Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II - With an Account of Salem Village and a History of Opinions - on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects by Charles Upham
page 281 of 1066 (26%)
page 281 of 1066 (26%)
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the case with Bray Wilkins. We can hardly reach any decisive
conclusions as to the intelligence or education of the people of that day from their handwriting, or construction of sentences, much less from their spelling. Their forms of speech were very different from ours in many respects. What, at first view, we might be apt to call errors of ignorance, were perhaps conformity to good usage at the time. Their use of verbs is different from ours, particularly in the subjunctive mood, and in conjugation generally. They did not follow our rule in reference to number. When the nominative was a plural noun, or several nouns, they often employ the connected verb in the singular number, and _vice versâ_. They were inclined to make construction conform to the sense, rather than to the letter. It is not certain that their usage, in this particular, is wholly indefensible. Cicero, in his fifth oration against Verres, couples _rem_ with _futurum_. This was looked upon by some editors as an error, and they altered the text accordingly; but Aulus Gelius, in his "Attic Nights," maintains that it is the true reading, and, in view of the sense of the passage, a legitimate and elegant use of language. He cites instances, in Latin and Greek authors of the highest standard, of a similar usage. Nothing, or scarcely any thing, can be inferred from spelling. It was wholly unsettled among the best-educated men, and in the practice of the same person. In Winthrop's "Journal," he spells the name of his distinguished friend--the governor of both Massachusetts and Connecticut--sometimes Haynes, and sometimes Haines. The _r_ is generally dropped from his own signature, or, if not intentionally dropped, is quite lost in one or the other of the contiguous letters. It is a curious circumstance, that the name "Winthrop" is spelled differently by our governor, his wife, and his son, the governor of |
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