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:--

"Of old thou _