pass, &c. The only exceptions are, of, if, as, is, has, was, yes, his, this, us, and thus.

RULE II.

Monosyllables ending with any consonant but f, l, or and preceded by a single vowel, never double the final consonant; excepting add, ebb, butt, egg, odd, err, inn, bunn, purr, and buzz.

RULE III.

Words ending with y, preceded by a consonant, form the plurals of nouns, the persons of verbs, verbal nouns, past participles, comparatives, and superlatives, by changing y into i: as, spy, spies; I carry, thou carriest; he carrieth, or carrics; carrier, carried; happy, happier, happiest.

The present participle in ing, retains the y, that i may not be doubled; as, carry, carrying; bury, burying, &c.

But y, preceded by a vowel, in such instances as the above, is not changed; as, boy, boys: I cloy, he cloys, cloyed, &c.; (except in lay, pay, and say; from which are formed, laid, paid, and said; and their compounds, unlaid, unpaid, unsaid, &c.

RULE IV.

Words ending with y, preceded by a consonant, upon assuming an additional syllable beginning with a consonant, commonly change y into i; as, happy, happily, happiness. But when y is preceded by a vowel, it is very rarely changed in the additional syllable: as, coy, coyly; boy, boyish, boyhood; annoy, annoyer, annoyance; joy, joyless, joyful.

RULE V.

Monosyllables, and words accented on the last syllable, ending with a single consonant preceded by a single vowel, double that consonant, when they take another syllable beginning with a vowel: as, wit, witty; thin, thinnish; to abet, an abettor; to begin, a begin

ner.

But if a diphthong precedes, or the accent is on the preceding syllable, the consonant remains single: as, to toil, toiling; to offer, an offering : maid, maiden, &c.

RULE VI.

Words ending with any double letter but l, and taking ness, less, ly, or ful, after them, preserve the letter double; as, harmlessness, carelessness, carelessly, stiffly, successful, distressful, &c. But those words which end with double, and take ness, less, ly, or ful, after them, generally omit one ; as, fulness, skilless, fully, skilful, &c.

RULE VII.

Ness, less, ly, and ful, added to words ending with silent e, do not cut it off as, paleness, guileness, closely, peaceful; except in a few words; as, duly, truly, awful.

RULE VIII.

Ment, added to words ending with silent e, generally preserves the e from elision; as, abatement, chatisement, incitement, &c. The words judgment, abridgment, acknowledgment, are deviations from the rule.

Like other terminations, ment changes y into i, when preceded by a consonant: as, accompany, accompaniment; merry, merriment.

RULE IX.

Able and ible, when incorporated into words ending with silent e, almost always cut it off; as, blame, blamable; cure, curable; sense, sensible, &c.: but if c or g soft comes before e in the original word, the e is then preserved in words compounded with able; as, change, changeable peace, peaceable, &c.

RULE X.

When ing or ish is added to words ending with silent e, the e is almost universally omitted: as, place, plac ing; lodge, lodging; slave, slavish; prude, prudish.

RULE XI.

Compound words are generally spelled in the same

manner as the simple words of which they are formed : as, football, windmill, bulldog, thereby, hereafter.

The orthography of a great number of English words, is far from being uniform, even amongst writers of distinction. Thus, honour and honor, inquire and enquire, negotiate and negociate, controland controul, expense and expence, allege and alledge, surprise and surprize, complete and compleat, connexion and connection, abridgment and abridgement, and many other orthographical variations, are to be met with in the best modern publications. Some authority for deciding differences of this nature, appears to be necessary: and where can we find one of equal pretensions with Dr. Johnson's Dictionary? though a few of his decisions do not appear to be warranted by the principles of etymology and analogy, the stable foundations of his improvements. "As the weight of truth and reason (says Nares in his "Elements of Orthoepy") is irresitible, Dr. Johnson's Dictionary has nearly fixed the external form of our language. Indeed so convenient is it to have one acknowledged standard to recur to; so much preferable, in matters of this nature, is a trifling degree of irregularity, to a continual change, and fruitiess pursuit of unattainable perfection; that it is earnestly to be hoped, that no author will henceforth, on light grounds, be tempted to innovate."

This Dictionary, however, contains some orthographical inconsistencies, which ought to be rectified: such as, immovable moveable, chastely chastness, fertilness fertily, sliness slyly, fearlessly, fearlesness, needlessness needlesly. If these, and similar irregularities, were, corrected by spelling the words analogically, according to the first word in each part of the series, and agreeably to the general rules of spelling, the Dictionay would doubtless, in these respects, be improved.

PART II.

ETYMOLOGY.

CHAPTER I.

A GENERAL VIEW of the PARTS of SPEECH.

THE second part of grammar is ETYMOLGY: which treats of the different sorts of words, their various modifications, and their derivation./

There are, in English, nine sorts of words,, or, as they are commonly called, PARTS OF SPEECH namely, the ARTICLE, the SUBSTANtive or noun, the ADJECTIVE, the PRONOun, the VERB, the ADvErb, the prePOSITION, the CONJUNCTION, and the INTERJECTION

1. An article is a word prefixed to substantives, to point them out, and to show how far their signification extends: as, a garden, an eagle, the woman.

2. A substantive or noun, is the name of any thing that exists, or of which we have any notion: as, London, man, virtue.

Å substantive may, in general, be distinguished by its taking an article before it, or by its making sense of itself: as, a book, the sun, an apple; temperance, industry, chastity.

3. An Adjective is a word added to a substantive, to express its quality: as, “An industrious man; a virtuous woman."

An Adjective may be known by its making sense with the addition of the word thing; as, a good thing: a bad thing or of any particular substantive; as, a sweet apple, a pleasant prospect, a lively boy.

manner as the simple words of which they are formed : as, football, windmill, bulldog, thereby, hereafter.

The orthography of a great number of English words, is far from being uniform, even amongst writers of distinction. Thus, honour and honor, inquire and enquire, negotiate and negociate, controland controul, expense and expence, allege and alledge, surprise and surprize, complete and compleat, connexion and connection, abridgment and abridgement, and many other orthographical variations, are to be met with in the best modern publications. Some authority for deciding differences of this nature, appears to be necessary: and where can we find one of equal pretensions with Dr. Johnson's Dictionary? though a few of his decisions do not appear to be warranted by the principles of etymology and analogy, the stable foundations of his improvements. "As the weight of truth and reason (says Nares in his "Elements of Orthoepy") is irresitible, Dr. Johnson's Dictionary has nearly fixed the external form of our language. Indeed so convenient is it to have one acknowledged standard to recur to; so much preferable, in matters of this nature, is a trifling degree of irregularity, to a continual change, and fruitiess pursuit of unattainable perfection; that it is earnestly to be hoped, that no author will henceforth, on light grounds, be tempted to innovate."

This Dictionary, however, contains some orthographical inconsistencies, which ought to be rectified: such as, immovable moveable, chastely chastness, fertilness fertily, sliness slyly, fearlessly, fearlesness, needlessness needlesly. If these, and similar irregularities, were corrected by spelling the words analogically, according to the first word in each part of the series, and agreeably to the general rules of spelling, the Dictionary would doubtless, in these respects, be improved.