ot approve; that is, does not consider the right way. But this
is plainly assuming that there is but one right way. Begging his
pardon, is he quite certain that there must be true and false, good
and bad, right and wrong ways of spelling every word in every
language, or even in our own? It seems very doubtful. At all events,
we must, I think, tether the critic to his own particular period, and
not let him range up and down at his pleasure, condemning the past and
legislating for the future.

No doubt there is at this time a common and usual way of spelling most
words, which may claim to be called the right way, or _orthography_.
It is equally certain, that for any individual writer to depart from
that way, is anything but a mark of wisdom. At the same time, it would
not be difficult to specify a considerable number of words, of which
the spelling has only recently been made what it is, and about which,
even now, doubts may be raised.

But this is hardly worth mentioning, for it is clear that there is,
generally speaking, a mode of spelling the English language which is
followed by all well-educated persons; and as, according to
Quintilian, the _consensus eruditorum_ forms the _consuetudo
sermonis_, so this usage of spelling, adopted by general consent of
the learned, becomes a law in the republic of literature. My object is
not to insist on what is so plain and notorious, but rather to call
attention to a fact which many readers do not know, and many others do
not duly consider. I mean this fact--that three or four hundred years
ago there was no such settled rule. Not that a different mode was
recognised, but that there was no recognised mode. There was no idea
in the minds of persons who had occasion to write, that any such thing
existed, for in fact it did not exist; and the adoption of this or
that mode was a matter of taste or accident, rather than of duty or
propriety. Thus it was that the writer who spelt (or spelled, for we
have some varieties still) a word variously in different parts of the
same book or document, and even the printer whose own name appeared
one way on the title-page and another on the colophon, was not
contradicting his contemporaries or himself: he was not breaking the
law, for there was none to break--or, at least, none that could be
broken in that way. He would, perhaps, have said to the same effect,
though not so elegantly as Quintilian: 'For my part, except where
there is any established