DISSERTATIONS ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: WITH NOTES, HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. To which is added, BY WAY OF APPENDIX, AN +ESSAY+ ON A REFORMED MODE OF SPELLING, WITH DR. _FRANKLIN'S_ ARGUMENTS ON THAT SUBJECT. * * * * * BY NOAH WEBSTER, JUN. ESQUIRE. * * * * * ----PRIMA DISCENTIUM ELEMENTA, IN QUIBUS ET IPSIS PARUM ELABORATUR. _TACITUS._ * * * * * [Illustration: IT & Co] PRINTED AT _BOSTON_, FOR THE AUTHOR, BY ISAIAH THOMAS AND COMPANY, MDCCLXXXIX. TO HIS EXCELLENCY, _Benjamin Franklin, Esq_; LL.D. F.R.S. Late PRESIDENT of the COMMONWEALTH of PENNSYLVANIA, The following DISSERTATIONS Are most respectfully Inscribed, By His Excellency's Most obliged and most obedient Servant, _The Author._ Dedications are usually designed to flatter the Great, to acknowlege their services, or court their favor and influence. But very different motives have led me to prefix the venerable name of FRANKLIN to this publication. Respect for his Excellency's talents and exertions, as a great Philosopher and a warm Patriot, I feel in common with all the lovers of science and freedom; but my peculiar admiration of his character, arises from considering it as _great_ in _common things_. His Excellency has not labored to perplex himself and confound his countrymen with ingenious theories in ethics, and unintelligible speculations in theology and metaphysics. He has not compiled volumes to prove or disprove the probability of universal salvation, or the eternal duration of future punishments; content with a plain doctrine, taught by philosophy and common sense, and confirmed by christianity, that virtue and happiness, vice and punishment, are inseparably connected, and that "if we do well here, we shall fare well hereafter." In the most elevated stations of life, his Excellency has never been above a constant application to some useful business; thus complying with that precept of the fourth command, "_six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work_," which is as positive an injunction, and as binding upon all men, as the first article, "_remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy_."