t perhaps be reduced exactly under any of these
heads; as between 'ounce' and 'inch'; 'errant' and 'arrant'; 'slack' and
'slake'; 'slow' and 'slough'{115}; 'bow' and 'bough'; 'hew' and
'hough'{115}; 'dies' and 'dice' (both plurals of 'die'); 'plunge' and
'flounce'{115}; 'staff' and 'stave'; 'scull' and 'shoal'; 'benefit' and
'benefice'{116}. Or, it may be, the difference which constitutes the two
forms of the word into two words is in the spelling only, and of a
character to be appreciable only by the eye, escaping altogether the
ear: thus it is with 'draft' and 'draught'; 'plain' and 'plane'; 'coign'
and 'coin'; 'flower' and 'flour'; 'check' and 'cheque'; 'straight' and
'strait'; 'ton' and 'tun'; 'road' and 'rode'; 'throw' and 'throe';
'wrack' and 'rack'; 'gait' and 'gate'; 'hoard' and 'horde'{117}; 'knoll'
and 'noll'; 'chord' and 'cord'; 'drachm' and 'dram'; 'sergeant' and
'serjeant'; 'mask' and 'masque'; 'villain' and 'villein'.

{Sidenote: _Words in Two Forms_}

Now, if you will put the matter to proof, you will find, I believe, in
every case that there has attached itself to the different forms of a
word a modification of meaning more or less sensible, that each has won
for itself an independent sphere of meaning, in which it, and it only,
moves. For example, 'divers' implies difference only, but 'diverse'
difference with opposition; thus the several Evangelists narrate the
same event in 'divers' manner, but not in 'diverse'. 'Antique' is
ancient, but 'antic', is now the ancient regarded as overlived, out of
date, and so in our days grotesque, ridiculous; and then, with a
dropping of the reference to age, the grotesque, the ridiculous alone.
'Human' is what every man is, 'humane' is what every man ought to be;
for Johnson's suggestion that 'humane' is from the French feminine,
'humaine', and 'human' from the masculine, cannot for an instant be
admitted. 'Ingenious' expresses a mental, 'ingenuous' a moral,
excellence{118}. A gardener 'prunes', or trims his trees, properly
indeed his _vines_ alone (pro_vigner_), birds 'preen' or trim their
feathers. We 'allay' wine with water; we 'alloy' gold with platina.
'Bloom' is a finer and more delicate efflorescence even than 'blossom';
thus the 'bloom', but not the 'blossom', of the cheek. It is now always
'clots' of blood and 'clods' of earth; a 'float' of timber, and a
'fleet' of ships; men 'vend' wares, and 'vent' complaints. A 'curtsey'
is one, and that merely an externa