The spelling of that day was wildly varied. _Dilworth's Speller_ was one of the earliest used, and the spelling in it differed much from that of the British Instructor. A third edition of _The Child's New Spelling Book_ was published in 1744. Famous English lesson-books known among common folk as "Readamadeasies," and book traders as "Reading Easies"--really Reading made easy--belied their name. Some had alphabets on two pages because "One Alphabet is commonly worn out before the Scholar is perfect in his Letters." It is interesting to find "Poor Richard's" sayings in these English books, but it is natural, too, when we consider Franklin's popularity abroad, and know that broadsides printed with his pithy and worldly-wise maxims were found hanging on the wall of many an English cottage. [Illustration: 42 Reading Made Easy. ceeds with all her train; warm gentle gales begin to blow, and soft falling showers moisten the earth.——The surface of the ground is adorned with young verdent flowers, the cowslip, daisy, primrose, and a thousand pleasing objects spread themselves all around; the trees put forth their green buds, and deck themselves with blossoms; the birds fill every grove with the charming music of nature; love, tunes their little voices, and they join in pairs to build their nests with care and labour; which, sometimes the playful, the careless, the giddy boy destroys. The careful farmer now ploughs up his fields, and casts the seeds into the bosom of the earth, and waits for harvest. Now too, the young and harmless lambs skip over the grass in wanton play! The cuckoo sings--and all nature seems to rejoice. Trees, which dead did late appear, Crown with leaves the rising year; Ev'ry object seems to say, Winter's gloom has pass'd away. 43 [Illustration: Farm couple with rakes and haying tools.] SUMMER Summer succeeds.--The sun now darts his beams with greater force, and the days are at the longest. The flocks and herds not being able to endure the scorching heat of the sun, retire beneath the shade of some spreading tree, or the side of some cooling stream or river. The wanton youths betake themselves to the waters and swim with pleasure over the liquid surface. Early in the morning the careful mower walks forth with his scythe on his shoulder, and sometimes with a pipe in] Not until the days of Noah Webster and his famous Spelling Book and Dictionary was there any decided uniformity of spelling. Professor Earle says the process of compelling a uniform spelling is a strife against nature. Certainly it took a long struggle against nature to make spelling uniform in America. In the same letter, men of high education would spell the same word several different ways. There was no better usage in England. The edition of Milton's _Paradise Lost_ printed in 1688 shows some very grotesque spelling. Therefore it is not strange to find a New York teacher advertising to teach "writeing and spilling."