold-en, Stung-ed or Stung-en, Buyld-ed or Buyld-en, Stand-ed or Stand-en, Mow-ed or Mow-en, Know-ed or Know-en, Throw-ed or Throw-en, Sow-ed or Sow-en, Com-ed or Com-en, &c. were used by them indifferently *. But their most usual method of speech was to employ the past tense itself, without participializing it, or making a participle of it by the addition of ED or EN. So likewise they commonly used their Substantives without adjectiving them, or employing those adjectives which (in imitation of some other languages and by adoption from them) we now employ.

* ["Being a people very stubborne and untamed, or if it were ever tamed, yet now lately having quite SHOOKEN off their yoake." Spenser's View of the State of Ireland. Todd's Edit. 1805. p. 303. "The shepheards boy (best KNOWEN by that name)."

Spenser. Colin Clouts come home agen, 1st line.

"That every breath of heaven SHAKED it."

Faerie Queene, booke 1. cant. 4. st. 5. Todd's Edit.

"Who reapes the harvest SOWEN by his foe,
SOWEN in bloodie field, and bought with woe."

Ibid. book 1. cant. 4. st. 42.

"Old loves, and warres for ladies DOEN by many a lord." Ibid. book 1. cant. 5. st. 3.

"Thou wouldst have heard the cry that wofull England made; Eke Zelands piteous plaints, and Hollands TOREN heare." Spenser. The Mourning Muse of Thestylis.

"That kiss went tingling to my very heart.
When it was gone, the sense of it did stay;
The sweetness CLING'D upon my lips all day.

Dryden's Marriage A-la-Mode, act 2. sc. 1.]

Take as one instance (you shall have more hereafter) the verb To Heave, Deapan.

By adding ED to the Indicative, they had the

By changing D to T, mere matter of pronunciation Heaft
By adding EN, they had the participle
Their regular past tense was (Daf, Dof).
By adding ED to it, they had the participle
By adding EN, they had the participle

Heaven

Hove

Hoved

Hoven

And all these they used indifferently. The ship (or

You will observe that this past tense Dar, Dof, Hove, was variously written, as Heff, Hafe, Howve.

"Whan Lucifer was HEFF in heuen
And ought moste haue stonde in euen."

Gower, fol. 92. pag. 2. col. 2.

"And Arcite anon his honde up HAFE."

Knyghtes Tale, fol. 8. pag. 2. col. 1.

"Yet hoved ther an hundred in HOWVES of silke
Sergeaunts yt besemed that seruen at the barre.”

Vision of P. Ploughman, fol. 4. pag. 1.

"Nowe nece myne, ye shul wel understonde,
(Quod he) so as ye women demen al,
That for to holde in loue a man in honde
And hym her lefe and dere hert cal,
And maken hym an HOWUE aboue a call,
1 mene, as loue another in this mene whyle,
She doth herselfe a shame, and hym a gyle.”

Troylus, boke 3. fol. 176. pag. 2. col. 2.

"Nowe, sirs, quod this Oswolde the Reue,
1 pray you al, that ye not you greue
That I answere, and som dele set his HOUFE
For lefull it is with force, force of shoufe."

Reues Prol. fol. 15. pag. 2. col. 1.

N.B. In some copies, it is written Howue.

To set his Houfe or Howue, is equivalent to what the

Miller says before,

"For I woll tell a legende and a lyfe

Both of a carpenter and hys wyfe,

Howe that a clerke set a wryghtes cappe."

Millers Tale, fol. 12. pag. 1. col. 1.

"In this case it shal be very good to make a perfume underneth of the HOUE of an asse."-Byrth of Mankynde, fol. 30. pag. 1.

"Also fumigation made of the yes of salt fysshes, or of the HOUE of a horse."-Ibid. fol. 33. pag. 1.

"Strewe the powder or asshes of a calfes HOUE burnt."

Ibid. fol. 54. pag. 2.

"The stone HOUED always aboue the water."

Historie of Prince Arthur, 1st part. chap. 44.

"Monkes and chanones and suche other that use grete ouches of syluer and golde on theyr copes to fastene theyr HODES ayenst the wynde."-Diues and Pauper, 7th comm. cap. 12.

If

you should find some difficulties (I cannot think

they will be great) to make out to your satisfaction the above derivations; it will be but a wholesome exercise; and I shall not stop now to assist in their elucidation; but will return to the word WRONG. I have called it a past participle. It is not a participle. It is the regular past tense of the verb To Wring. But our ancestors used a past tense, where the languages with which we are most acquainted use a participle: and from the grammars of the latter (or distribution of their languages) our present grammatical notions are taken and I must therefore continue with this word (and others which I shall hereafter bring forward) to consider it and call it a past participle.

In English, or Anglo-Saxon (for they are one language), the past tense is formed by a change of the characteristic letter of the verb. By the characteristic letter I mean the vowel or diphthong which in the AngloSaxon immediately precedes the Infinitive termination an, ean, ian; or gan, gean, gian.

To form the past tense of Pɲingan, To Wring (and so of other verbs), the characteristic letter 1 or y was changed to a broad. But, as different persons pronounced differently, and not only pronounced differently, but also used different written characters as representatives of their sounds; this change of the characteristic letter was exhibited either by a broad, or by o, or by u.

From Alfred to Shakespeare, both inclusively, o chiefly prevailed in the South, and a broad in the North. During the former part of that period, a great variety of spelling appears both in the same and in different writers. Chaucer complains of this.