equald, foyld, hurld, ruind, joynd, scatterd, witherd,” and others ending in d. 2.  “Clapt, whipt, worshipt, lopt, stopt, stampt, pickt, knockt, linkt, puft, stuft, hist, kist, abasht, brusht, astonisht, vanquisht, confest, talkt, twicht,” and many others ending in t.  This scheme divides our regular verbs into three classes; leaving but very few of them to be written as they now are.  It proceeds upon the principle of accommodating our orthography to the familiar, rather than to the solemn pronunciation of the language.  “This,” as Dr. Johnson observes, “is to measure by a shadow.”  It is, whatever show of learning or authority may support it, a pernicious innovation.  The critic says, “I have not ventured to follow the example of Spenser and Milton throughout, but have merely attempted to revive the old form of the preterit in t.”—­Phil.  Museum, Vol. i, p. 663.  “We ought not however to stop here,” he thinks; and suggests that it would be no small improvement, “to write leveld for levelled, enameld for enamelled, reformd for reformed,” &c.

OBS. 20.—­If the multiplication of irregular preterits, as above described, is a grammatical error of great magnitude; the forcing of our old and well-known irregular verbs into regular forms that are seldom if ever used, is an opposite error nearly as great.  And, in either case, there is the same embarrassment respecting the formation of the second person.  Thus Cobbett, in his English Grammar in a Series of Letters, has dogmatically given us a list of seventy verbs, which, he says, are, “by some persons, erroneously deemed irregular;” and has included in it the words, blow, build, cast, cling, creep, freeze, draw, throw, and the like, to the number of sixty; so that he is really right in no more than one seventh part of his catalogue.  And, what is more strange, for several of the irregularities which he censures, his own authority may be quoted from the early editions of this very book:  as, “For you could have thrown about seeds.”—­Edition of 1818, p. 13.  “For you could have throwed about seeds.”—­Edition of 1832, p. 13.  “A tree is blown down.”—­Ed. of 1818, p. 27.  “A tree is blowed down.”—­Ed. of 1832, p. 25.  “It froze hard last night.  Now, what was it that froze so hard?”—­Ed. of 1818, p. 38.  “It freezed hard last night.  Now, what was it that freezed so hard?”—­Ed. of 1832, p. 35.  A whole page of such contradictions may be quoted from this one grammarian, showing that he did not know what form of the preterit he ought to prefer.  From such an instructor, who can find out what is good English, and what is not?  Respecting the inflections of the verb, this author says, “There are three persons; but, our verbs have no variation in their spelling, except for the third person singular.”—­Cobbett’s E. Gram., 88.  Again:  “Observe,