r _penthouse_, as they should. When a Yankee skipper says
that he is "boun' for Gloster" (not Gloucester, with the leave of the
Universal Schoolmaster),[27] he but speaks like Chaucer or an old
ballad-singer, though they would have pronounced it _boon_. This is one
of the cases where the _d_ is surreptitious, and has been added in
compliment to the verb _bind_, with which it has nothing to do. If we
consider the root of the word (though of course I grant that every race
has a right to do what it will with what is so peculiarly its own as its
speech), the _d_ has no more right there than at the end of _gone_,
where it is often put by children, who are our best guides to the
sources of linguistic corruption, and the best teachers of its
processes. Cromwell, minister of Henry VIII., writes _worle_ for world.
Chapman has _wan_ for _wand_, and _lawn_ has rightfully displaced
_laund_, though with no thought, I suspect, of etymology. Rogers tells
us that Lady Bathurst sent him some letters written to William III. by
Queen Mary, in which she addresses him as '_Dear Husban_.' The old form
_expoun'_, which our farmers use, is more correct than the form with a
barbarous _d_ tacked on which has taken its place. Of the kind opposite
to this, like our _gownd_ for _gown_, and the London cockney's _wind_
for _wine_, I find _drownd_ for _drown_ in the 'Misfortunes of Arthur'
(1584) and in Swift. And, by the way, whence came the long sound of wind
which our poets still retain, and which survives in 'winding' a horn, a
totally different word from 'winding' a kite-string? We say _beh[=i]nd_
and _h[=i]nder_ (comparative) and yet to _h[)i]nder_. Shakespeare
pronounced _kind_ _k[)i]nd_, or what becomes of his play on that word
and _kin_ in 'Hamlet'? Nay, did he not even (shall I dare to hint it?)
drop the final _d_ as the Yankee still does? John Lilly plays in the
same way on _kindred_ and _kindness_.

But to come to some other ancient instances. Warner rhymes _bounds_ with
_crowns_, _grounds_ with _towns_, _text_ with _sex_, _worst_ with
_crust_, _interrupts_ with _cups_; Drayton, _defects_ with _sex_;
Chapman, _amends_ with _cleanse_; Webster, _defects_ with _checks_; Ben
Jonson, _minds_ with _combines_; Marston, _trust_ and _obsequious_,
_clothes_ and _shows_; Dryden gives the same sound to _clothes_, and has
also _minds_ with _designs_. Of course, I do not affirm that their ears
may not have told them that these were imperfect rhymes