APPENDIX FEW CHANGES have taken place in the orthography of the English language since the time of Johnson, and those but trifling ones. Perhaps, in the present day, there are about from 1,800 to 2,000 words, the spelling of which, either in their simple or inflected forms, is unsettled. In the foregoing Exercises, nearly all these will be found spelt in the manner which seems most usual in current literature. Before the time of Johnson, back to that of Elizabeth, the public had excellent models on which to frame their spelling, in Addison, Pope, Dryden, Milton, Shakespere, and in the translation of the Bible. Yet the spelling of the mass of educated people was so faulty in the seventeenth and greater part of the eighteenth century, that the private letters of the ladies and gentlemen of that period would now serve as exercises for schoolboy correction. From the age of Elizabeth to that of Edward III. was the period of so-called middle, or mixed, or compound English. During this time, the amalgamation of the different elements of our language was perfected. Some authors seem to have tried experiments in spelling; others wrote down their words as they were pronounced. The invention of printing at first added to the confusion of English spelling. Foreigners were employed to cut the type, and in their ignorance of the language, perverted the spelling, substituting |