offends equally against the phonetic and the etymological principle (it comes from Anglo-Saxon wîf-men). How much better were it to confess candidly that we cling to our modes of spelling, and are determined to perpetuate them, simply because they are ours, and we are used to and love them, with all their absurdities, rather than try to make them out inherently desirable! Even if the irregularities of English orthography were of historical origin throughout—as, in fact, they are so only in part—it is not the business of writing to teach or suggest etymologies. We have already noted it as one of the distinguishing excellencies of the Indo-European languages, that they are so ready to forget the derivation of a term in favour of the convenience of its practical use: he, then, is ready to abnegate a hereditary advantage of his mode of speech, who, for the sake of occasional gratification to a few curious heads, would rivet for ever upon the millions of writers and readers of English the burden of such an orthography. The real etymologist, the historic student of language, is wholly independent of any such paltry assistance, and would rejoice above measure to barter every "historical" item in our spelling during the last three hundred years for a strict phonetic picture of the language as spoken at that distance in the past. Nor do we gain a straw's weight of advantage in the occasional distinction to the eye of words which are of different signification, though pronounced alike: our language is not so Chinese in its character as to require aid of this sort; our writing needs not to guard against ambiguities which are never felt in our spoken speech; we should no more miss the graphic distinction of meet, meat, and mete, of right, write, and rite, than we do now that of the two cleave's and page's, the three or four found's and sound's, or the other groups of homonyms of the same class.
It may well be the case that a thorough reform of English orthography will be found for ever impracticable; it certainly will be so, while the public temper remains what it now is. But let us at any rate acknowledge the truth, that a reformation is greatly to be desired, and perhaps, at some time in the future, a way will be found to bring it about. If we expect and wish that our tongue become one day a world-language,
