English Composition_, p. 12. But if writers of good
authority, such as Pope, Byron, and Pollok, have sometimes had recourse to
this method of simplifying the verb, even in compositions of a grave cast,
the elision may, with tenfold stronger reason, be admitted in familiar
writing or discourse, on the authority of general custom among those who
choose to employ the pronoun _thou_ in conversation.

"But thou, false Arcite, never _shall_ obtain," &c.
--_Dryden, Fables_.

"These goods _thyself can_ on thyself bestow."
--_Id., in Joh. Dict._

"What I show, _thy self may_ freely on thyself bestow."
--_Id., Lowth's Gram._, p. 26.

"That thou _might_ Fortune to thy side engage."
--_Prior_.

"Of all thou ever _conquered_, none was left."
--_Pollok_, B. vii, l. 760.

"And touch me trembling, as thou _touched_ the man," &c.
--_Id._, B. x, l. 60.

OBS. 33.--Some of the Friends (perhaps from an idea that it is less formal)
misemploy _thee_ for _thou_; and often join it to the third person of the
verb in stead of the second. Such expressions as, _thee does, thee is, thee
has, thee thinks_, &c., are double solecisms; they set all grammar at
defiance. Again, many persons who are not ignorant of grammar, and who
employ the pronoun aright, sometimes improperly sacrifice concord to a
slight improvement in sound, and give to the verb the ending of the third
person, for that of the second. Three or four instances of this, occur in
the examples which have been already quoted. See also the following, and
many more, in the works of the poet Burns; who says of himself, "Though it
cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar;
and, by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in
substantives, VERBS, and particles:"--"But when thou _pours_;"--"There thou
_shines_ chief;"--"Thou _clears_ the head;"--"Thou _strings_ the
nerves;"--"Thou _brightens_ black despair;"--"Thou _comes_;"--"Thou
_travels_ far;"--"Now _thou's turned_ out;"--"Unseen thou _lurks_;"--"O
thou pale orb that silent _shines_." This mode of simplifying the verb,
confounds the persons; and, as it has little advantage in sound, over the
regular contracted form of the second person, it ought to be avoided. With
this author it may be, perhaps, a Scotticism: as,

"Thou _paints_ auld nature to the nines,
In thy sweet Caledonian lines."--_Burns to Ramsay_.