All English verbs which vary from this mode of inflection being erroneous and irregular, ought not to be established by grammatical rules, but restored to the primitive state in the present tense, and marked in the past tense with the proper accent; or if it should appear to be necessary, to add proper conjugations. But as verbs lose their qualities or active state in the past tense, the English verbs ending in d and t in the past tense, have been very properly diminished and substantived, and accordingly contracted in their sounds, of ed to that of d and t, as taught from teached, when the ch was accented hard, and a like the German a or o, felt for feeled, checkt for checked, slept for sleeped, left for leaved, gilt for gilded, bled for bleeded, fed for feeded, had for haed, fed for feeded, fled for flyed, sold for selled, and such others as are so contracted without any other variation, that are capable of a past tense, except, _let_, _put_, _do_, _think_, and other imperatives, which can form no perfect past tense, without the aid of the auxiliary verb _have_, to express some degree of human energy or return to the creative fiat. And as all other tenses seem to be arbitrary and indefinite, the best way of expressing the minuter divisions of actions must be by adverbs or numerals.
And as there is no sort of foundation or necessity for the participle perfect, the best way of correcting those verbs which are supposed to be irregular therein, would be to drop it as superfluous, and fully as well expressed by the past tense, as help, helped, without holpen, cleave, cleaved, or cleft, instead of cleave, clave, clove and cloven, hang hanged, for hang hung. And as to the forming a regular past tense, by reducing irregular verbs to their primitive state in the present tense, the following may perhaps be no improper observation, viz. _all_ in fall, before the corrupt sound of the northern a, as that of o, was, as it ought to be, accented, like _ale_ in pale, and marked with a long accent, as signifying _from high_; its past tense accented short, as _all_ in shall; and wrote _fall_ and not fell; the e not having then taken the place of a, nor a, that of o; shake, signifying _a passionate action of a subject_, is properly accented and wrote in the present tense, but its past tense having partaken of the northern accent, it then came to be wrote and accented _shook_, instead of _shaked_, which, notwithstanding its long establishment by vulgar custom ought to be rectified accordingly; and so as to swear, heave, freeze, abide, strike, dig, and various other instances, where the e has assumed the place of a, a of o, o of a, e, i, or u, of i, or any other change of vowels from the present, to form the past tense; except such as _do_ and _did_, which are different words, and of themselves incapable of any inflection. And the English terminations _an_ and _en_, borrowed from the northern dialects, add nothing to the meaning of our names, but the English, or Engli-Saxon names, are of a southern or Celtic origin, and as fully expressive of the meaning to which they are applied without them; except where they are added to form the singular number, or to active names as substantiving articles, as in all other Celtic dialects.