ick_, _havock_, and it was quite possible for his
critics to follow him through a long list of words of this class and
detect his frequent aberration from a uniform rule. Yet, instead of
receding from his position, the latest edition advances; a nicer
discrimination is made in the etymological origin of the variation, but
in point of practice a much more general conformity to the rule is
recorded. There can be no question that the _k_ has a foreign air when
found in such cases in American books.

Again, Webster omitted the _u_ in the unaccented termination _our_, as
_honor_ for _honour_. In this, too, he was not without English
precedent. Johnson was singularly inconsistent in this respect, and his
influence has extended over English orthography to the present day, so
that one cannot take up a well-printed English journal without
discovering an apparently arbitrary use of the termination. The usage as
recorded by Webster has held its ground, and there is no variation
between the first and latest editions, except that the alternative form
_Saviour_ is given in the latest as a concession to an undefined sense
of sanctity which would lead to a separation of the word from its class.
There is a foot-note in the edition of 1828, in which Washington's
omission of _u_ is cited as an argument in favor of the form _or_.

There is the vexed form _er_ for _re_ in such words as _center_ for
_centre_. It is fair on this point to give the note which Webster
originally made in defense of his position: "A similar fate has attended
the attempt to Anglicize the orthography of another class of words,
which we have received from the French. At a very early period the words
_chambre_, _desastre_, _desordre_, _chartre_, _monstre_, _tendre_,
_tigre_, _entre_, _fievre_, _diametre_, _arbitre_, _nombre_, and others
were reduced to the English form of spelling: _chamber_, _disaster_,
_charter_, _monster_, _tender_, _tiger_, _enter_, _fever_, _diameter_,
_arbiter_, _number_. At a later period, Sir Isaac Newton, Camden,
Selden, Milton, Whitaker, Prideaux, Hook, Whiston, Bryant, and other
authors of the first character attempted to carry through this
reformation, writing _scepter_, _center_, _sepulcher_. But this
improvement was arrested, and a few words of this class retain their
French orthography: such as _metre_, _mitre_, _nitre_, _spectre_,
_sceptre_, _theatre_, _sepulchre_, and sometimes _centre_. It is
remarkable that a nation distinguished f