CHAPTER XXIII, 83 used to be Written With to heretofore; as noun, mown ; ground, grownd ; sour, sowr ; caul, cawl ; lour, lows. l$. Words whose sounds end in i; were once written with ie, now with y, as file, fly; bloodie, bloody; cictorie, victory some are written either with i e, or y e, as die, dye ; lie, lye tie, tye : others only with y, as my, thy, by ;; others chiefly with y e, as rye, pye ; as custom pleases. 19. It may be observed in general, that iand y are written for one another indifferently in many words, as lion, lyon ; tiger, tyger; praise, prayse ; toil, toyl ; said, sayd ; paid, pay', 20. Some words are written either with a double or single consonant in the middle, as well as in the. end ; as anay, array; orange, orran e ; forage, forage ; later, latter; mat, matt ; rot, rott; scq, scoff; sum, swum : and words of several sylla- bles ending in l as hopeful!, hopeful; speciali, special : natty rail, natural. I dare not pretend to maintain that both these ways of spel- ling the same words in this chapter, are learnedly right and cri- tically true. Nor do I write now for scholars and critics ; but many of the learned have been wisely negligent in these lesser matters, and not wasted their time in long and deep researches after an e, or ap s, or a z, and they have taken the liberty to spell those words different ways ; and many times, in imitation of the French, have left out useless letters by way of refine- ment: I confess the derivation of these words is hereby lost: But after all, custom, which will be the standard of language, has rendered both these methods of spelling tolerable, at least to the unlearned. For the words which are not reduced to any of these rules, see the sixth table. There are also several English propernames whichmen spell different ways ; as ElisabeM, or Elizabeth ; Esther, or Hester , Nathanael, or Nathaniel; Humfrv_ or Humphrey ; Anthony, or Antony; Gaspar, or Jasper, .Hierom, or Jerom ; Giles, or Gyles; Katherine, or Catharine; Britain, or Brittain. But I shall not make a distinct table of them here observation will sufficiently teach them. I shall conclude this chapter with one remark, namely, That in old writings, and in books printed long ago, you find many needless letters used in spelling several words, which are left out in modern books andwritings; asfor instance, the words which we write, son, gun, sap, press, goodness, tho', body,, loth, does!, Ste. were once written, sonne, gunne, cappe, presse, goodnesse, though, bodily or boddie,doeth, dvest; and a thou- sand other instances there are of the like kind wherein modermR writers lave shortened the manner of spelling by leaving out such letters as are not pronounced. Fé
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