It will perhaps surprize my readers to be told that, in many particular words, the modern spelling is less correct than the ancient. Yet this is a truth that reflects dishonor on our modern refiners of the language. Chaucer, four hundred years ago, wrote _bilder_ for _builder_; _dedly_ for _deadly_; _ernest_ for _earnest_; _erly_ for _early_; _brest_ for _breast_; _hed_ for _head_; and certainly his spelling was the most agreeable to the pronunciation.[186] Sidney wrote _bin_, _examin_, _sutable_, with perfect propriety. Dr. Middleton wrote _explane_, _genuin_, _revele_, which is the most easy and correct orthography of such words; and also _luster_, _theater_, for _lustre_, _theatre_. In these and many other instances, the modern spelling is a corruption; so that allowing many improvements to have been made in orthography, within a century or two, we must acknowlege also that many corruptions have been introduced. In answer to the objection, that a change of orthography would obscure etymology, I would remark, that the etymology of most words is already lost, even to the learned; and to the unlearned, etymology is never known. Where is the man that can trace back our English words to the elementary radicals? In a few instances, the student has been able to reach the primitive roots of words; but I presume the radicals of one tenth of the words in our language, have never yet been discovered, even by Junius, Skinner, or any other etymologist. Any man may look into Johnson or Ash, and find that _flesh_ is derived from the Saxon _floce_; _child_ from _cild_; _flood_ from _flod_; _lad_ from _leode_; and _loaf_ from _laf_ or _hlaf_. But this discovery will answer no other purpose, than to show, that within a few hundred years, the spelling of some words has been a little changed: We should still be at a vast distance from the primitive roots. In many instances indeed etymology will assist the learned in understanding the composition and true sense of a word; and it throws much light upon the progress of language. But the true sense of a complex term is not always, nor generally, to be learnt from the sense of the primitives or elementary words. The current meaning of a word depends on its use in a nation. This true sense is to be obtained by attending to good authors, to dictionaries and to practice, rather than to derivation. The former _must_ be _right_; the latter _may_ lead us into _error_. But to prove of how little consequence a knowlege of etymology is to most people, let me mention a few words. The word _sincere_ is derived from the Latin, _sine cera_, without wax; and thus it came to denote _purity of mind_. I am confident that not a man in a thousand ever suspected this to be the origin of the word; yet all men, that have any knowlege of our language, use the word in its true sense, and understand its customary meaning, as well as Junius did, or any other etymologist.