rave cast, afford
but few examples of their customary manner of forming the verb in connexion
with the pronoun _thou_, in familiar discourse. The following may serve to
illustrate it: "Suitable to the office thou _layst_ claim to."--R.
BARCLAY'S _Works_, Vol. i, p. 27. "Notwithstanding thou _may have_
sentiments opposite to mine."--THOMAS STORY. "To devote all thou _had_ to
his service;"--"If thou _should come_;"--"What thou _said_;"--"Thou kindly
_contributed_;"--"The epistle which thou _sent_ me;"--"Thou _would_ perhaps
_allow_;"--"If thou _submitted_;"--"Since thou _left_;"--"_Should_ thou
_act_;"--"Thou _may be_ ready;"--"That thou _had met_;"--"That thou _had
intimated_;"--"Before thou _puts_" [putst];--"What thou _meets_"
[meetst];--"If thou _had made_;"--"I observed thou _was_;"--"That thou
_might put_ thy trust;"--"Thou _had been_ at my house."--JOHN KENDALL.
"Thou _may be plundered_;"--"That thou _may feel_;"--"Though thou _waited_
long, and _sought_ him;"--"I hope thou _will bear_ my style;"--"Thou also
_knows_" [knowst];--"Thou _grew_ up;"--"I wish thou _would_ yet _take_ my
counsel."--STEPHEN CRISP. "Thou _manifested_ thy tender regard, _stretched_
forth thy delivering hand, and _fed_ and _sustained_ us."--SAMUEL
FOTHERGILL. The writer has met with thousands that used the second person
singular in conversation, but never with any one that employed, on ordinary
occasions, all the regular endings of the solemn style. The simplification
of the second person singular, which, to a greater or less extent, is
everywhere adopted by the Friends, and which is here defined and explained,
removes from each verb eighteen of these peculiar terminations; and, (if
the number of English verbs be, as stated by several grammarians, 8000,)
disburdens their familiar dialect of 144,000 of these awkward and useless
appendages.[248] This simplification is supported by usage as extensive as
the familiar use of the pronoun _thou_; and is also in accordance with the
canons of criticism: "The _first_ canon on this subject is, All words and
phrases which are remarkably harsh and unharmonious, and not absolutely
necessary, should be rejected." See _Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric_, B.
ii, Ch. ii, Sec. 2, Canon Sixth, p. 181. See also, in the same work, (B.
hi, Ch. iv, Sec. 2d,) an _express defence_ of "those elisions whereby the
sound is improved;" especially of the suppression of the "feeble vowel in
the last syllable of the preterits of