or erudition should thus reject
improvements, and retain anomalies, in opposition to all the convenience
of uniformity. I am glad that so respectable a writer as Mitford has
discarded this innovation, and uniformly written _center_, _scepter_,
_theater_, _sepulcher_. In the present instance want of uniformity is
not the only evil. The present orthography has introduced an awkward
mode of writing the derivatives, for example, _centred_, _sceptred_,
_sepulchred_; whereas Milton and Pope wrote these words as regular
derivatives of _center_, _scepter_, _sepulcher_, thus, '_Sceptered_
king.' So Coxe in his travels, 'The principal wealth of the church is
_centered_ in the monasteries.' This is correct."

The two Websters agree in the main, but some of the variations in the
first disappear in the latest. Thus Noah Webster gave the alternative
forms _massacer_, _massacre_, preferring the former, and _aker_, _acre_,
a curious inconsistency; the editors of the latest edition have dropped
these proposed improvements, and have given secondary alternative forms
in _theatre_, _metre_, _centre_, _sepulchre_, _nitre_, and perhaps some
others. Both accept _chancre_, _lucre_, and _ogre_. It may be said in
general that the game on these words is a drawn one, with a stubborn
retention of the _re_ form on the part of the most careful writers, and
a growing majority in numbers in favor of the _er_ form.

In the edition of 1828 Webster laid down the rule that verbs ending in a
single consonant, but having the accent on the first syllable, or on a
syllable preceding the last, ought not to double the final consonant in
the derivatives. Thus he wrote _travel_, _traveler_, _traveling_. The
editors of the latest edition find no occasion to revise this rule, and
report that other lexicographers advise a conformity to it, but they
record a large number of exceptions to satisfy "the prejudice of the
eye." His corresponding rule is "that monosyllabic verbs, ending in a
single consonant, not preceded by a long vowel, and other verbs ending
in a single accented consonant, and of course not preceded by a long
vowel, double the final consonant in all the derivatives which are
formed by a termination beginning with a vowel." This applies to _fit_,
_fitted_, _compel_, _compelled_. This rule, like the other, is retained
by the later editors, though both rules are more exactly framed. No
question has been raised upon this point, and the nice correspondence of