i short into a or u, u.
Begin, began, begun.
Cling, clang, or clung, clung.
Drink, drank, drunk, or drunken.
Fling, flung, flung.
Ring, rang, or rung, rung.
Shrink, shrank, or shrunk, shrunk.
Sing, sang, or sung, sung.
Sink, sank, or sunk, sunk.
Sling, slang, or slung, slung.
Slink, slunk, slunk.
Spin, span, or spun, spun.
Spring, sprang, or sprung, sprung.
Sting, stung, stung.
Stink, stank, or stunk, stunk.
String, strung, strung.
Swim, swam, or swum, swum.
Swing, swung, swung.
Wring, wrung, wrung.

In many of the foregoing the original and analogical form of the Past Time in a, which distinguished it from the Participle, is grown quite obsolete.

i long into ou, ou.
Bind, bound, bound, or bounden.
Find, found, found.
Grind, ground, ground.
Wind, wound, wound.

That all these had originally the termination en in the Participle, is plain from the following considerations. Drink and bind still retain it; drunken, bounden; from the Saxon, druncen, bunden: and the rest are manifestly of the same analogy with these. Begonnen, sonken, and founden, are used by Chaucer; and some others of them appear in their proper shape in the Saxon; scruncen, spunnen, sprungen, stungen, wunden. As likewise in the German, which is only another off-spring of the Saxon: begunnen, geklungen, getruncken, gesungen, gesuncken, gespunnen, gesprungen, gestuncken, geschwummen, geschwungen.

The following seem to have lost the en of the Participle in the same manner:

Hang,hung,hung.
Shoot,shot,shot.
Stick,stuck,stuck.
Come,came,come.
Run,ran,run.
Win,won,won.

Hangen, and scoten, are the Saxon originals of the two first Participles; the latter of which is likewise still in use in its first form in one phrase; a shotten herring. Stuck seems to be a contraction from stucken, as struck now in use for strucken. Chaucer hath comen and wonnen: becommen is even used by Lord Bacon[37]. And most of them still subsist intire in the German; gehangen, kommen, gerunnen, gewonnen.

To this third Class belong the Defective Verbs, Be, been; and Go, gone; i. e. goen.

From this Distribution and account of the Irregular Verbs, if it be just, it appears, that originally there was no exception whatever from the Rule, That the Participle Præterit, or Passive, in English ends in d, t, or n. The first form included all the Regular Verbs, and those which are become Irregular by Contraction ending in t. To the second properly belonged only those which end in ght, from the Saxon Irregulars in hte. To the third, those from the Saxon Irregulars in en, which have still, or had originally, the same termination.

The same Rule affords a proper foundation for a division of the English Verbs into Three Conjugations, of which the three different Terminations of the Participle might respectively be the Characteristics. The Contracted Verbs, whose Participles now end in t, might perhaps be best reduced to the first Conjugation, to which they naturally and originally belonged; and they seem to be of a very different analogy from those in ght. But as the Verbs of the first Conjugation would so greatly exceed in number those of both the others, which together make but about 110[38]; and as those of the third Conjugation are so various in their form, and so incapable of being reduced to one plain Rule; it seems better in practice to consider the first in ed as the only Regular form, and the others as deviations from it; after the example of the Saxon and German Grammarians.