, _siete_,
_sono_, formed in analogy of regular verbs such as _crediamo_, _credete_,
_credono_. The second person, _sei_, instead of _es_, is likewise
infantine grammar. So are the Wallachian _suntemu_, we are, _sunteti_, you
are, which owe their origin to the third person plural _sunt_, they are.
And what shall we say of such monsters as _essendo_, a gerund derived on
principles of strict justice from an infinitive _essere_, like _credendo_
from _credere_!

However, we need not be surprised, for we find similar barbarisms in
English. Even in Anglo-Saxon, the third person plural, _sind_, has by a
false analogy been transferred to the first and second persons; and
instead of the modern English,

in Old in Gothic.
Norse.
we are er-um sijum(53)
you are we find er-udh sijuth
they are er-u. sind.

Dialectically we hear _I be_, instead of _I am_; and if Chartism should
ever gain the upper hand, we must be prepared for newspapers adopting such
forms as _I says_, _I knows_.

These various influences and conditions under which language grows and
changes, are like the waves and winds which carry deposits to the bottom
of the sea, where they accumulate, and rise, and grow, and at last appear
on the surface of the earth as a stratum, perfectly intelligible in all
its component parts, not produced by an inward principle of growth, nor
regulated by invariable laws of nature; yet, on the other hand, by no
means the result of mere accident, or the production of lawless and
uncontrolled agencies. We cannot be careful enough in the use of our
words. Strictly speaking, neither _history_ nor _growth_ is applicable to
the changes of the shifting surface of the earth. _History_ applies to the
actions of free agents; _growth_ to the natural unfolding of organic
beings. We speak, however, of the growth of the crust of the earth, and we
know what we mean by it; and it is in this sense, but not in the sense of
growth as applied to a tree, that we have a right to speak of the growth
of language. If that modification which takes place in time by continually
new combinations of given elements, which withdraws itself from the
control of free agents, and can in the end be recognized as the result of
natural agencies, may be called growth; and if so defined, we may apply it
to the growth of the crust of the earth; the same w