right in making _worship_ a _compound_ of
_worth_ and _ship_, he furnishes a reason against his own practice of using
a single _p_ in _worshiper, worshiped_, and _worshiping_. The Saxon word
appears to have been _weorthscype_. But words ending in _ship_ are
_derivatives_, rather than compounds; and therefore they seem to belong to
the rule, rather than to the exception: as, "So we _fellowshiped_
him."--_Herald of Freedom: Liberator_, Vol. ix, p. 68.

[115] When _ee_ comes before _e_, or may be supposed to do so, or when _ll_
comes before _l_, one of the letters is dropped that _three_ of the same
kind may not meet: as, _free, freer, freest, freeth, freed_; _skill,
skilless_; _full, fully_; _droll, drolly_. And, as _burgess-ship_,
_hostess-ship_, and _mistress-ship_ are derivatives, and not compounds, I
think they ought to follow the same principle, and be written _burgesship,
hostesship, mistresship_. The proper form of _gall-less_ is perhaps more
doubtful. It ought not to be gallless, as Dr. Webster has it; and galless,
the analogical form, is yet, so far as I know without authority. But is it
not preferable to the hyphened form, with three Ells, which has authority?
"GALL-LESS, a. Without gall or bitterness. _Cleaveland_."--_Chalmers,
Bolles, Worcester_.

"Ah! mild and _gall-less_ dove,
Which dost the pure and candid dwellings love,
Canst thou in Albion still delight?"--_Cowley's Odes_.

Worcester's Dictionary has also the questionable word _bellless_. _Treen_,
for _trees_, or for an adjective meaning _a tree's_, or _made of a tree_,
is exhibited in several of our dictionaries, and pronounced as a
monosyllable: but Dr. Beattie, in his Poems, p. 84, has made it a
dissyllable, with three like letters divided by a hyphen, thus:--

"Plucking from _tree-en_ bough her simple food."

[116] _Handiwork, handicraft_, and _handicraftsman_, appear to have been
corruptly written for _handwork, handcraft_, and _handcraftsman_. They were
formerly in good use, and consequently obtained a place in our vocabulary,
from which no lexicographer, so far as I know, has yet thought fit to
discard them; but, being irregular, they are manifestly becoming obsolete,
or at least showing a tendency to throw off these questionable forms.
_Handcraft_ and _handcraftsman_ are now exhibited in some dictionaries, and
_handiwork_ seems likely to be resolved into _handy_ and _work_, from which
Johnson supposes it to have been formed