ters, has dogmatically
given us a list of _seventy_ verbs, which, he says, are, "by some persons,
_erroneously deemed irregular_;" and has included in it the words, _blow,
build, cast, cling, creep, freeze, draw, throw_, and the like, to the
number of _sixty_; so that he is really right in no more than one seventh
part of his catalogue. And, what is more strange, for several of the
irregularities which he censures, his own authority may be quoted from the
early editions of this very book: as, "For you could have _thrown_ about
seeds."--Edition of 1818, p. 13. "For you could have _throwed_ about
seeds."--Edition of 1832, p. 13. "A tree is _blown_ down."--Ed. of 1818, p.
27. "A tree is _blowed_ down."--Ed. of 1832, p. 25. "It _froze_ hard last
night. Now, what was it that _froze_ so hard?"--Ed. of 1818, p. 38. "It
_freezed_ hard last night. Now, what was it that _freezed_ so hard?"--Ed.
of 1832, p. 35. A whole page of such contradictions may be quoted from this
one grammarian, showing that _he did not know_ what form of the preterit he
ought to prefer. From such an instructor, who can find out what is good
English, and what is not? Respecting the inflections of the verb, this
author says, "There are three persons; _but, our verbs have no variation in
their spelling, except for the third person singular_."--_Cobbett's E.
Gram._, 88. Again: "Observe, however, that, in our language, there is no
very great use in this distinction of modes; because, for the most part,
our little _signs_ do the business, and _they never vary in the letters of
which they are composed_."--_Ib._, 95. One would suppose, from these
remarks, that Cobbett meant to dismiss the pronoun _thou_ entirely from his
conjugations. Not so at all. In direct contradiction to himself, he
proceeds to inflect the verb as follows: "I work, _Thou workest_, He works;
&c. I worked, _Thou workedst_, He worked; &c. I shall or will work, _Thou
shalt or wilt work_, He shall or will work;" &c.--_Ib._, 98. All the
_compound_ tenses, except the future, he rejects, as things which "can only
serve to fill up a book."

OBS. 21.--It is a common but erroneous opinion of our grammarians, that the
unsyllabic suffix _st_, wherever found, is a modern contraction of the
syllable _est_. No writer, however, thinks it always necessary to remind
his readers of this, by inserting the sign of contraction; though English
books are not a little disfigured by questionable apostrophes inserted f