“

"There seems, Sir, to be some misapprehension between us respecting the opinions advanced in your Notes & my Essays. You suppose I have mistaken your arguments respecting the Constitution of Virginia or at least the design of them--On reviewing your arguments & my answer, I do not find the ground of the supposition. I must have understood your design as now explained, for I begin my remarks on your argument, with a passage of yours in which your [ sic ] express the same opinion as is contained in your letter. You repeat in your letter the opinion advanced in the Notes, that “there are some fundamental rights which a state ought not to place in the power of an ordinary legislature”. It is this opinion which I have combated in my Essays. However it is not material--if I have mistaken your design, I hope I have not given any false coloring to your arguments . . .”

Noah Webster, 1758-1843, lexicographer. The final paragraphs at the end of the Preface to this work (dated from Hartford, June 1790), explain the orthography: The reeder wil obzerv that the orthography of the volum iz not uniform. The reezon iz, that many of the essays hav been publisehd before, in the common orthography, and it would hav been a laborious task to copy the whole, for the sake of changing the spelling.

In the essays, ritten within the last yeer, a considerable change of spelling iz introduced by way of experiment. This liberty waz taken by the writers before the age of queen Elizabeth, and to this we are indeted for the preference of modern spelling over that of Gower and Chaucer. The man who admits that the change of housbonde, mynde, ygone, moneth into husband, mind, gone, month, iz an improovment, must acknowledge also the riting of helth, breth, rong, tung, munth, to be an improovment. There iz no alternativ. Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors.

For other works by Noah Webster in this Catalogue, see the Index.

The Advertisement is dated from Richmond, Dec. 6th, 1804, and reads: An association was formed during the last summer, by a few gentlemen, of whom some are now, and others have been, inhabitants of this city, for the purpose of composing a series of Miscellaneous Essays for the Richmond Enquirer. These Essays were regularly published every Saturday, during the months of August, September, and October. The first number appeared on the 11th of August, and the last on the 20th of October. These numbers, taken together in the order in which they were published, will constitute the first series of the Rainbow: and it is this first series which is now presented by the proprietors of the Enquirer to the amateurs of Literature, and to its patrons in Virginia. The second series will probably be communicated to the public in the present form, as soon as it shall be completed by the members of the association.

The Rainbow contains ten numbers. No more was published.