"Thy firm unshak'n vertue ever brings,"
which shows how much faith we need give to the apostrophe.
[365] Mr. Masson might have cited a good example of this from
Drummond, whom (as a Scotsman) he is fond of quoting for an authority
in English,--
"Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest."
The survival of _Horse_ for _horses_ is another example. So by a
reverse process _pult_ and _shay_ have been vulgarly deduced from the
supposed plurals _pulse_ and _chaise_.
[366] Chapman's spelling is presumably his own. At least he looked
after his printed texts. I have two copies of his "Byron's
Conspiracy," both dated 1608, but one evidently printed later than
the other, for it shows corrections. The more solemn ending in _ed_
was probably kept alive by the reading of the Bible in churches.
Though now dropped by the clergy, it is essential to the right
hearing of the more metrical passages in the Old Testament, which are
finer and more scientiflc than anything in the language, unless it be
some parts of "Samson Agonistes." I remember an old gentleman who
always used the contracted form of the participle in conversation,
but always gave it back its embezzled syllable in reading. Sir Thomas
Browne seems to have preferred the more solemn form. At any rate he
has the spelling _empuzzeled_ in prose.
[367] He thinks the same of the variation _strook_ and _struck_,
though they were probably pronounced alike. In Marlowe's "Faustus"
two consecutive sentences (in prose) begin with the words "Cursed be
he that struck." In a note on the passage Mr. Dyce tells us that the
old editions (there were three) have _stroke_ and _strooke_ in the
first instance, and all agree on _strucke_ in the second. No
inference can be drawn from such casualties.
[368] The lines are _not_ "from one of the Satires," and Milton made
them worse by misquoting and bringing _love_ jinglingly near to
_grove_. Hall's verse (in his Satires) is always vigorous and often
harmonious. He long before Milton spoke of rhyme almost in the very
terms of the preface to Paradise Lost.
[369] Mr. Masson goes so far as to conceive it possible that Milton
may have committed the vulgarism of leaving a _t_ out of _slep'st_,
"for ease of sound." Yet the poet could bear _boast'st_ and--one
stares and gasps at it--_doat'dst_. There is, by the way, a familiar
passage in which the _ch_ sound predominates, not without a touch of
_sh_, in a single couplet:--
"Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe su_ch_ divine enchanting ravi_sh_ment?"