were not used in classical English before Wordsworth.
_Handbook_,(22) though an old Anglo-Saxon word, has but lately taken the
place of _manual_, and a number of words such as _cab_ for cabriolet,
_buss_ for omnibus, and even a verb such as _to shunt_ tremble still on
the boundary line between the vulgar and the literary idioms. Though the
grammatical changes that have taken place since the publication of the
authorized version are yet fewer in number, still we may point out some.
The termination of the third person singular in _th_ is now entirely
replaced by _s_. No one now says _he liveth_, but only _he lives_. Several
of the irregular imperfects and participles have assumed a new form. No
one now uses _he spake_, and _he drave_, instead of _he spoke_, and _he
drove_; _holpen_ is replaced by _helped_; _holden_ by _held_; _shapen_ by
_shaped_. The distinction between _ye_ and _you_, the former being
reserved for the nominative, the latter for all the other cases, is given
up in modern English; and what is apparently a new grammatical form, the
possessive pronoun _its_, has sprung into life since the beginning of the
seventeenth century. It never occurs in the Bible; and though it is used
three or four times by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson does not recognize it as
yet in his English Grammar.(23)

It is argued, therefore, that as language, differing thereby from all
other productions of nature, is liable to historical alterations, it is
not fit to be treated in the same manner as the subject-matter of all the
other physical sciences.

There is something very plausible in this objection, but if we examine it
more carefully, we shall find that it rests entirely on a confusion of
terms. We must distinguish between historical change and natural growth.
Art, science, philosophy, and religion all have a history; language, or
any other production of nature, admits only of growth.

Let us consider, first, that although there is a continuous change in
language, it is not in the power of man either to produce or to prevent
it. We might think as well of changing the laws which control the
circulation of our blood, or of adding an inch to our height, as of
altering the laws of speech, or inventing new words according to our own
pleasure. As man is the lord of nature only if he knows her laws and
submits to them, the poet and the philosopher become the lords of language
only if they know its laws and obey them.

When the Emperor Tiber