He often prefers the
contracted form in his prose also, showing that the full form of the past
participle in _ed_ was passing out of fashion, though available in
verse.[366] Indeed, I venture to affirm that there is not a single
variety of spelling or accent to be found in Milton which is without
example in his predecessors or contemporaries. Even _highth_, which is
thought peculiarly Miltonic, is common (in Hakluyt, for example), and
still often heard in New England. Mr. Masson gives an odd reason for
Milton's preference of it "as indicating more correctly the formation of
the word by the addition of the suffix _th_ to the adjective _high_." Is
an adjective, then, at the base of _growth_, _earth_, _birth_, _truth_,
and other words of this kind? Horne Tooke made a better guess than this.
If Mr. Masson be right in supposing that a peculiar meaning is implied in
the spelling _bearth_ (Paradise Lost, IX. 624), which he interprets as
"collective produce," though in the only other instance where it occurs
it is neither more nor less than _birth_, it should seem that Milton had
hit upon Horne Tooke's etymology. But it is really solemn trifling to lay
any stress on the spelling of the original editions, after having
admitted, as Mr. Masson has honestly done, that in all likelihood Milton
had nothing to do with it.
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