early writers using them promiscuously, some using them uniformly, and others making no use of them; and really they are of no use but to puzzle children and foreigners, perplex poets, and furnish an awkward dialect to that exemplary sect of Christians, who in every thing else study simplicity.”—­Fowle’s True E. Gram., Part II, p. 26.  Wells, a still later writer, gives this unsafe rule:  “When the past tense is a monosyllable not ending in a single vowel, the second person singular of the solemn style is generally formed by the addition of est; as heardest, fleddest, tookest. Hadst, wast, saidst, and didst, are exceptions.”—­Wells’s School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 106; 3d Ed., p. 110; 113th Ed., p. 115.  Now the termination d or ed commonly adds no syllable; so that the regular past tense of any monosyllabic verb is, with a few exceptions, a monosyllable still; as, freed, feed, loved, feared, planned, turned:  and how would these sound with est added, which Lowth, Hiley, Churchill, and some others erroneously claim as having pertained to such preterits anciently?  Again, if heard is a contraction of heared, and fled, of fleed, as seems probable; then are heardst and fledtst, which are sometimes used, more regular than heardest, fleddest:  so of many other preterits.

[251] Chaucer appears not to have inflected this word in the second person:  “Also ryght as thou were ensample of moche folde errour, righte so thou must be ensample of manifold correction.”—­Testament of Love.  “Rennin and crie as thou were wode.”—­House of Fame.  So others:  “I wolde thou were cold or hoot.”—­WICKLIFFE’S VERSION OF THE APOCALYPSE.  “I wolde thou were cold or hote.”—­VERSION OF EDWARD VI:  Tooke, Vol. ii, p. 270.  See Rev., iii, 15:  “I would thou wert cold or hot.”—­COMMON VERSION.

[252] See evidence of the antiquity of this practice, in the examples under the twenty-third observation above.  According to Churchill, it has had some local continuance even to the present time.  For, in a remark upon Lowth’s contractions, lov’th, turn’th, this author says, “These are still in use in some country places, the third person singular of verbs in general being formed by the addition of the sound th simply, not making an additional syllable.”—­Churchill’s Gram., p. 255 So the eth in the following example adds no syllable:—­

“Death goeth about the field, rejoicing mickle
To see a sword that so surpass’d his sickle.”
Harrington’s Ariosto, B. xiii: 
see Singer’s Shak., Vol. ii, p. 296.

[253] The second person singular of the simple verb do, is now usually written dost, and read dust; being permanently contracted in orthography, as well as in pronunciation.  And perhaps the compounds may follow; as, Thou undost, outdost, misdost, overdost, &c.  But exceptions to exceptions are puzzling, even when they conform to the general rule.  The Bible has dost and doth for auxilliaries, and doest and doeth for principal verbs.