would seem, used the mode of spelling now in question. In Ash, of 1799, we have such orthography as this: "Italics, public, domestic, our traffic, music, quick; error, superior, warrior, authors, honour, humour, favour, behaviour." In Priestley, of 1772: "Iambics, dactyls, dactylic, anapæstic, monosyllabic, electric, public, critic; author, emperor's, superior; favour, labours, neighbours, laboured, vigour, endeavour; meagre, hillock, bailiwick, bishoprick, control, travelling." In Lowth, of 1799: "Comic, critic, characteristic, domestic; author, favor, favored, endeavored, alledging, foretells." Now all these are words in the spelling of which Johnson and Webster contradict each other; and if they are not all right, surely they would not, on the whole, be made more nearly right, by being conformed to either of these authorities exclusively. For THE BEST USAGE is the ultimate rule of grammar.
OBS. 8.--The old British Grammar, written before the American Revolution, and even before "the learned Mr. Samuel Johnson" was doctorated, though it thus respectfully quotes that great scholar, does not follow him in the spelling of which I am treating. On the contrary, it abounds with examples of words ending in ic and or, and not in ick and our, as he wrote them; and I am confident, that, from that time to this, the former orthography has continued to be more common than his. Walker, the orthoëpist, who died in 1807, yielded the point respecting the k, and ended about four hundred and fifty words with c in his Rhyming Dictionary; but he thought it more of an innovation than it really was. In his Pronouncing Dictionary, he says, "It has been a custom, within these twenty years, to omit the k at the end of words, when preceded by c. This has introduced a novelty into the language, which is that of ending a word with an unusual letter," &c. "This omission of k is, however, too general to be counteracted, even by the authority of Johnson; but it is to be hoped it will be confined to words from the learned languages."-- Walker's Principles of Pronunciation, No. 400. The tenth edition of Burn's Grammar, dated 1810, says, "It has become customary to omit k after c at the end of dissyllables and trisyllables, &c. as music, arithmetic, logic; but the k is retained in monosyllables; as, back, deck, rick, &c."--P. 25. James Buchanan, of whose English Syntax there had been five American editions in 1792, added no k to such words as didactic, critic, classic, of which he made frequent use; and though he wrote honour, labour, and the like, with u, as they are perhaps most generally written now, he inserted no u in error, author, or any of those words in which that letter would now be inconsistent with good taste.
OBS. 9.--Bicknell's Grammar, of 1790, treating of the letter k, says, "And for the same reason we have dropt it at the end of words after c, which is there always hard; as in publick, logick, &c. which are more elegantly written public, logic."--Part ii, p. 13. Again: "It has heretofore joined with c at the end of words; as publick, logick; but, as before observed, being there quite superfluous, it is now left out"--Ib., p. 16. Horne Tooke's orthography was also agreeable to the rule which I have given on this subject. So is the usage of David Booth: "Formerly a k was added, as, rustick, politick, Arithmetick, &c. but this is now in disuse."--Booth's Introd. to Dict., Lond., 1814, p. 80.
OBS. 10.--As the authors of many recent spelling-books--Cobb, Emerson, Burhans, Bolles, Sears, Marshall, Mott, and others--are now contending for this "superfluous letter," in spite of all the authority against it, it seems proper briefly to notice their argument, lest the student be misled by it. It is summed up by one of them in the following words: "In regard to k after c at the end of words, it may be sufficient to say, that its omission has never been attempted, except in a small portion of the cases where it occurs; and that it tends to an erroneous pronunciation of derivatives, as in mimick, mimicking, where, if the k were omitted, it would read mimicing; and as c before i is always sounded like s, it must be pronounced mimising. Now, since it is never omitted in monosyllables, where it most frequently occurs, as in block, clock, &c., and can be in a part only of polysyllables, it is thought better to preserve it in all cases, by which we have one general rule, in place of several irregularities and exceptions that must follow its partial omission."--Bolles's Spelling-Book, p. 2. I need not tell the reader that these two sentences evince great want of care or skill in the art of grammar. But it is proper to inform him, that we have in our language eighty-six monosyllables which end with ck, and from them about fifty compounds or derivatives, which of course keep the same termination. To these may be added a dozen or more which seem to be of doubtful formation, such as huckaback, pickapack, gimcrack, ticktack, picknick, barrack, knapsack, hollyhock, shamrock, hammock, hillock, hammock, bullock, roebuck. But the verbs on which this argument is founded are only six; attack, ransack, traffick, frolick, mimick, and physick; and these, unquestionably, must either be spelled with the k, or must assume it in their derivatives. Now that useful class of words which are generally and properly written with final c, are about four hundred and fifty in number, and are all of them either adjectives or nouns of regular derivation from the learned languages, being words of more than one syllable, which have come to us from Greek or Latin roots. But what has the doubling of c by k, in our native monosyllables and their derivatives, to do with all these words of foreign origin? For the reason of the matter, we might as well double the l, as our ancestors did, in naturall, temporall, spirituall, &c.
OBS. 11.--The learner should observe that some letters incline much to a duplication, while gome others are doubled but seldom, and some, never. Thus, among the vowels, ee and oo occur frequently; aa is used sometimes; ii, never--except in certain Latin words, (wherein the vowels are separately uttered,) such as Horatii, Veii, iidem, genii. Again, the doubling of u is precluded by the fact that we have a distinct letter called Double-u, which was made by joining two Vees, or two Ues, when the form for u was v. So, among the consonants, f, l, and s, incline more
