[292] “And the man in whom the evil spirit was, leapt on them.”—­FRIENDS’ BIBLE:  Acts, xix, 16.  In Scott’s Bible, and several others, the word is “leaped.”  Walker says, “The past time of this verb is generally heard with the diphthong short; and if so, it ought to be spelled leapt, rhyming with kept.”—­Walker’s Pron.  Dict., w.  Leap.  Worcester, who improperly pronounces leaped in two ways, “l~ept or l=ept,” misquotes Walker, as saying, “it ought to be spelled lept.”—­Universal and Critical Dict., w.  Leap.  In the solemn style, leaped is, of course, two syllables.  As for leapedst or leaptest, I know not that either can be found.

[293] Acquit is almost always formed regularly, thus:  acquit, acquitted, acquitting, acquitted. But, like quit, it is sometimes found in an irregular form also; which, if it be allowable, will make it redundant:  as, “To be acquit from my continual smart.”—­SPENCER:  Johnson’s Dict. “The writer holds himself acquit of all charges in this regard.”—­Judd, on the Revolutionary War, p. 5.  “I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box.”—­SHAK.

[294]

   “Not know my voice!  O, time’s extremity! 
    Hast thou so crack’d and splitted my poor tongue?”
        —­SHAK.:  Com. of Er.

[295] Whet is made redundant in Webster’s American Dictionary, as well as in Wells’s Grammar; but I can hardly affirm that the irregular form of it is well authorized.

[296] In S. W. Clark’s Practical Grammar, first published in 1847—­a work of high pretensions, and prepared expressly “for the education of Teachers”—­sixty-three out of the foregoing ninety-five Redundant Verbs, are treated as having no regular or no irregular forms. (1.) The following twenty-nine are omitted by this author, as if they were always regular; belay, bet, betide, blend, bless, curse, dive, dress, geld, lean, leap, learn, mulet, pass, pen, plead, prove, rap, reave, roast, seethe, smell, spoil, stave, stay, wake, wed, whet, wont. (2.) The following thirty-four are given by him as being always irregular; abide, bend, beseech, blow, burst, catch, chide, creep, deal, freeze, grind, hang, knit, lade, lay, mean, pay, shake, sleep, slide, speed, spell, spill, split, string, strive, sweat, sweep, thrive, throw, weave, weep, wet, wind.  Thirty-two of the ninety-five are made redundant by him, though not so called in his book.

In Wells’s School Grammar, “the 113th Thousand,” dated 1850, the deficiencies of the foregoing kinds, if I am right, are about fifty.  This author’s “List of Irregular Verbs” has forty-four Redundants, to which he assigns a regular form as well as an irregular.  He is here about as much nearer right than Clark, as this number surpasses thirty-two, and comes towards ninety-five.  The words about which they differ, are—­pen, seethe, and whet, of the former number; and catch, deal, hang, knit, spell, spill, sweat, and thrive, of the latter.