“Beware the public laughter of the town;
    Thou springst a-leak already in thy crown.”—­Dryden.

OBS. 4.  The words ought and own, without question, were originally parts of the redundant verb to owe; thus:  owe, owed or ought, owing, owed or own.  But both have long been disjoined from this connexion, and hence owe has become regular. Own, as now used, is either a pronominal adjective, as, “my own hand,” or a regular verb thence derived, as, “to own a house.” Ought, under the name of a defective verb, is now generally thought to be properly used, in this one form, in all the persons and numbers of the present and the imperfect tense of the indicative and subjunctive moods.  Or, if it is really of one tense only, it is plainly an aorist; and hence the time must be specified by the infinitive that follows:  as, “He ought to go; He ought to have gone.”  “If thou ought to go; If thou ought to have gone.”  Being originally a preterit, it never occurs in the infinitive mood, and is entirely invariable, except in the solemn style, where we find oughtest in both tenses; as, “How thou oughtest to behave thyself.”—­1 Tim., iii, 15.  “Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers.”—­Matt., xxiv, 27.  We never say, or have said, “He, she, or it, oughts or oughteth.”  Yet we manifestly use this verb in the present tense, and in the third person singular; as, “Discourse ought always to begin with a clear proposition.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 217.  I have already observed that some grammarians improperly call ought an auxiliary.  The learned authors of Brightland’s Grammar, (which is dedicated to Queen Anne,) did so; and also affirmed that must and ought “have only the present time,” and are alike invariable.  “It is now quite obsolete to say, thou oughtest; for ought now changes its ending no more than must.”—­Brightland’s Gram., (approved by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.,) p. 112.

   “Do, will, and shall, must, OUGHT, and may,
    Have, am, or be, this Doctrine will display.”—­Ib., p. 107.

OBS. 5.—­Wis, preterit wist, to know, to think, to suppose, to imagine, appears to be now nearly or quite obsolete; but it may be proper to explain it, because it is found in the Bible:  as, “I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest.”—­Acts, xxiii, 5.  “He himself ’wist not that his face shone.’”—­Life of Schiller, p. iv. Wit, to know, and wot, knew, are also obsolete, except in the phrase to wit; which, being taken abstractly, is equivalent to the adverb namely, or to the phrase, that