The Grammar of English Grammars, page 690 by Gould Brown
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additional syllables; and, in the comparison of adjectives, er and est always add a syllable to the word, except it end in le after a mute. Thus, _free, freer, freest_, increases syllabically; but _ample, ampler, amplest_, does not. Whether any particular adjective admits of comparison or not, is a matter of reasoning from the sense of the term; by which method it shall be compared, is in some degree a matter of taste; though custom has decided that long words shall not be inflected, and for the shorter, there is generally an obvious bias in favour of one form rather than the other. Dr. Johnson says, "The comparison of adjectives is very uncertain; and being much regulated by commodiousness of utterance, or agreeableness of sound, is not easily reduced to rules. Monosyllables are commonly compared. Polysyllables, or words of more than two syllables, are seldom compared otherwise than by more and most. Dissyllables are seldom compared if they terminate in _full, less, ing, ous, ed, id, at, ent, ain, or ive_."--_Gram. of the English Tongue_, p. 6. "When the positive contains but one syllable, the degrees are usually formed by adding er or est. When the positive contains two syllables, it is matter of taste which method you shall use in forming the degrees. The ear is, in this case, the best guide. But, when the positive contains more than two syllables, the degrees must be formed by the use of more and most. We may say, tenderer and _tenderest, pleasanter_ and _pleasantest, prettier_ and _prettiest_; but who could endure delicater and _delicatest_?"--_Cobbett's E. Gram._, p. 81. _Quiet, bitter, clever, sober_, and perhaps some others like them, are still regularly compared; but such words as _secretest, famousest, virtuousest, powerfullest_, which were used by Milton, have gone out of fashion. The following, though not very commonly used, are perhaps allowable. "Yet these are the two commonest occupations of