the two rules is likely in process of time to break down those
exceptions to the former which usage now makes familiar.

Does the reader, when he writes, hesitate perilously before the words
_distil_ or _distill_, _control_ or _controll_, _recal_ or _recall_? It
can only be said that neither Webster nor his editors could frame a rule
which they were ready to follow. They agree in their inconsistencies,
and have brought over other lexicographers in some cases to their
disposition to double the _l_. The indecision, however, which one feels
before _skilful_ or _skillful_ is more painful,--are we to say
_painfull_? Here again the first and latest editions of Webster are at
one with each other, and at variance with old and established usage. The
editors of Webster appear to yield the ground a little by conceding that
_skilful_, _dulness_, and like words are so written by many. Webster's
change in this respect seems therefore to have made no headway except in
his own family.

There are other words which may be grouped in classes, but I will
content myself with a further enumeration, somewhat at random, of words
which Webster trifled with, as his enemies might say, or reduced to
order, as he would claim; placing in parallel columns the spelling
adopted in the first edition and that followed in the latest:--

EDITION OF 1828. EDITION OF 1880.

ax ax }
axe}

controller comptroller}
controller }

contemporary contemporary}
cotemporary }

defense defense}
defence}

ambassador embassador}
ambassador}

gantlet} gantlet }
gauntlet} gauntlet}

drouth drought

group} group
groop}

height}
heighth} height}
hight} hight }

maneuver maneuver }
man[oe]uvre}

melasses molasses

mold mold }
mould}

molt molt }
moult}

plow plow }
plough}

tongue} tongue
tung }

wo woe

crum