individuals of every rank.  The Society of Friends, or Quakers, however, continue to employ the singular number in familiar discourse; and custom, which has now destroyed the compliment of the plural, has removed also the supposed opprobrium of the singular, and placed it on an equality with the plural in point of respect.  The singular is universally employed in reference to the Supreme Being; and is generally preferred in poetry.  It is the language of Scripture, and of the Prayer-Book; and is consistently retained in nearly all our grammars; though not always, perhaps, consistently treated.

OBS. 7.—­Whatever is fashionable in speech, the mere disciples of fashion will always approve; and, probably, they will think it justifiable to despise or neglect all that is otherwise.  These may be contented with the sole use of such forms of address as, “You, you, sir;”—­“You, you, madam.”  But the literati who so neglect all the services of religion, as to forget that these are yet conducted in English independently of all this fashionable youyouing, must needs be poor judges of what belongs to their own justification, either as grammarians or as moral agents.  A fashion by virtue of which millions of youths are now growing up in ignorance of that form of address which, in their own tongue, is most appropriate to poetry, and alone adapted to prayer, is perhaps not quite so light a matter as some people imagine.  It is at least so far from being a good reason for displacing that form from the paradigms of our verbs in a grammar, that indeed no better needs be offered for tenaciously retaining it.  Many children may thus learn at school what all should know, and what there is little chance for them to learn elsewhere.  Not all that presume to minister in religion, are well acquainted with what is called the solemn style.  Not all that presume to explain it in grammars, do know what it is.  A late work, which boasted the patronage of De Witt Clinton, and through the influence of false praise came nigh to be imposed by a law of New York on all the common schools of that State; and which, being subsequently sold in Philadelphia for a great price, was there republished under the name of the “National School Manual;” gives the following account of this part of grammar:  “In the solemn and poetic styles, the second person singular, in both the above tenses, is thou; and the second person plural, is ye, or you.  The verb, to agree with the second person singular, changes its termination.  Thus:  2d person, sing.  Pres.  Tense, Thou walkest, or Thou walketh.  Imperfect Tense, Thou walkedst.  In the third person singular, in the above styles, the verb has sometimes a different termination; as, Present Tense, He, she, or it walks or walketh.  The above form of inflection may be applied to all verbs used in the solemn or poetic styles; but for ordinary purposes, I have supposed it proper to employ the form of the verb, adopted