This much I have thought good to say in respect of that entire revolution in English orthography, which some rash innovators have proposed. Let me, dismissing them and their innovations, call your attention now to those changes in spelling which are constantly going forward, at some periods more rapidly than at others, but which never wholly cease out of a language; while at the same time I endeavour to trace, where this is possible, the motives and inducements which bring them about. It is a subject which none can neglect, who desire to obtain even a tolerably accurate acquaintance with their native tongue. Some principles have been laid down in the course of what has been said already, that may help us to judge whether the changes which have found place in our own have been for better or for worse. We shall find, if I am not mistaken, of both kinds.
There are alterations in spelling which are for the worse. Thus an altered spelling will sometimes obscure the origin of a word, concealing it from those who, but for this, would at once have known whence and what it was, and would have found both pleasure and profit in this knowledge. I need not say that in all those cases where the earlier spelling revealed the secret of the word, told its history, which the latter defaces or conceals, the change has been injurious, and is to be regretted; while, at the same time, where it has thoroughly established itself, there is nothing to do but to acquiesce in it: the attempt to undo it would be absurd. Thus, when ‘gro_c_er’ was spelt ‘gro_ss_er’, it was comparatively easy to see that he first had his name, because he sold his wares not by retail, but in the _gross_. ‘Co_x_comb’ tells us nothing now; but it did when spelt, as it used to be, ‘co_cks_comb’, the _comb_ of a _cock_ being then an ensign or token which the fool was accustomed to wear. In ‘grogra_m_’ we are entirely to seek for the derivation; but in ‘grogra_n_’ or ‘grogra_in_’, as earlier it was spelt, one could scarcely miss ‘grosgrain’, the stuff of a _coarse grain_ or woof. How many now understand ‘woodbin_e_’? but who could have helped understanding ‘woodbin_d_’ (Ben Jonson)? What a mischievous alteration in spelling is ‘d_i_vest’ instead of ‘d_e_vest’{ 240}. This change is so recent that I am tempted to ask whether it would not here be possible to return to the only intelligible spelling of this word.