Part 60 (1/2)
”Preserve, Alave_ me, competence”--_Swift_
OBS 9--The terms, _soleal style, regal style, nautic style, corae; but are designed eneral way, the _occasions_ on which some particular forms of expressionFor what is grammatical sometimes, may not be so always It would not be easy to tell, definitely, in what any one of these styles consists; because they all belong to one language, and the number or nature of the peculiarities of each is not precisely fixed But whatever is acknowledged to be peculiar to any one, is consequently understood to be iy cannot belong to styles of an opposite character; and words of general use belong to no particular style[238] For example: ”So then it is not of him that _willeth_, nor of him that _runneth_, but of God that _showeth_ mercy”--_Rom_, ix, 16 If the termination _eth_ is not obsolete, as so is added, are of the solemn style; for the common or familiar expression would here be this; ”So then it is not of him that _wills_, nor of him that _runs_, but of God that _shows_ rae of _eth_ to _s_; and, according to Lindley Murray, (_Octavo Gram_, p 90,) Addison also injudiciously disapproved it In spite of all such objections, however, soular ending _eth_, as Lowth and Murray have already said of the plural _en_: ”It was laid aside as unnecessary”
OBS 10--Of the origin of the personal terist Dr Alexander Murray, gives the following account: ”The readers of our ue may be reminded, that the terminations, _est, eth_, and _s_, in our verbs, as in _layest, layeth_, and _laid'st_, or _laidest_; are the faded _remains of the pronouns_ which were fore, in respect of concise expression, on a level with the Greek, Latin, and Sanscrit, its sister dialects”--_History of European Languages_, Vol i, p 52 According to this, since other signs of the persons and nue that there should appear a tendency to lay aside such of these endings as are least agreeable and least necessary Any change of this kind will of course occur first in the familiar style For example: ”Thou _wentest_ in to men uncircumcised, and _didst eat_ with thes write I unto thee, that thou _htest_ to behave thyself in the house of God”--_1 Tim_, iii, 15 These forms, by universal consent, are now of the solelish in no other For nobody, I suppose, will yet pretend that the inflection of our preterits and auxiliaries by _st_ or _est_, is entirely _obsolete_;[239] and surely no person of any literary taste ever uses the foregoing forms familiarly The termination _est_, however, has _in some instances_ become obsolete; or has faded into _st_ or _t_, even in the soleood use,) _diddest_ has become _didst; havest, hast; haddest, hadst; shallest, shalt; willest, wilt_; and _cannest, canst
Mayest, htest, couldest, wouldest_, and _shouldest_, are occasionally found in books not ancient; but _htst, couldst, wouldst_, and _shouldst_, are abundantly more common, and all are peculiar to the solemn style _Must, burst, durst, thrust, blest, curst, past, lost, list, crept, kept, girt, built, felt, dwelt, left, bereft_, and s, are seldom, if ever, found encumbered with an additional _est_ For the rule which requires this ending, has always had rammarians[240] Thus Shakspeare wrote even in the present tense, ”Do as thou _list_,” and not ”Do as thou _listest_” Possibly, however, _list_ may here be reckoned of the subjunctiveexample from Byron is certainly in the indicative:--
”And thou, who never yet of hureat Nemesis!”--_Harold_, C iv, st 132
OBS 11--Any phraseology that is really obsolete, is no longer fit to be ilish, is no more to be respected in that style, than in any other Thus: ”Art not thou that Egyptian, _which_ before these days _madest_ an uproar, and _leddest_ out into the wilderness four thousand men that were ht to be, ”Art not thou that Egyptian, _who_ a while ago _made_ an uproar, and _led_ out into the wilderness four thousand men, that were murderers?” If so, there is in this no occasion to make a difference between the solemn and the familiar style
But what is the familiar form of expression for the texts cited before? The fashi+onable will say, it is this: ”_You went_ in to men uncircus to _you_, that _you ht_ to behave _yourself_ in the house of God” But this is not _literally_ of the singular nuular, than _vos_ in Latin, or _vous_ in French, or _we_ used for _I_ in English, is singular
And if there rera: ”_Thou went_ in to men uncircus to _thee_, that thou _ht_ to behave _thyself_ in the house of God” The acknowledged doctrine of all the teachers of English grammar, that the inflection of our auxiliaries and preterits by _st_ or _est_ is peculiar to ”the solerant the propriety of here dropping the suffix for the fae of any familiar use of the pronoun _thou_ forever
Who, then, are here the neologists, the innovators, the ireater _innovation_, merely to drop, on familiar occasions, or _when it suits our style_, one obsolescent verbal termination,--a termination often dropped _of old_ as well as now,--or to strike froations of all our verbs one sixth part of their entire scheyue, Wo worth that day that thou ra from the solemn style both of the forms presented above, must be evident to every one who considers with candour the reasons, analogies, and authorities, for this distinction The support of the latter is very far froh this, if they would forbear to corrupt the pronoun while they simplify the verb, would deserve much more consideration than has ever been allowed it Which of these rammatical, it is useless to dispute; since fashi+on rules the one, and a scruple of conscience is soed for the other A candid critic will consequently allow all to take their choice It is enough for him, if he can dey is in any view allowable, and what is for any good reason reprehensible That the use of the plural for the singular is ungrammatical, it is neither discreet nor available to affirralish Grammar appeared some years before that of Lindley Murray, speaks of it as follows: ”_Thou_, the second person singular, though _strictly grammatical_, is seldom used, except in addresses to God, in poetry, and by the people called Quakers In all other cases, a _fondness for foreign iven a sanction to the use of _you_, for the second person singular, though _contrary to grammar_,[243] and attended with this particular inconveniency, that a plural verb ree with the pronoun in nule person_; as, _you are_, or _you were_,--not _you wast_, or _you was_”--_Third Edition_, Lond, 1793, p
34 This author everywhere exhibits the auxiliaries, _htst, couldst, wouldst_, and _shouldst_, as words of one syllable; and also observes, in a in to say, '_Thou ht_,' &c”--_Ib_, p 36 Examples of this are not very uncommon: ”Thou _shall_ want ere I want”--_Old Motto; Scott's Lay_, Note 1st to Canto 3
”Thyself the mournful tale _shall_ tell”--_Felton's Graest, That _thou would save_ me from my own request”--_Jane Taylor_
OBS 13--In respect to the second person singular, the grammar of Lindley Murray makes no distinction between the solenizes in no way the fashi+onable substitution of _you_ for _thou_; and, so far as I perceive, takes it for granted, that every one who pretends to speak or write gra an individual, eular pronoun, and inflect the verb with _st_ or _est_, except in the imperative mood and the subjunctive present This is the more remarkable, because the author was a valued member of the Society of Friends; and doubtless his own daily practice contradicted his doctrine, as palpably as does that of every otherthat work for his text-book, or so But what a teacher is he, who dares not justify as a grammarian that which he constantly practices as a man!
What a scholar is he, who can be led by a false criticise and that of every body else! What a casuist is he, who dares pretend conscience for practising that which he knows and acknowledges to be wrong! If to speak in the second person singular without inflecting our preterits and auxiliaries, is a censurable corruption of the language, the Friends have no alternative but to relinquish their scruple about the application of _you_ to one person; for none but the adult and learned can ever speak after the manner of ancient books: children and coreeably to any antiquated for to the imperishable models of Greek and Latin He who traces the history of our vernacular tongue, will find it has either simplified or entirely dropped several of its ancient terminations; and that the _st_ or _est_ of the second person singular, _never was adopted_ in any thing like the extent to which ourunused to inflections, we lost the perception of their ical Museum_, i, 669 ”You cannot ue from that which it has been used to talk in: you cannot force it to unlearn the words it has learnt froled words out of [a grammar or]
a dictionary”--_Ib_, i, 650 Nor can you, in this instance, restrain our poets fro the doctrine of Lowth and Murray:--
”Colowed_ And _threw_ thy splendor round man's calm abode”--_Alonzo Lewis_
OBS 14--That which has passed away froht in the solemn style, and may there remain till it becomes obsolete
But no obsolescent termination has ever yet been recalled into the popular service This is as true in other languages as in our own: ”In almost every word of the Greek,” says a learned author, ”we meet with contractions and abbreviations; but, I believe, the flexions of no language allow of extension or amplification In our oe may write _sleeped_ or _slept_, as the metre of a line or the rhythm of a period may require; but by no license ht, on the Greek Alphabet_, 4to, p
107 But, if after contracting _sleeped_ into _slept_, we add an _est_ and make _sleptest_, is there not here an extension of the word from one syllable to two? Is there not an areeable, unauthorized, and unnecessary? Nay, even in the regular and established change, as of _loved_ to _lovedst_, is there not a syllabic increase, which is unpleasant to the ear, and unsuited to familiar speech?
Now, to what extent do these questions apply to the verbs in our language?
Lindley Murray, it is presuht of the objection which is implied in the second With respect to a vast number of our reatest graht to forular, otherwise than by the mere uninflected preterit with the pronoun _thou_ Is _thou sleepedst_ or _thou sleptest, thou leavedst_ or _thou leftest, thou feeledst_ or _thou feltest, thou dealedst_ or _thou dealtest, thou tossedst_ or _thou tostest, thou losedst_ or _thou lostest, thou payedst_ or _thou paidest, thou layedst_ or _thou laidest_, better English than _thou slept, thou left, thou felt, thou dealt, thou tossed, thou lost, thou paid, thou laid?_ And, if so, of the two forht one? and why? The Bible has ”_saidst_” and ”_layedst_;” Dr Alexander Murray, ”_laid'st_” and ”_laidest!_” Since the inflection of our preterits has never been orderly, and is now decaying and waxing old, shall we labour to recall what is so nearly ready to vanish away?
”Treh, and with thy winds and stornantly, the pride of navies fell”--_Pollok_, B vii, l 611
OBS 15--Whatever difficulty there is in ascertaining the true formented, when _st_ or _est_ is to be added for the second person of it For, since we use sos; (as, said_st_, saw_est_, bid_st_, knew_est_, loved_st_, went_est_;) there is yet need of soht to prefer The variable forraphy of verbs in the sireatest difficulties that the learners of our language have had to encounter At present, there is a strong tendency to terminate as ular ending The pronunciation of this ending, however, is at least threefold; as in _remembered, repented, relinquished_ Here the added sounds are, first _d_, then _ed_, then _t_; and the effect of adding _st_, whenever the _ed_ is sounded like _t_, will certainly be a perversion of what is established as the true pronunciation of the language For the solemn and the familiar pronunciation of _ed_ unquestionably differ The present tendency to a regular orthography, ought rather to be encouraged than thwarted; but the preferring of _ht, kneeled_ to _knelt_, and so forth, does not make _mixedst, whippedst, workedst, kneeledst_, and the like, any lish, than are _htest, kneltest, burntest, dweltest, heldest, giltest_, and many more of the like starae and crabbed words for which he can quote no good authority? Nothing; except it be for a poet or a rhetorician to huddle together great parcels of consonants which no g'dst_,) and call them ”_words_” Example: ”The clump of _subtonick_ and _atonick_ ele, is frequently, to the no shted: couldst, wouldst, hadst, prob'st, _prob'dst_, hurl'st, _hurl'dst_, arm'st, _arm'dst_, want'st, _want'dst_, burn'st, _burn'dst_, bark'st, _bark'dst_, bubbl'st, _bubbl'dst, troubbl'st, troubbl'dst_”--_Kirkham's Elocution_, p 42 The word _trouble_ entlereat author should Nor did they who penned the following lines, write here as poets should:--
”Of old thou _build'st_ thy throne on righteousness”
--_Pollok's C of T_, B vi, l 638
”For though thou _work'dst_ my mother's ill”
--_Byron's Parasina_
”Thou thyself _doat'dst_ on wo”
--_Milton's P R_, B ii, l 175