OBS. 4.—­To strew is in fact nothing else than an other mode of spelling the verb to strow; as shew is an obsolete form for show; but if we pronounce the two forms differently, we make them different words.  Walker, and some others, pronounce them alike, stro; Sheridan, Jones, Jameson, and Webster, distinguish them in utterance, stroo and stro.  This is convenient for the sake of rhyme, and perhaps therefore preferable.  But strew, I incline to think, is properly a regular verb only, though Wells and Worcester give it otherwise:  if strewn has ever been proper, it seems now to be obsolete.  EXAMPLES:  “Others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way.”—­Matt., xxi, 8.  “Gathering where thou hast not strewed.”—­Matt., xxv, 24.

“Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d muse, The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.”—­Gray.

OBS. 5.—­The list which I give below, prepared with great care, exhibits the redundant verbs, as they are now generally used, or as they may be used without grammatical impropriety.[291] Those forms which are supposed to be preferable, and best supported by authorities, are placed first.  No words are inserted here, but such as some modern authors countenance.  L. Murray recognizes bereaved, catched, dealed, digged, dwelled, hanged, knitted, shined, spilled; and, in his early editions, he approved of bended, builded, creeped, weaved, worked, wringed.  His two larger books now tell us, “The Compiler has not inserted such verbs as learnt, spelt, spilt, &c. which are improperly terminated by t, instead of ed.”—­Octavo Gram., p. 107; Duodecimo, p. 97.  But if he did not, in all his grammars, insert, “Spill, spilt, R. spilt, R.,” (pp. 106, 96,) preferring the irregular form to the regular, somebody else has done it for him.  And, what is remarkable, many of his amenders, as if misled by some evil genius, have contradicted themselves in precisely the same way!  Ingersoll, Fisk, Merchant, and Hart, republish exactly the foregoing words, and severally become “The Compiler” of the same erroneous catalogue!  Kirkham prefers spilt to spilled, and then declares the word to be “improperly terminated by t instead of ed.”—­Gram., p. 151.  Greenleaf, who condemns learnt and spelt, thinks dwelt and spilt are “the only established forms;” yet he will have dwell and spill to be “regular” verbs, as well as “irregular!”—­Gram.  Simp., p. 29.  Webber prefers spilled to spilt; but Picket admits only the latter.  Cobbett and Sanborn prefer bereaved, builded, dealed, digged, dreamed, hanged, and knitted, to