"And thou, who never yet of human wrong Lost the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!"—Harold, C. iv, st. 132.
OBS. 11.—Any phraseology that is really obsolete, is no longer fit to be imitated even in the solemn style; and what was never good English, 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 murderers?"—Acts, xxi, 38. Here, (I think,) the version ought 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 fashionable will say, it is this: "You went in to men uncircumcised, and did eat with them."—"I write these things to you, that you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God." But this is not literally of the singular number: it is no more singular, than vos in Latin, or vous in French, or we used for I in English, is singular. And if there remains to us any other form, that is both singular and grammatical, it is unquestionably the following: "Thou went in to men uncircumcised, and did eat with them."—"I write these things to thee, that thou may know how thou ought 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 solemn style," leaves us no other alternative, than either to grant the propriety of here dropping the suffix for the familiar style, or to rob our language of any familiar use of the pronoun thou forever. Who, then, are here the neologists, the innovators, the impairers of the language? And which is the greater 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 from the conjugations of all our verbs one sixth part of their entire scheme?[241]
"O mother myn, that cleaped were Argyue,
Wo worth that day that thou me bare on lyue."—Chaucer.
OBS. 12.—The grammatical propriety of distinguishing 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 from resting solely on the practice of a particular sect; though 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 modes of address is the more grammatical, it is useless to dispute; since fashion rules the one, and a scruple of conscience is sometimes alleged for the other. A candid critic will consequently allow all to take their choice. It is enough for him, if he can demonstrate to the candid inquirer, what phraseology 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 affirm; yet, surely, it did not originate in any regard to grammar rules. Murray the schoolmaster, whose English 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 manners,[242] and the power of custom, have given 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 must be used to agree with the pronoun in number, and both applied to a single 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, mayst, mightst, couldst, wouldst, and shouldst, as words of one syllable; and also observes, in a marginal note, "Some writers begin to say, 'Thou may, thou might,' &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 Gram., p. 20.
"One sole condition would I dare suggest,
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 solemn and the familiar style; recognizes in no way the fashionable substitution of you for thou; and, so far as I perceive, takes it for granted, that every one who pretends to speak or write grammatically, must always, in addressing an individual, employ the singular 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 other member of the Society. And many a schoolmaster, taking that work for his text-book, or some other as faulty, is now doing precisely the same thing. 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 criticism or a false custom, to condemn his own usage 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 common people can no more be brought to speak agreeably to any antiquated forms of the English language, than according 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 our modern grammarians have attempted to impose it. "Thus becoming unused to inflections, we lost the perception of their meaning and nature."—Philological Museum, i, 669. "You cannot make a whole people all at once talk in a different tongue from that which it has been used to talk in: you cannot force it to unlearn the words it has learnt from its fathers, in order to learn a set of newfangled words out of Ib., i, 650. Nor can you, in this instance, restrain our poets from transgressing the doctrine of Lowth and Murray:—
"Come, thou pure Light,—which first in Eden glowed.
And threw thy splendor round man's calm abode."—Alonzo Lewis.
OBS. 14.—That which has passed away from familiar practice, may still be right 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 own we may write sleeped or slept, as the metre of a line or the rhythm of a period may require; but by no license may we write sleepeed."—Knight, 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 amplification that is at once novel, disagreeable, 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 presumed, had no conception of that extent; or of the weight of the objection which is implied in the second. With respect to a vast number of our most common verbs, he himself never knew, nor does the greatest grammarian now living know, in what way he ought to form the simple past tense in the second person singular, 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 forms in each instance, which is the right 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?
"Tremendous Sea! what time thou lifted up
Thy waves on high, and with thy winds and storms
Strange pastime took, and shook thy mighty sides
Indignantly, the pride of navies fell."—Pollok, B. vii, l. 611.
OBS. 15.—Whatever difficulty there is in ascertaining the true form of the preterit itself, not only remains, but is augmented, when st or est is to be added for the second person of it. For, since we use sometimes one and sometimes the other of these endings; (as, said_st_, saw_est_, bid_st_, knew_est_, loved_st_, went_est_;) there is yet need of some rule to show which we ought to prefer. The variable formation or orthography of verbs in the simple past tense, has always been one of the greatest difficulties that the learners of our language have had to encounter. At present, there is a strong tendency to terminate as many as we can of them in ed, which is the only regular 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 mixed to mixt, whipped to whipt, worked to wrought, kneeled to knelt, and so forth, does not make mixedst, whippedst, workedst, kneeledst, and the like, any more fit for modern English, than are mixtest, whiptest, wroughtest, kneltest, burntest, dweltest, heldest, giltest, and many more of the like stamp. And what can be more absurd than for a grammarian to insist upon forming a great parcel of these strange 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 mortal man can utter,[244] (as lov'dst, lurk'dst, shrugg'dst,) and call them "words." Example: "The clump of subtonick and atonick elements at the termination of such words as the following, is frequently, to the no small injury of articulation, particularly slighted: 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 may receive the additional sound of st, but this gentleman does not here spell so accurately as a great author should. Nor did they who penned the following lines, write here as poets should:—