There have been many schemes offered for the emendation and settlement
of our orthography, which, like that of other nations, being formed by
chance, or according to the fancy of the earliest writers in rude ages,
was at first very various and uncertain, and is yet sufficiently
irregular. Of these reformers some have endeavoured to accommodate
orthography better to the pronunciation, without considering that this
is to measure by a shadow, to take that for a model or standard which
is changing while they apply it. Others, less absurdly indeed, but with
equal unlikelihood of success, have endeavoured to proportion the
number of letters to that of sounds, that every sound may have its own
character, and every character a single sound. Such would be the
orthography of a new language, to be formed by a synod of grammarians
upon principles of science. But who can hope to prevail on nations to
change their practice, and make all their old books useless? or what
advantage would a new orthography procure equivalent to the confusion
and perplexity of such an alteration?

Some ingenious men, indeed, have endeavoured to deserve well of their
country, by writing honor and labor for honour and labour, red for read
in the preter-tense, sais for says, repete tor repeat, explane for
explain, or declame for declaim. Of these it may be said, that as they
have done no good they have done little harm; both because they have
innovated little, and because few have followed them.

The English language has properly no dialects; the style of writers has
no professed diversity in the use of words, or of their flexions and
terminations, nor differs but by different degrees of skill or care.
The oral diction is uniform in no spacious country, but has less
variation in England than in most other nations of equal extent. The