from the primitive, as explain and explanation, repeat and repetition.

Some combinations of letters having the same power are used
indifferently without any discoverable reason of choice, as in
choak, choke; soap, sope; jewel, fuel, and many others; which I
have sometimes inserted twice, that those who search for them under
either form, may not search in vain.

In examining the orthography of any doubtful word, the mode of
spelling by which it is inserted in the series of the dictionary,
is to be considered as that to which I give, perhaps not often
rashly, the preference. I have left, in the examples, to every
authour his own practice unmolested, that the reader may balance
suffrages, and judge between us: but this question is not always
to be determined by reputed or by real learning; some men, intent
upon greater things, have thought little on sounds and derivations;
some, knowing in the ancient tongues, have neglected those in which
our words are commonly to be sought. Thus Hammond writes fecibleness
for feasibleness, because I suppose he imagined it derived immediately
from the Latin; and some words, such as dependant, dependent,
dependence, dependence, vary their final syllable, as one or another
language is present to the writer.

In this part of the work, where caprice has long wantoned without
controul, and vanity sought praise by petty reformation, I have
endeavoured to proceed with a scholar's reverence for antiquity,
and a grammarian's regard to the genius of our tongue. I have
attempted few alterations, and among those few, perhaps the greater
part is from the modern to the ancient practice; and I hope I may
be allowed to recommend to those, whose thoughts have been perhaps