t
it is written "more correctly _heared_."--_Octavo Dict._, 1829. Such
pronunciation would doubtless require this last orthography, "_heared_;"
but both are, in fact, about as fanciful as his former mode of spelling,
which ran thus: "_Az_ I had _heerd_ suggested by _frends_ or indifferent
_reeders_."--_Dr. Webster's Essays, Preface_, p. 10.

OBS. 2.--When a verb ends in a sharp consonant, _t_ is sometimes improperly
substituted for _ed_, making the preterit and the perfect participle
irregular in spelling, when they are not so in sound; as, _distrest_ for
_distressed, tost_ for _tossed, mixt_ for _mixed, cract_ for _cracked_.
These contractions are now generally treated as _errors_ in writing; and
the verbs are accordingly (with a few exceptions) accounted regular. Lord
Kames commends Dean Swift for having done "all in his power to restore the
syllable _ed_;" says, he "possessed, if any man ever did, the true genius
of the English tongue;" and thinks that in rejecting these ugly
contractions, "he well deserves to be imitated."--_Elements of Criticism_,
Vol. ii, p. 12. The regular orthography is indeed to be preferred in all
such cases; but the writing of _ed_ restores no syllable, except in solemn
discourse; and, after all, the poems of Swift have so very many of these
irregular contractions in _t_, that one can hardly believe his lordship had
ever read them. Since the days of these critics still more has been done
towards the restoration of the _ed_, in orthography, though not in sound;
but, even at this present time, our poets not unfrequently write, _est_ for
_essed_ or _ess'd_, in forming the preterits or participles of verbs that
end in the syllable _ess_. This is an ill practice, which needlessly
multiplies our redundant verbs, and greatly embarrasses what it seems at
first to simplify: as,

"O friend! I know not which way I must look
For comfort, being, as I am, _opprest_,
To think that now our life is only _drest_
For show."--_Wordsworth's Poetical Works_, 8vo, p. 119.

OBS. 3.--When the verb ends with a smooth consonant, the substitution of
_t_ for _ed_ produces an irregularity in sound as well as in writing. In
some such irregularities, the poets are indulged for the sake of rhyme; but
the best speakers and writers of prose prefer the regular form, wherever
good use has sanctioned it: thus _learned_ is better than _learnt; burned_,
than _burnt; penned_, than _pent; absorbed_, than _absorbt; sp