without great injury, especially to its poetry. Nor can the distinct
syllabic utterance of the termination _ed_ be now generally practised,
except in solemn prose. It is therefore better, not to insist on those old
verbal forms against which there are so many objections, than to exclude
the pronoun of the second person singular from all such usage, whether
familiar or poetical, as will not admit them. It is true that on most
occasions _you_ may be substituted for _thou_, without much inconvenience;
and so may _we_ be substituted for _I_, with just as much propriety; though
Dr. Perley thinks the latter usage "is not to be encouraged."--_Gram._, p.
28. Our authors and editors, like kings and emperors, are making _we_ for
_I_ their most common mode of expression. They renounce their individuality
to avoid egotism. And when all men shall have adopted this enallage, the
fault indeed will be banished, or metamorphosed, but with it will go an
other sixth part of every English conjugation. The pronouns in the
following couplet are put for the first person singular, the second person
singular, and the second person plural; yet nobody will understand them so,
but by their antecedents:

"Right trusty, and so forth--_we_ let _you_ to know
_We_ are very ill used by _you mortals_ below."--_Swift._

OBS. 31.--It is remarkable that some, who forbear to use the plural for the
singular in the second person, adopt it without scruple, in the first. The
figure is the same in both; and in both, sufficiently common. Neither
practice is worthy to be made more general than it now is. If _thou_ should
not be totally sacrificed to what was once a vain compliment, neither
should _I_, to what is now an occasional, and perhaps a vain assumption.
Lindley Murray, who does not appear to have used _you_ for _thou_, and who
was sometimes singularly careful to periphrase [sic--KTH] and avoid the
latter, nowhere in his grammar speaks of himself in the first person
singular. He is often "the _Compiler_;" rarely, "the _Author_;" generally,
"We:" as, "_We_ have distributed these parts of grammar, in the mode which
_we_ think most correct and intelligible."--_Octavo Gram._, p. 58. "_We_
shall not pursue this subject any further."--_Ib._, p. 62. "_We_ shall
close these remarks on the tenses."--_Ib._, p. 76. "_We_ presume no solid
objection can be made."--_Ib._, p. 78. "The observations which _we_ have
made."--_Ib._, p. 100. "_We_ shall produce a remarka