formity. The best that can be done by the
author of a grammar, is, to exhibit usage, as it has been, and as it is;
pointing out to the learner what is most fashionable, as well as what is
most orderly and agreeable. If by these means the usage of writers and
speakers cannot be fixed to what is fittest for their occasions, and
therefore most grammatical, there is in grammar no remedy for their
inaccuracies; as there is none for the blunders of dull opinionists, none
for the absurdities of Ignorance stalled in the seats of Learning. Some
grammarians say, that, whenever the preterit of an irregular verb is like
the present, it should take _edst_ for the second person singular. This
rule, (which is adopted by Walker, in his Principles, No. 372,) gives us
such words as _cast-edst, cost-edst, bid-dedst, burst-edst, cut-tedst,
hit-tedst, let-tedst, put-tedst, hurt-edst, rid-dedst, shed-dedst_, &c. But
the rule is groundless. The few examples which may be adduced from ancient
writings, in support of this principle, are undoubtedly formed in the usual
manner from regular preterits now obsolete; and if this were not the case,
no person of taste could think of employing, on any occasion, derivatives
so uncouth. Dr. Johnson has justly remarked, that "the chief defect of our
language, is ruggedness and asperity." And this defect, as some of the
foregoing remarks have shown, is peculiarly obvious, when even the regular
termination of the second person singular is added to our preterits.
Accordingly, we find numerous instances among the poets, both ancient and
modern, in which that termination is omitted. See Percy's Reliques of
Ancient Poetry, everywhere.

"Thou, who of old the prophet's eye _unsealed_."--_Pollok_.

"Thou _saw_ the fields laid bare and waste."--_Burns_.[250]

OBS. 30.--With the familiar form of the second person singular, those who
constantly put _you_ for _thou_ can have no concern; and many may think it
unworthy of notice, because Murray has said nothing about it: others will
hastily pronounce it bad English, because they have learned at school some
scheme of the verb, which implies that this must needs be wrong. It is this
partial learning which makes so much explanation here necessary. The
formation of this part of speech, form it as you will, is _central to
grammar_, and cannot but be very important. Our language can never entirely
drop the pronoun _thou_, and its derivatives, _thy, thine, thee, thyself_,