If you should find some difficulties (I cannot think they will be great) to make out to your satisfaction the above derivations; it will be but a wholesome exercise; and I shall not stop now to assist in their elucidation; but will return to the word wrong. I have called it a past participle. It is not a participle. It is the regular past tense of the verb To Wring. But our ancestors used a past tense, where the languages with which we are most acquainted use a participle: and from the grammars of the latter (or distribution of their languages) our present grammatical notions are taken: and I must therefore continue with this word (and others which I shall hereafter bring forward) to consider it and call it a past participle.

In English, or Anglo-Saxon (for they are one language), the past tense is formed by a change of the characteristic letter of the verb. By the characteristic letter I mean the vowel or diphthong which in the Anglo-Saxon immediately precedes the Infinitive termination an, ean, ian; or gan, gean, gian.

To form the past tense of Prinzan, To Wring (and so of other verbs), the characteristic letter 1 or y was changed to a broad. But, as different persons pronounced differently, and not only pronounced differently, but also used different written characters as representatives of their sounds; this change of the characteristic letter was exhibited either by a broad, or by o, or by u.

From Alfred to Shakespeare, both inclusively, o chiefly prevailed in the South, and a broad in the North. During the former part of that period, a great variety of spelling appears both in the same and in different writers. Chaucer complains of this:

"And for there is so greate diuersyte

In Englyshe, and in writynge of our tonge."

Troylus, boke 5. fol. 200. p. 1. col. 1.

But since that time the fashion of writing in many instances has decidedly changed to ov and u; and in some, to oa and oo and AI.

But, in our inquiry into the nature of language and the meaning of words, what have we to do with capricious and

mutable fashion? Fashion can only help us in our commerce with the world to the rule (a necessary one I grant) of

Loquendum ut vulgus.

But this same fashion, unless we watch it well, will mislead us widely from the other rule of

Sentiendum ut sapientes.

F-Heretic! What can you set up, in matter of language, against the decisive authority of such a writer as Horace?

Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi."

H.-I do not think him any authority whatever upon this occasion. He wrote divinely: and so Vestris danced. But do you think our dear and excellent friend, Mr. Cline, would not give us a much more satisfactory account of the influence and action, the power and properties of the nerves and muscles by which he performed such wonders, than Vestris could? who, whilst he used them with such excellence, did not perhaps know he had them. In this our inquiry, my dear Sir, we are not poets nor dancers, but anatomists.

F.-Let us return then to our subject.

H.-To the following verbs, whose characteristic letter is 1, the present fashion (as Dr. Lowth truly informs us) continues still to give the past tense in o.

1

["What franticke fit, quoth he, hath thus distraught
Thee, foolish man, so rash a doome to give?
What iustice ever other iudgement taught,
But he should dye, who merites not to live?
None els to death this man despayring DRIVE

But his owne guiltie mind, deserving death."

Faerie Queene, book 1. cant. 9. st. 38. Todd's Edit.

To which he properly adds (though no longer in fashion)

"Jacob CHODE with Laban."-Genesis xxxi. 36.

"And the people CHODE with Moses.”—Numb. xx. 3.
"And shortly CLOMBEN up all thre."

Millers Tale, fol. 14. p. 1. col. 2.

"Sens in astate thou CLOMBEN were so hyc."

Monkes Tale, fol. 87. p. 2. col. 1.

"The sonne he sayde is CLOMBE up to heuen."

Tale of Nonnes Priest, fol. 90. p. 1. col. 1.

"So effated I was in wantonnesse,
And CLAMBE upon the fychell whele so hye."

Testam. of Creseyde, fol. 204. p. 2. col. 1.

"Up I CLAMBE with muche payne."

3d Boke of Fame, fol. 297. p. 2. col. 1.

High matters call our muse; inviting her to see
As well the lower lands, as those where lately she

The Cambrian mountains CLOME."-Poly-olbion, song 7.
"It was a Satyr's chance to see her silver hair
Flow loosely at her back, as up a cliff she CLAME."

Ibid. song 28.

["Who, well them greeting, humbly did requight,
And asked, to what end they CLOMв that tedious hight?”
Faerie Queene, book 1. cant. 10. st. 49.

"Which to behold he CLOMB up to the bancke."

Ibid. book 2. cant. 7. st. 57.

"Tho to their ready steedes they CLOMBE full light."

Ibid. book 3. cant. 3. st. 61.

Ibid. book 3. cant. 4. st. 31.

"She to her waggon CLOMBE: CLOMBE all the rest,
And forth together went."
"Then all the rest into their coches CLIM.'

Ibid. book 3. cant. 4. st. 42.

"And earely, ere the morrow did upreare
His deawy head out of the ocean maine,

"That the bold prince was forced foote to give
To his first rage, and yeeld to his despight:
The whilest at him so dreadfully he DRIVE,

That seem'd a marble rocke asunder could have RIVE."

Faerie Queene, book 5. cant. 11. st. 5.]

He up arose, as halfe in great disdaine,

And CLOMBE unto his steed."-Faerie Queene, book 3. cant. 4.st. 61.

"Unto his lofty steede he CLOMBE anone.

Ibid. book 4. cant. 5. st. 46.

"Thence to the circle of the moone she CLAMBE,
Where Cynthia raignes in everlasting glory."

Ibid. Two cantos of Mutabilite, cant. 6. st. 8.]

You will please to observe that the past participles of the above verbs Abide, Drive, Shrive, and Ride, besides the supposed substantives DRIFT, SHRIFT, (which we before noticed) furnish also the following; viz.

ABODE. i. e. Where any one has Abided.

DROVE. i. e. Any number of animals Driven.

SHROVE AS SHROVE-TIDE. i. e. The time when persons are Shrived or Shriven.

ROAD. i. e. Any place Ridden over. This supposed substantive ROAD, though now so written, (perhaps for distinction sake, to correspond with the received false notions of language) was formerly written exactly as the past tense. Shakespeare, as well as others, so wrote it.

"The martlet

Builds in the weather, on the outward wall,
Euen in the force and RODE of casualtie."

Merchant of Venice, (1st Folio) p. 172.

"Here I reade for certaine that my ships

Are safelie come to RODE."-Ibid. p. 184.

"A theeuish liuing on the common RODE."- As you like it, p. 191.

"I thinke this is the most villanouse house in al London RODE for fleas."-1st Part Henry IV. p. 53.

"Neuer a man's thought in the world keepes the RODE-way better than thine."-2d Part Henry IV. p. 80.

"This Dol Tearesheet should be some RODE, I warrant you, as confmon as the way betweene S. Alban's and London.”—Ib. p. 81.

"I haue alwaye be thy beest, and thou haste alwaye RODEN on me, and I serued the neuer thus tyll now."

Diues and Pauper, 9th Comm. cap. 5. "They departed and ROAD into a valey, and there they met with a squier that ROADE upon a hackney."

Historie of P. Arthur, 3d part, ch. 66.

["Now, strike your sailes, yee iolly mariners,

For we be come unto a quiet RODE."

Faerie Queene, book 1. cant. 12. st. 42.

"Such was that hag which with Duessa ROADE."

Ibid. book 4. cant. 1. st. 31.]

But, together with the unfashionable Clomb and Chode, the bishop should also have noticed, that by a former (and generally not more distant) fashion, the following verbs also (though now written with a, u, ou, or I short) gave us their past tense in o.1

"An hyne that had hys hyre ere he BEGONNE."

Vision of P. Ploughman, pass. 15. fol. 74. p. 1.

1 [Mr. Tooke has added the following in the margin ;-Hear, Hard; Dread, Drad; Drip, Drop, or Dripped; Eat, Ate; Bylban; String; Thring.

"For not by measure of her owne great mynd

And wondrous worth, she мOTT my simple song."

Spenser, Colin Clouts come home again.]