'Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una ?' To change all would be too much, and to change one is nothing.
This uncertainty is most frequent in the vowels, which are so capriciously pronounced, and so differently modified, by accident or affectation, not only in every province, but in every mouth, that to them, as is well known to etymologists, little regard is to be shown in the deduction of one language from another.
Such defects are not errors in orthography, but spots of barbarity impressed so deep in the English language, that criticism can never wash them away: these, therefore, must be permitted to remain untouched; but many words have likewise been altered by accident, or depraved by ignorance, as the pronunciation of the vulgar has been weakly followed; and some still continue to be variously written, as authors differ in their care or skill: of these it was proper to inquire the true orthography, which I have always considered as depending on their derivation, and have therefore referred them to their original languages; thus I write _enchant_, _enchantment_, _enchanter_, after the French, and _incantation_ after the Latin; thus _entire_ is chosen rather than _intire_, because it passed to us not from the Latin _integer_, but from the French _entier_.
Of many words it is difficult to say whether they were immediately received from the Latin or the French, since at the time when we had dominions in France, we had Latin service in our churches.

It is, however, my opinion that the French generally supplied us; for we have few Latin words, among the terms of domestic use, which are not French; but many French, which are very remote from Latin.
Even in words of which the derivation is apparent, I have been often obliged to sacrifice uniformity to custom; thus I write, in compliance with a numberless majority, _convey_ and _inveigh_, _deceit_ and _receipt_, _fancy_ and _phantom_; sometimes the derivative varies from the primitive, as _explain_ and _explanation_, _repeat_ and _repetition_.
Some combinations of letters having the same power, are used indifferently without any discoverable reason of choice, as in _choak, choke; soap, sope; fewel, fuel_, and many others; which I have sometimes inserted twice, that those who search for them under either form, may not search in vain.
In examining the orthography of any doubtful word, the mode of spelling by which it is inserted in the series of the dictionary, is to be considered as that to which I give, perhaps not often rashly, the preference.

I have left, in the examples, to every author his own practice unmolested, that the reader may balance suffrages, and judge between us: but this question is not always to be determined by reputed or by real learning; some men, intent upon greater things, have thought little on sounds and derivations; some, knowing in the ancient tongues, have neglected those in which our words are commonly to be sought.

Thus Hammond writes _fecibleness_ for _feasibleness_, because I suppose he imagined it derived immediately from the Latin; and some words, such as _dependant, dependent; dependance, dependence_, vary their final syllable, as one or other language is present to the writer.
In this part of the work, where caprice has long wantoned without control, and vanity sought praise by petty reformation, I have endeavored to proceed with a scholar's reverence for antiquity, and a grammarian's regard to the genius of our tongue.

I have attempted few alterations, and among those few, perhaps the greater part is from the modern to the ancient practice; and I hope I may be allowed to recommend to those, whose thoughts have been perhaps employed too anxiously on verbal singularities, not to disturb, upon narrow views, or for minute propriety, the orthography of their fathers.