ovations; else he
had never stood as he now does, in the estimation of the public. But there
is the more need to record the example, because in one of the southern
states the experiment has recently been tried again. A still abler member
of the same profession, has renewed it but lately; and it is said there are
yet remaining some converts to this notion of improvement. I copy
literally, leaving all my readers and his to guess for themselves why he
spelled "_writers_" with a _w_ and "_riting_" without.

15. "During the course of ten or twelv yeers, I hav been laboring to
correct popular errors, and to assist my yung brethren in the road to truth
and virtue; my publications for theze purposes hav been numerous; much time
haz been spent, which I do not regret, and much censure incurred, which my
hart tells me I do not dezerv." * * * "The reeder wil observ that the
_orthography_ of the volum iz not uniform. The reezon iz, that many of the
essays hav been published before, in the common orthography, and it would
hav been a laborious task to copy the whole, for the sake of changing the
spelling. In the essays, ritten within the last yeer, a considerable change
of spelling iz introduced by way of experiment. This liberty waz taken by
the writers before the age of queen Elizabeth, and to this we are indeted
for the preference of modern spelling over that of Gower and Chaucer. The
man who admits that the change of _hoasbonde, mynde, ygone, moneth_ into
_husband, mind, gone, month_, iz an improovment, must acknowlege also the
riting of _helth, breth, rong, tung, munth_, to be an improovment. There iz
no alternativ. Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for
altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force; and if a gradual
reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less
under the influence of reezon than our ancestors."--_Noah Webster's Essays,
Preface_, p. xi.

16. But let us return, with our author, to the question of the parts of
speech. I have shown that if we do not mean to adopt some less convenient
scheme, we must count them _ten_, and preserve their ancient order as well
as their ancient names.[74] And, after all his vacillation in consequence
of reading Horne Tooke, it would not be strange if Dr. Webster should come
at last to the same conclusion. He was not very far from it in 1828, as may
be shown by his own testimony, which he then took occasion to record. I
will give his o