which
ought to be spelt 'frontisp_i_ce' (it was so by Milton and others),
being the low Latin 'frontispicium', from 'frons' and 'aspicio', the
forefront of the building, that part which presents itself to the view.
It was only the entirely ungrounded notion that the word 'piece'
constitutes the last syllable, which has given rise to our present
orthography{275}.

{Sidenote: Wrong Spelling}

You may, perhaps, wonder that I have dwelt so long on these details of
spelling; that I have bestowed on them so much of my own attention,
that I have claimed for them so much of yours; yet in truth I cannot
regard them as unworthy of our very closest heed. For indeed of how much
beyond itself is accurate or inaccurate spelling the certain indication.
Thus when we meet 's_y_ren', for 's_i_ren', as so strangely often we do,
almost always in newspapers, and often where we should hardly have
expected (I met it lately in the _Quarterly Review_, and again in
Gifford's _Massinger_), how difficult it is not to be "judges of evil
thoughts", and to take this slovenly misspelling as the specimen and
evidence of an inaccuracy and ignorance which reaches very far wider
than the single word which is before us. But why is it that so much
significance is ascribed to a wrong spelling? Because ignorance of a
word's spelling at once argues ignorance of its origin and derivation. I
do not mean that one who spells rightly may not be ignorant of it too,
but he who spells wrongly is certainly so. Thus, to recur to the example
I have just adduced, he who for 's_i_ren' writes 's_y_ren', certainly
knows nothing of the magic _cords_ ({Greek: seirai}) of song, by which
those fair enchantresses were supposed to draw those that heard them to
their ruin{276}.

Correct or incorrect orthography being, then, this note of accurate or
inaccurate knowledge, we may confidently conclude where two spellings
of a word exist, and are both employed by persons who generally write
with precision and scholarship, that there must be something to account
for this. It will generally be worth your while to inquire into the
causes which enable both spellings to hold their ground and to find
their supporters, not ascribing either one or the other to mere
carelessness or error. It will in these cases often be found that two
spellings exist, because two views of the word's origin exist, and each
of those spellings is the correct expression of one of these. The
question therefore w