letters are spar'd: as _Physic, Logic, Afric_, not _Physique, Logique, Afrique; favor, honor, labor_, not _favour, honour, labour_, and very many more; as also he omits the Dutch _k_ in most words; here you shall read _peeple_, not _pe-ople_, _tresure_, not _tre-asure_, _toung_, not _ton-gue_, &c.; _Parlement_, not _Parliament_; _busines, witnes, sicknes_, not _businesse, witnesse, sicknesse_; _star, war, far_, not _starre, warre, farre_; and multitudes of such words, wherein the two last letters may well be spar'd. Here you shall also read _pity, piety, witty_, not _piti-e, pieti-e, witti-e_, as strangers at first sight pronounce them, and abundance of such like words." Howel gives a weak reason for making the changes he proposes, namely, that the language will thereby be simplified to foreigners. He hints at the true one when he says that "we do not speak as we write." Dr. Webster also, speaking of certain words ending in _our_, says, "What motive could induce them to write these words, and _errour, honour, favour, inferiour_, &c., in this manner, following neither the Latin nor the French, I cannot conceive." Had Dr. Webster's knowledge of the written English language been as great as it undoubtedly was of its linguistic relations, he would have seen that the _spelling_ followed the _accent_. The third verse of the Prologue to the "Canterbury Tales" would have satisfied him:-- "And bathéd every root in such licoúr"; and a little farther on,-- "Or swinken with his houdés and laboúre." In this respect the spelling of our older writers, where it can be depended on, and especially of reformers like Howel, is of value, as throwing some light on the question, how long the Norman pronunciation lingered in England. Warner, for instance, in his "Albion's England," spells _creator_ and _creature_ as they are spelt now, but gives the French accent to both; and we are inclined to think that the charge of speaking "right Chaucer," brought against the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth, referred rather to accent than diction.