pleton's
Translation of Bede. 'Doctrine and discourse _maketh_ nature less
importune.' Bacon." The use of _eth_ as a plural termination of verbs, was
evidently earlier than the use of _en_ for the same purpose. Even the
latter is utterly obsolete, and the former can scarcely have been
_English_. The Anglo-Saxon verb _lufian_, or _lufigean_, to love, appears
to have been inflected with the several pronouns thus: Ic lufige, Thu
lufast, He lufath, We lufiath, Ge lufiath, Hi lufiath. The form in Old
English was this: I love, Thou lovest, He loveth, We loven, Ye loven, They
loven. Dr. Priestley remarks, (though in my opinion unadvisedly,) that,
"Nouns of a plural form, but of a singular signification, require a
singular construction; as, mathematicks _is_ a useful study. This
observation will likewise," says he, "_in some measure_, vindicate the
grammatical propriety of the famous saying of William of Wykeham, Manners
_maketh_ man."--_Priestley's Gram._, p. 189. I know not what _half-way_
vindication there can be, for any such construction. _Manners_ and
_mathematics_ are not nouns of the singular number, and therefore both _is_
and _maketh_ are wrong. I judge it better English to say, "Mathematics
_are_ a useful study."--"Manners _make_ the man." But perhaps both ideas
may be still better expressed by a change of the nominative, thus: "The
_study_ of mathematics _is_ useful."--"_Behaviour makes_ the man."

[250] What the state of our literature would have been, had no author
attempted any thing on English grammar, must of course be a matter of mere
conjecture, and not of any positive "conviction." It is my opinion, that,
with all their faults, most of the books and essays in which this subject
has been handled, have been in some degree _beneficial_, and a few of them
highly so; and that, without their influence, our language must have been
much more chaotic and indeterminable than it now is. But a late writer
says, and, with respect to _some_ of our verbal terminations, says wisely:
"It is my _sincere conviction_ that fewer irregularities would have crept
into the language had no grammars existed, than have been authorized by
grammarians; for it should be understood that the first of our grammarians,
finding that good writers differed upon many points, instead of
endeavouring to reconcile these discrepancies, absolutely perpetuated them
by _citing opposite usages, and giving high authorities for both_. To this
we owe all the