“Writers generally have recourse to this mode of expression, that they may avoid harsh terminations.”—­ Irving’s Elements of English Composition, p. 12.  But if writers of good authority, such as Pope, Byron, and Pollok, have sometimes had recourse to this method of simplifying the verb, even in compositions of a grave cast, the elision may, with tenfold stronger reason, be admitted in familiar writing or discourse, on the authority of general custom among those who choose to employ the pronoun thou in conversation.

   “But thou, false Arcite, never shall obtain,” &c.
        —­Dryden, Fables.

    “These goods thyself can on thyself bestow.”
        —­Id., in Joh.  Dict.

    “What I show, thy self may freely on thyself bestow.”
        —­Id., Lowth’s Gram., p. 26.

    “That thou might Fortune to thy side engage.”
        —­Prior.

    “Of all thou ever conquered, none was left.”
        —­Pollok, B. vii, l. 760.

    “And touch me trembling, as thou touched the man,” &c.
        —­Id., B. x, l. 60.

OBS. 33.—­Some of the Friends (perhaps from an idea that it is less formal) misemploy thee for thou; and often join it to the third person of the verb in stead of the second.  Such expressions as, thee does, thee is, thee has, thee thinks, &c., are double solecisms; they set all grammar at defiance.  Again, many persons who are not ignorant of grammar, and who employ the pronoun aright, sometimes improperly sacrifice concord to a slight improvement in sound, and give to the verb the ending of the third person, for that of the second.  Three or four instances of this, occur in the examples which have been already quoted.  See also the following, and many more, in the works of the poet Burns; who says of himself, “Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; and, by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, VERBS, and particles:”—­“But when thou pours;”—­“There thou shines chief;”—­“Thou clears the head;”—­“Thou strings the nerves;”—­“Thou brightens black despair;”—­“Thou comes;”—­“Thou travels far;”—­“Now thou’s turned out;”—­“Unseen thou lurks;”—­“O thou pale orb that silent shines.”  This mode of simplifying the verb, confounds the persons; and, as it has little advantage in sound, over the regular contracted form of the second person, it ought to be avoided.  With this author it may be, perhaps, a Scotticism:  as,

   “Thou paints auld nature to the nines,
    In thy sweet Caledonian lines.”—­Burns to Ramsay.

“Thou paintst old nature,” would be about as smooth poetry, and certainly much better English.  This confounding of the persons of the verb, however, is no modern peculiarity.  It appears to be about as old as the use of s for th or eth.  Spenser, the great English poet of the sixteenth century, may be cited in proof:  as,