an
additional termination." The works of the British poets, except those of
the present century, abound with contractions like the foregoing; but late
authors, or their printers, have returned to the rule; and the former
practice is wearing out and becoming obsolete. Of regular verbs that end in
_ay, ey_, or _oy_, we have more than half a hundred; all of which usually
retain the _y_ in their derivatives, agreeably to an other of the rules for
spelling. The preterits of these we form by adding _ed_ without increase of
syllables; as, _display, displayed; survey, surveyed; enjoy, enjoyed_.
These also, in both tenses, may take _st_ without increase of syllables;
as, _display'st, display'dst_; _survey'st, survey'dst; enjoy'st,
enjoy'dst_. All these forms, and such as these, are still commonly
considered contractions, and therefore written with the apostrophe; but if
the termination _st_ is sufficient of itself to mark the second person
singular, as it certainly is considered to be as regards one half of them,
and as it certainly was in the Saxon tongue still more generally, then for
the other half there is no need of the apostrophe, because nothing is
omitted. _Est_, like _es_, is generally a syllabic termination; but _st_,
like _s_, is not. As signs of the third person, the _s_ and the _es_ are
always considered equivalent; and, as signs of the second person, the _st_
and the _est_ are sometimes, and ought to be always, considered so too. To
all verbs that admit the sound, we add the _s_ without marking it as a
contraction for _es_; and there seems to be no reason at all against adding
the _st_ in like manner, whenever we choose to form the second person
without adding a syllable to the verb. The foregoing observations I commend
to the particular attention of all those who hope to write such English as
shall do them honour--to every one who, from a spark of literary ambition,
may say of himself,

---------"I twine
My hopes of being remembered in my line
With my land's language."--_Byron's Childe Harold_, Canto iv, st. 9.

THE CONJUGATION OF VERBS.

The conjugation of a verb is a regular arrangement of its moods, tenses,
persons, numbers, and participles.

There are four PRINCIPAL PARTS in the conjugation of every simple and
complete verb; namely, the _Present_, the _Preterit_, the _Imperfect
Participle_, and the _Perfect Participle_.[256] A verb which wants any of
these parts, is called _defe