nation has ever yet been recalled into the popular
service. This is as true in other languages as in our own: "In almost every
word of the Greek," says a learned author, "we meet with contractions and
abbreviations; but, I believe, the flexions of no language allow of
extension or amplification. In our own we may write _sleeped_ or _slept_,
as the metre of a line or the rhythm of a period may require; but by no
license may we write _sleepeed._"--_Knight, on the Greek Alphabet_, 4to, p.
107. But, if after contracting _sleeped_ into _slept_, we add an _est_ and
make _sleptest_, is there not here an extension of the word from one
syllable to two? Is there not an amplification that is at once novel,
disagreeable, unauthorized, and unnecessary? Nay, even in the regular and
established change, as of _loved_ to _lovedst_, is there not a syllabic
increase, which is unpleasant to the ear, and unsuited to familiar speech?
Now, to what extent do these questions apply to the verbs in our language?
Lindley Murray, it is presumed, had no conception of that extent; or of the
weight of the objection which is implied in the second. With respect to a
vast number of our most common verbs, he himself never knew, nor does the
greatest grammarian now living know, in what way he ought to form the
simple past tense in the second person singular, otherwise than by the mere
uninflected preterit with the pronoun _thou_. Is _thou sleepedst_ or _thou
sleptest, thou leavedst_ or _thou leftest, thou feeledst_ or _thou feltest,
thou dealedst_ or _thou dealtest, thou tossedst_ or _thou tostest, thou
losedst_ or _thou lostest, thou payedst_ or _thou paidest, thou layedst_ or
_thou laidest_, better English than _thou slept, thou left, thou felt, thou
dealt, thou tossed, thou lost, thou paid, thou laid?_ And, if so, of the
two forms in each instance, which is the right one? and why? The Bible has
"_saidst_" and "_layedst_;" Dr. Alexander Murray, "_laid'st_" and
"_laidest!_" Since the inflection of our preterits has never been orderly,
and is now decaying and waxing old, shall we labour to recall what is so
nearly ready to vanish away?

"Tremendous Sea! what time _thou lifted_ up
Thy waves on high, and with thy winds and storms
Strange pastime _took_, and _shook_ thy mighty sides
Indignantly, the pride of navies fell."--_Pollok_, B. vii, l. 611.

OBS. 15.--Whatever difficulty there is in ascertaining the true form of the
preterit itself, not