The Grammar of English Grammars Part 14

Flint, Folker, S. Putnam, Cooper, Frost, Goldsbury, Hamlin, T. Smith, R. C.

Smith, and Woodworth. But a third part of these, and as many more in the preceding list, are confessedly mere modifiers of Murray's compilation; and perhaps, in such a case, those have done best who have deviated least from the track of him whom they professed to follow.[72]

9. Some seem to have supposed, that by reducing the number of the parts of speech, and of the rules for their construction, the study of grammar would be rendered more easy and more profitable to the learner. But this, as would appear from the history of the science, is a mere retrogression towards the rudeness of its earlier stages. It is hardly worth while to dispute, whether there shall be nine parts of speech or ten; and perhaps enough has already been stated, to establish the expediency of a.s.suming the latter number. Every word in the language must be included in some cla.s.s, and nothing is gained by making the cla.s.ses larger and less numerous. In all the artificial arrangements of science, distinctions are to be made according to the differences in things; and the simple question here is, what differences among words shall be at first regarded. To overlook, in our primary division, the difference between a verb and a participle, is merely to reserve for a subdivision, or subsequent explanation, a species of words which most grammarians have recognized as a distinct sort in their original cla.s.sification.

10. It should be observed that the early period of grammatical science was far remote from the days in which _English_ grammar originated. Many things which we now teach and defend as grammar, were taught and defended two thousand years ago, by the philosophers of Greece and Rome. Of the parts of speech, Quintilian, who lived in the first century of our era, gives the following account: "For the ancients, among whom were Aristotle[73] and Theodectes, treated only of verbs, nouns, and conjunctions: as the verb is what we say, and the noun, that of which we say it, they judged the power of discourse to be in _verbs_, and the matter in _nouns_, but the connexion in _conjunctions_. Little by little, the philosophers, and especially the Stoics, increased the number: first, to the conjunctions were added _articles_; afterwards, _prepositions_; to nouns, was added the _appellation_; then the _p.r.o.noun_; afterwards, as belonging to each verb, the _participle_; and, to verbs in common, _adverbs_. Our language [i. e., the _Latin_] does not require articles, wherefore they are scattered among the other parts of speech; but there is added to the foregoing the _interjection_. But some, on the authority of good authors, make the parts only eight; as Aristarchus, and, in our day, Palaemon; who have included the vocable, or appellation, with the noun, as a species of it. But they who make the noun one and the vocable an other, reckon nine. But there are also some who divide the vocable from the appellation; making the former to signify any thing manifest to sight or touch, as _house, bed_; and the latter, any thing to which either or both are wanting, as _wind, heaven, G.o.d, virtue_. They have also added the _a.s.severation_ and the _attrectation_, which I do not approve. Whether the vocable or appellation should be included with the noun or not, as it is a matter of little consequence, I leave to the decision of others."--See QUINTIL. _de Inst.

Orat._, Lib. i, Cap. 4, --24.

11. Several writers on English grammar, indulging a strange unsettlement of plan, seem not to have determined in their own minds, how many parts of speech there are, or ought to be. Among these are Horne Tooke, Webster, Dalton, Cardell, Green, and Cobb; and perhaps, from what he says above, we may add the name of Priestley. The present disputation about the sorts of words, has been chiefly owing to the writings of Horne Tooke, who explains the minor parts of speech as mere abbreviations, and rejects, with needless acrimony, the common cla.s.sification. But many have mistaken the nature of his instructions, no less than that of the common grammarians. This author, in his third chapter, supposes his auditor to say, "But you have not all this while informed me _how many parts of speech_ you mean to lay down." To whom he replies, "That shall be as you please. Either _two_, or _twenty_, or _more_." Such looseness comported well enough with his particular purpose; because he meant to teach the derivation of words, and not to meddle at all with their construction. But who does not see that it is impossible to lay down rules for the _construction_ of words, without first dividing them into the cla.s.ses to which such rules apply? For example: if a man means to teach, that, "A verb must agree with its subject, or nominative, in person and number," must he not first show the learner _what words are verbs?_ and ought he not to see in this rule a reason for not calling the participle a verb? Let the careless followers of Lowth and Priestley answer. Tooke did not care to preserve any parts of speech at all. His work is not a system of grammar; nor can it be made the basis of any regular scheme of grammatical instruction. He who will not grant that the same words may possibly be used as different parts of speech, must make his parts of speech either very few or very many. This author says, "I do not allow that _any_ words change their nature in this manner, so as to belong sometimes to one part of speech, and sometimes to another, from the different ways of using them. I never could perceive any such fluctuation in any word whatever."--_Diversions of Purley_, Vol. i, p. 68.

12. From his own positive language, I imagine this ingenious author never well considered what const.i.tutes the sameness of words, or wherein lies the difference of the parts of speech; and, without understanding these things, a grammarian cannot but fall into errors, unless he will follow somebody that knows them. But Tooke confessedly contradicts, and outfaces "_all other Grammarians_" in the pa.s.sage just cited. Yet it is plain, that the whole science of grammar--or at least the whole of etymology and syntax, which are its two princ.i.p.al parts--is based upon a division of words into the parts of speech; a division which necessarily refers, in many instances, the same words to different sections according to the manner in which they are used. "Certains mots repondent, ainsi au meme temps, a diverses parties d'oraison selon que la grammaire les emploie divers.e.m.e.nt."--_Buffier_, Art. 150. "Some words, from the different ways in which they are used, belong sometimes to one part of speech, sometimes to another."--_M'Culloch's Gram._, p. 37. "And so say all other Grammarians."--_Tooke, as above_.

13. The history of _Dr. Webster_, as a grammarian, is singular. He is remarkable for his changeableness, yet always positive; for his inconsistency, yet very learned; for his zeal "to correct popular errors,"

yet often himself erroneous; for his fertility in resources, yet sometimes meagre; for his success as an author, yet never satisfied; for his boldness of innovation, yet fond of appealing to antiquity. His grammars are the least judicious, and at present the least popular, of his works. They consist of four or five different treatises, which for their mutual credit should never be compared: it is impossible to place any firm reliance upon the authority of a man who contradicts himself so much. Those who imagine that the last opinions of so learned a man must needs be right, will do well to wait, and see what will be his last: they cannot otherwise know to what his instructions will finally lead: Experience has already taught him the folly of many of his pretended improvements, and it is probable his last opinions of English grammar will be most conformable to that just authority with which he has ever been tampering. I do not say that he has not exhibited ingenuity as well as learning, or that he is always wrong when he contradicts a majority of the English grammarians; but I may venture to say, he was wrong when he undertook to disturb the common scheme of the parts of speech, as well as when he resolved to spell all words exactly as they are p.r.o.nounced.

14. It is not commonly known with how rash a hand this celebrated author has sometimes touched the most settled usages of our language. In 1790, which was seven years after the appearance of his first grammar, he published an octavo volume of more than four hundred pages, consisting of Essays, moral, historical, political, and literary, which might have done him credit, had he not spoiled his book by a grammatical whim about the reformation of orthography. Not perceiving that English literature, multiplied as it had been within two or three centuries, had acquired a stability in some degree corresponding to its growth, he foolishly imagined it was still as susceptible of change and improvement as in the days of its infancy. Let the reader pardon the length of this digression, if for the sake of any future schemer who may chance to adopt a similar conceit, I cite from the preface to this volume a specimen of the author's practice and reasoning. The ingenious attorney had the good sense quickly to abandon this project, and content himself with less glaring innovations; else he had never stood as he now does, in the estimation of the public. But there is the more need to record the example, because in one of the southern states the experiment has recently been tried again. A still abler member of the same profession, has renewed it but lately; and it is said there are yet remaining some converts to this notion of improvement. I copy literally, leaving all my readers and his to guess for themselves why he spelled "_writers_" with a _w_ and "_riting_" without.

15. "During the course of ten or twelv yeers, I hav been laboring to correct popular errors, and to a.s.sist my yung brethren in the road to truth and virtue; my publications for theze purposes hav been numerous; much time haz been spent, which I do not regret, and much censure incurred, which my hart tells me I do not dezerv." * * * "The reeder wil observ that the _orthography_ of the volum iz not uniform. The reezon iz, that many of the essays hav been published 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 _hoasbonde, mynde, ygone, moneth_ into _husband, mind, gone, month_, iz an improovment, must acknowlege 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."--_Noah Webster's Essays, Preface_, p. xi.

16. But let us return, with our author, to the question of the parts of speech. I have shown that if we do not mean to adopt some less convenient scheme, we must count them _ten_, and preserve their ancient order as well as their ancient names.[74] And, after all his vacillation in consequence of reading Horne Tooke, it would not be strange if Dr. Webster should come at last to the same conclusion. He was not very far from it in 1828, as may be shown by his own testimony, which he then took occasion to record. I will give his own words on the point: "There is great difficulty in devising a correct cla.s.sification of the several sorts of words; and probably no cla.s.sification that shall be simple and at the same time philosophically correct, can be invented. There are some words that do not strictly fall under any description of any cla.s.s yet devised. Many attempts have been made and are still making to remedy this evil; but such schemes as I have seen, do not, in my apprehension, correct the defects of the old schemes, nor simplify the subject. On the other hand, all that I have seen, serve only to obscure and embarra.s.s the subject, by subst.i.tuting new arrangements and new terms which are as incorrect as the old ones, and less intelligible. I have attentively viewed these subjects, in all the lights which my opportunities have afforded, and am convinced that the distribution of words, most generally received, _is the best that can be formed_, with some slight alterations adapted to the particular construction of the English language."

17. This pa.s.sage is taken from the advertis.e.m.e.nt, or preface, to the Grammar which accompanies the author's edition of his great quarto Dictionary. Now the several schemes which bear his own name, were doubtless all of them among those which he had that he had "_seen_;" so that he here condemns them all collectively, as he had previously condemned some of them at each reformation. Nor is the last exempted. For although he here plainly gives his vote for that common scheme which he first condemned, he does not adopt it without "some slight alterations;" and in contriving these alterations he is inconsistent with his own professions. He makes the parts of speech _eight_, thus: "1. The name or noun; 2. The p.r.o.noun or subst.i.tute; 3. The adjective, attribute, or attributive; 4. The verb; 5.

The adverb; 6. The preposition; 7. The connective or conjunction; 8. The exclamation or interjection." In his Rudiments of English Grammar, published in 1811, "to unfold the _true principles_ of the language," his parts of speech were _seven_; "viz. 1. Names or nouns; 2. Subst.i.tutes or p.r.o.nouns; 3. Attributes or adjectives; 4. Verbs, with their participles; 5.

Modifiers or adverbs; 6. Prepositions; 7. Connectives or conjunctions." In his Philosophical and Practical Grammar, published in 1807, a book which professes to teach "the _only legitimate principles_, and established usages," of the language, a twofold division of words is adopted; first, into two general cla.s.ses, primary and secondary; then into "_seven species_ or parts of speech," the first two belonging to the former cla.s.s, the other five to the latter; thus: "1. Names or nouns; 2. Verbs; 3. Subst.i.tutes; 4.

Attributes; 5. Modifiers; 6. Prepositions; 7. Connectives." In his "Improved Grammar of the English Language," published in 1831, the same scheme is retained, but the usual names are preferred.

18. How many different schemes of cla.s.sification this author invented, I know not; but he might well have saved himself the trouble of inventing any; for, so far as appears, none of his last three grammars ever came to a second edition. In the sixth edition of his "Plain and Comprehensive Grammar, grounded on the _true principles_ and idioms of the language," a work which his last grammatical preface affirms to have been originally fas.h.i.+oned "on the model of Lowth's," the parts of speech are reckoned "_six_; nouns, articles, p.r.o.nouns, adjectives, verbs, and abbreviations or particles." This work, which he says "was extensively used in the schools of this country," and continued to be in demand, he voluntarily suppressed; because, after a profitable experiment of four and twenty years, he found it so far from being grounded on "true principles," that the whole scheme then appeared to him incorrigibly bad. And, judging from this sixth edition, printed in 1800, the only one which I have seen, I cannot but concur with him in the opinion. More than one half of the volume is a loose _Appendix_ composed chiefly of notes taken from Lowth and Priestley; and there is a great want of method in what was meant for the body of the work.

I imagine his several editions must have been different grammars with the same t.i.tle; for such things are of no uncommon occurrence, and I cannot otherwise account for the a.s.sertion that this book was compiled "on _the model of Lowth's_, and on the same principles as [those on which] Murray has constructed his."--_Advertis.e.m.e.nt in Webster's Quarto Dict., 1st Ed._

19. In a treatise on grammar, a bad scheme is necessarily attended with inconveniences for which no merit in the execution can possibly compensate.

The first thing, therefore, which a skillful teacher will notice in a work of this kind, is the arrangement. If he find any difficulty in discovering, at sight, what it is, he will be sure it is bad; for a lucid order is what he has a right to expect from him who pretends to improve upon all the English grammarians. Dr. Webster is not the only reader of the EPEA PTEROENTA, who has been thereby prompted to meddle with the common scheme of grammar; nor is he the only one who has attempted to simplify the subject by reducing the parts of speech to _six_. John Dalton of Manchester, in 1801, in a small grammar which he dedicated to Horne Tooke, made them six, but not the same six. He would have them to be, nouns, p.r.o.nouns, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. This writer, like Brightland, Tooke, Fisher, and some others, insists on it that the articles are _adjectives_. Priestley, too, throwing them out of his cla.s.sification, and leaving the learner to go almost through his book in ignorance of their rank, at length a.s.signs them to the same cla.s.s, in one of his notes. And so has Dr. Webster fixed them in his late valuable, but not faultless, dictionaries. But David Booth, an etymologist perhaps equally learned, in his "Introduction to an a.n.a.lytical Dictionary of the English Language,"

declares them to be of the same species as the _p.r.o.nouns_; from which he thinks it strange that they were ever separated! See _Booth's Introd._, p.

21.

20. Now, what can be more idle, than for teachers to reject the common cla.s.sification of words, and puzzle the heads of school-boys with speculations like these? It is easy to admit all that etymology can show to be true, and still justify the old arrangement of the elements of grammar.

And if we depart from the common scheme, where shall we stop? Some have taught that the parts of speech are only _five_; as did the latter stoics, whose cla.s.ses, according to Priscian and Harris, were these: articles, nouns appellative, nouns proper, verbs, and conjunctions. Others have made them _four_; as did Aristotle and the elder stoics, and, more recently, Milnes, Brightland, Harris, Ware, Fisher, and the author of a work on Universal Grammar, ent.i.tled Enclytica. Yet, in naming the four, each of these contrives to differ from _all the rest!_ With Aristotle, they are, "nouns, verbs, articles, and conjunctions;" with Milnes, "nouns, adnouns, verbs, and particles;" with Brightland, "names, qualities, affirmations, and particles;" with Harris, "substantives, attributives, definitives, and connectives;" with Ware, "the name, the word, the a.s.sistant, the connective;" with Fisher, "names, qualities, verbs, and particles;" with the author of Enclytica, "names, verbs, modes, and connectives." But why make the cla.s.ses so numerous as four? Many of the ancients, Greeks, Hebrews, and Arabians, according to Quintilian, made them _three_; and these three, according to Vossius, were nouns, verbs, and particles.

"Veteres Arabes, Hebraei, et Graeci, tres, non amplius, cla.s.ses faciebant; l.

Nomen, 2. Verb.u.m, 3. Particula seu Dictio."--_Voss. de a.n.a.l._, Lib. i, Cap.

1.

21. Nor is this number, _three_, quite dest.i.tute of modern supporters; though most of these come at it in an other way. D. St. Quentin, in his Rudiments of General Grammar, published in 1812, divides words into the "three general cla.s.ses" last mentioned; viz., "1. Nouns, 2. Verbs, 3.

Particles."--P. 5. Booth, who published the second edition of his etymological work in 1814, examining severally the ten parts of speech, and finding what he supposed to be the true origin of all the words in some of the cla.s.ses, was led to throw one into an other, till he had destroyed seven of them. Then, resolving that each word ought to be cla.s.sed according to the meaning which its etymology fixes upon it, he refers the number of cla.s.ses to _nature_, thus: "If, then, each [word] has a _meaning_, and is capable of raising an idea in the mind, that idea must have its prototype in nature. It must either denote an _exertion_, and is therefore a _verb_; or a _quality_, and is, in that case, an _adjective_; or it must express an _a.s.semblage_ of qualities, such as is observed to belong to some individual object, and is, on this supposition, the _name_ of such object, or a _noun_. * * * We have thus given an account of the different divisions of words, and have found that the whole may be cla.s.sed under the three heads of Names, Qualities, and Actions; or Nouns, Adjectives, and Verbs."--_Introd. to a.n.a.lyt. Dict._, p. 22.

22. This notion of the parts of speech, as the reader will presently see, found an advocate also in the author of the popular little story of Jack Halyard. It appears in his Philosophic Grammar published in Philadelphia in 1827. Whether the writer borrowed it from Booth, or was led into it by the light of "nature," I am unable to say: he does not appear to have derived it from the ancients. Now, if either he or the lexicographer has discovered in "nature" a prototype for this scheme of grammar, the discovery is only to be proved, and the schemes of all other grammarians, ancient or modern, must give place to it. For the reader will observe that this triad of parts is not that which is mentioned by Vossius and Quintilian. But authority may be found for reducing the number of the parts of speech yet lower. Plato, according to Harris, and the first inquirers into language, according to Horne Tooke, made them _two_; nouns and verbs, which Crombie, Dalton, M'Culloch, and some others, say, are the only parts essentially necessary for the communication of our thoughts. Those who know nothing about grammar, regard all words as of _one_ cla.s.s. To them, a word is simply a word; and under what other name it may come, is no concern of theirs.

23. Towards this point, tends every attempt to simplify grammar by suppressing any of the _ten_ parts of speech. Nothing is gained by it; and it is a departure from the best authority. We see by what steps this kind of reasoning may descend; and we have an admirable ill.u.s.tration of it in the several grammatical works of William S. Cardell. I shall mention them in the order in which they appeared; and the reader may judge whether the author does not ultimately arrive at the conclusion to which the foregoing series is conducted. This writer, in his Essay on Language, reckons seven parts of speech; in his New-York Grammar, six; in his Hartford Grammar, three princ.i.p.al, with three others subordinate; in his Philadelphia Grammar, three only--nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Here he alleges, "The unerring plan of _nature_ has established three cla.s.ses of perceptions, and consequently three parts of speech."--P. 171. He says this, as if he meant to abide by it. But, on his twenty-third page, we are told, "Every adjective is either a noun or a participle." Now, by his own showing, there are no participles: he makes them all adjectives, in each of his schemes.

It follows, therefore, that all his adjectives, including what others call participles, are nouns. And this reduces his three parts of speech to two, in spite of "the unerring plan of _nature!_" But even this number is more than he well believed in; for, on the twenty-first page of the book, he affirms, that, "All other terms are but derivative forms and new applications of _nouns_." So simple a thing is this method of grammar! But Neef, in his zeal for reformation, carries the anticlimax fairly off the brink; and declares, "In the grammar which shall be the work of my pupils, there shall be found no nouns, no p.r.o.nouns, no articles, no participles, no verbs, no prepositions, no conjunctions, no adverbs, no interjections, no gerunds, not even one single supine. Unmercifully shall they be banished from it."--_Neef's Method of Education_, p. 60.

24. When Cardell's system appeared, several respectable men, convinced by "his powerful demonstrations," admitted that he had made "many things in the _established doctrines_ of the expounders of language appear sufficiently ridiculous;" [75] and willingly lent him the influence of their names, trusting that his admirable scheme of English grammar, in which their ignorance saw nothing but new truth, would be speedily "perfected and generally embraced." [76] Being invited by the author to a discussion of his principles, I opposed them _in his presence_, both privately and publicly; defending against him, not unsuccessfully, those doctrines which time and custom have sanctioned. And, what is remarkable, that candid opposition which Cardell himself had treated with respect, and parried in vain, was afterwards, by some of his converts, impeached of all unfairness, and even accused of wanting common sense. "No one," says Niebuhr, "ever overthrew a literary idol, without provoking the anger of its wors.h.i.+pers."--_Philological Museum_, Vol. i, p. 489. The certificates given in commendation of this "set of opinions," though they had no extensive effect on the public, showed full well that the signers knew little of the history of grammar; and it is the continual repet.i.tion of such things, that induces me now to dwell upon its history, for the information of those who are so liable to be deceived by exploded errors republished as novelties. A eulogist says of Cardell, "He had adopted a set of opinions, which, to most of his readers, appeared _entirely new."_ A reviewer proved, that all his pretended novelties are to be found in certain grammars now forgotten, or seldom read. The former replies, Then he [Cardell,] is right--and the man is no less stupid than abusive, who finds fault; for here is proof that the former "had highly respectable authority for almost every thing he has advanced!"--See _The Friend_, Vol. ii, pp.

105 and 116, from which all the quotations in this paragraph, except one, are taken.

25. The reader may now be curious to know what these doctrines were. They were summed up by the reviewer, thus: "Our author pretends to have drawn princ.i.p.ally from his own resources, in making up his books; and many may have supposed there is more _novelty_ in them than there really is. For instance: 1. He cla.s.ses the _articles_ with _adjectives_; and so did Brightland, Tooke, Fisher, Dalton, and Webster. 2. He calls the _participles, adjectives_; and so did Brightland and Tooke. 3. He make the _p.r.o.nouns_, either _nouns_ or _adjectives_; and so did Adam, Dalton, and others. 4. He distributes the _conjunctions_ among the other parts of speech; and so did Tooke. 5. He rejects the _interjections_; and so did Valla, Sanctius, and Tooke. 6. He makes the _possessive case_ an _adjective_; and so did Brightland. 7. He says our language has _no cases_; and so did Harris. 8. He calls _case, position_; and so did James Brown. 9.

He reduces the adjectives to two cla.s.ses, _defining_ and _describing_; and so did Dalton. 10. He declares all _verbs_ to be _active_; and so did Harris, (in his Hermes, Book i, Chap. ix,) though he admitted the _expediency_ of the common division, and left to our author the absurdity of contending about it. Fisher also rejected the cla.s.s of _neuter verbs_, and called them all _active_. 11. He reduces the _moods_ to _three_, and the _tenses_ to _three_; and so did Dalton, in the very same words. Fisher also made the _tenses three_, but said there _are no moods_ in English. 12.

He makes the _imperative mood_ always _future_; and so did Harris, in 1751.

Nor did the doctrine originate with him; for Brightland, a hundred years ago, [about 1706,] ascribed it to some of his predecessors. 13. He reduces the whole of our _syntax_ to about _thirty lines_; and two thirds of these are useless; for Dr. Johnson expressed it quite as fully in _ten_. But their explanations are both good for nothing; and Wallis, more wisely, omitted it altogether."--_The Friend_, Vol. ii, p. 59.

26. Dr. Webster says, in a marginal note to the preface of his Philosophical Grammar, "Since the days of _Wallis_, who published a Grammar of the English Language, in Latin, in the reign of Charles II.[,] from which Johnson and Lowth borrowed most of their rules, _little improvement_ has been made in English grammar. Lowth supplied some valuable criticisms, most of which however respect obsolete phrases; but many of his criticisms are extremely erroneous, and they have had an ill effect, in perverting the true idioms of our language. Priestley furnished a number of new and useful observations on the peculiar phrases of the English language. To which may be added some good remarks of Blair and Campbell, interspersed with many errors. Murray, not having mounted to the original sources of information, and professing only to select and arrange the rules and criticisms of preceding writers, has furnished little or nothing new. Of the numerous compilations of inferior character, it may be affirmed, that they have added nothing to the stock of grammatical knowledge." And the concluding sentence of this work, as well as of his Improved Grammar, published in 1831, extends the censure as follows: "It is not the English language only whose history and principles are yet to be ill.u.s.trated; but the grammars and dictionaries of _all other_ languages, with which I have any acquaintance, must be revised and corrected, before their elements and true construction can be fully understood." In an advertis.e.m.e.nt to the grammar prefixed to his quarto American Dictionary, the Doctor is yet more severe upon books of this sort. "I close," says he, "with the single remark, that from all the observations I have been able to make, I am convinced the dictionaries and grammars which have been used in our seminaries of learning for the last forty or fifty years, are _so incorrect and imperfect_ that they have introduced or sanctioned more errors than they have amended; in other words, had the people of England and of these States been left to learn the p.r.o.nunciation and construction of their vernacular language solely by tradition, and the reading of good authors, the language would have been spoken and written with more purity than it has been and now is, by those who have learned to adjust their language by the rules which dictionaries prescribe."

27. Little and much are but relative terms; yet when we look back to the period in which English grammar was taught only in Latin, it seems extravagant to say, that "little improvement has been made" in it since. I have elsewhere expressed a more qualified sentiment. "That the grammar of our language has made considerable progress since the days of Swift, who wrote a petty treatise on the subject, is sufficiently evident; but whoever considers what remains to be done, cannot but perceive how ridiculous are many of the boasts and felicitations which we have heard on that topic."

[77] Some further notice will now be taken of that progress, and of the writers who have been commonly considered the chief promoters of it, but especially of such as have not been previously mentioned in a like connexion. Among these may be noticed _William Walker_, the preceptor of Sir Isaac Newton, a teacher and grammarian of extraordinary learning, who died in 1684. He has left us sundry monuments of his taste and critical skill: one is his "Treatise of English Particles,"--a work of great labour and merit, but useless to most people now-a-days, because it explains the English in Latin; an other, his "Art of Teaching Improv'd,"--which is also an able treatise, and apparently well adapted to its object, "the Grounding of a Young Scholar in the Latin Tongue." In the latter, are mentioned other works of his, on "_Rhetorick_, and _Logick_" which I have not seen.

28. In 1706, _Richard Johnson_ published an octavo volume of more than four hundred pages, ent.i.tled, "Grammatical Commentaries; being an Apparatus to a New National Grammar: by way of animadversion upon the falsities, obscurities, redundancies and defects of Lily's System now in use." This is a work of great acuteness, labour, and learning; and might be of signal use to any one who should undertake to prepare a new or improved Latin grammar: of which, in my opinion, we have yet urgent need. The English grammarian may also peruse it with advantage, if he has a good knowledge of Latin--and without such knowledge he must be ill prepared for his task. This work is spoken of and quoted by some of the early English grammarians; but the hopes of the writer do not appear to have been realized. His book was not calculated to supply the place of the common one; for the author thought it impracticable to make a new grammar, suitable for boys, and at the same time to embrace in it proofs sufficient to remove the prejudices of teachers in favour of the old. King Henry's edict in support of Lily, was yet in force, backed by all the partiality which long habit creates; and Johnson's learning, and labour, and zeal, were admired, and praised, and soon forgot.

29. Near the beginning of the last century, some of the generous wits of the reign of Queen Anne, seeing the need there was of greater attention to their vernacular language, and of a grammar more properly English than any then in use, produced a book with which the later writers on the same subjects, would have done well to have made themselves better acquainted.

It is ent.i.tled "A Grammar of the English Tongue; with the Arts of Logick, Rhetorick, Poetry, &c. Ill.u.s.trated with useful Notes; giving the Grounds and Reasons of Grammar in General. The Whole making a Compleat System of an English Education. _Published by_ JOHN BRIGHTLAND, for the Use of the Schools of Great Britain and Ireland." It is ingeniously recommended in a certificate by Sir Richard Steele, or the Tattler, under the fict.i.tious name of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., and in a poem of forty-three lines, by Nahum Tate, poet laureate to her Majesty. It is a duodecimo volume of three hundred pages; a work of no inconsiderable merit and originality; and written in a style which, though not faultless, has scarcely been surpa.s.sed by any English grammarian since. I quote it as Brightland's:[78] who were the real authors, does not appear. It seems to be the work of more than one, and perhaps the writers of the Tattler were the men. My copy is of the seventh edition, London, printed for Henry Lintot, 1746. It is evidently the work of very skillful hands; yet is it not in all respects well planned or well executed. It unwisely reduces the parts of speech to four; gives them new names; and rejects more of the old system than the schools could be made willing to give up. Hence it does not appear to have been very extensively adopted.

30. It is now about a hundred and thirty years, since _Dr. Swift_, in a public remonstrance addressed to the Earl of Oxford, complained of the imperfect state of our language, and alleged in particular, that "in many instances it offended against every part of grammar." [79] Fifty years afterward, _Dr. Lowth_ seconded this complaint, and pressed it home upon the polite and the learned. "Does he mean," says the latter, "that the English language, as it is spoken by the politest part of the nation, and as it stands in the writings of the most approved authors, often offends against every part of grammar? _Thus far, I am afraid the charge is true_."--_Lowth's Grammar, Preface_, p. iv. Yet the learned Doctor, to whom much praise has been justly ascribed for the encouragement which he gave to this neglected study, attempted nothing more than "A Short Introduction to English Grammar;" which, he says, "was calculated for the learner _even of the lowest cla.s.s_:" and those who would enter more deeply into the subject, he referred to _Harris_; whose work is not an English grammar, but "A Philosophical Inquiry concerning Universal Grammar." Lowth's Grammar was first published in 1758. At the commencement of his preface, the reverend author, after acknowledging the enlargement, polish, and refinement, which the language had received during the preceding two hundred years, ventures to add, "but, whatever other improvements it may have received, it hath made _no advances_ in grammatical accuracy." I do not quote this a.s.sertion to affirm it literally true, in all its apparent breadth; but there is less reason to boast of the correctness even now attained, than to believe that the writers on grammar are not the authors who have in general come nearest to it in practice. Nor have the ablest authors always produced the best compends for the literary instruction of youth.

31. The treatises of the learned doctors Harris, Lowth, Johnson, Ash, Priestley, Horne Tooke, Crombie, Coote, and Webster, owe their celebrity not so much to their intrinsic fitness for school instruction, as to the literary reputation of the writers. Of _Harris's Hermes_, (which, in comparison with our common grammars, is indeed a work of much ingenuity and learning, full of interesting speculations, and written with great elegance both of style and method,) _Dr. Lowth_ says, it is "the most beautiful and perfect example of a.n.a.lysis, that has been exhibited since the days of Aristotle."--_Preface to Gram._, p. x. But these two authors, if their works be taken together, as the latter intended they should be, supply no sufficient course of English grammar. The instructions of the one are too limited, and those of the other are not specially directed to the subject.

32. _Dr. Johnson_, who was practically one of the greatest grammarians that ever lived, and who was very nearly coetaneous with both Harris and Lowth, speaks of the state of English grammar in the following terms: "I found our speech copious without order, and energetick _without rules_: wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated."--_Preface to Dict._, p. 1. Again: "Having therefore _no a.s.sistance but from general grammar_, I applied myself to the perusal of our writers; and noting whatever might be of use to ascertain or ill.u.s.trate any word or phrase, acc.u.mulated in time the materials of a dictionary."--_Ibid._ But it is not given to any one man to do every thing; else, Johnson had done it. His object was, to compile a dictionary, rather than to compose a grammar, of our language. To lexicography, grammar is necessary, as a preparation; but, as a purpose, it is merely incidental.

Dr. Priestley speaks of Johnson thus: "I must not conclude this preface, without making my acknowledgements to Mr. _Johnson_, whose admirable dictionary has been of the greatest use to me in the study of our language.

It is pity he had not formed as just, and as extensive an idea of English grammar. Perhaps this very useful work may still be reserved for his distinguished abilities in this way."--_Priestley's Grammar, Preface_, p.

xxiii. Dr. Johnson's English Grammar is all comprised in fourteen pages, and of course it is very deficient. The syntax he seems inclined entirely to omit, as (he says) Wallis did, and Ben Jonson had better done; but, for form's sake, he condescends to bestow upon it ten short lines.

33. My point here is, that the best grammarians have left much to be done by him who may choose to labour for the further improvement of English grammar; and that a man may well deserve comparative praise, who has not reached perfection in a science like this. Johnson himself committed many errors, some of which I shall hereafter expose; yet I cannot conceive that the following judgement of his works was penned without some bias of prejudice: "Johnson's merit ought not to be denied to him; but his dictionary is the most imperfect and faulty, and the least valuable _of any_[80] of his productions; and that share of merit which it possesses, makes it by so much the more hurtful. I rejoice, however, that though the least valuable, he found it the most profitable: for I could never read his preface without shedding a tear. And yet it must be confessed, that his _grammar_ and _history_ and _dictionary_ of what _he calls_ the English language, are in all respects (except the bulk of the _latter_[81]) most truly contemptible performances; and a reproach to the learning and industry of a nation which could receive them with the slightest approbation. Nearly one third of this dictionary is as much the language of the Hottentots as of the English; and it would be no difficult matter so to translate any one of the plainest and most popular numbers of the _Spectator_ into the language of this dictionary, that no mere Englishman, though well read in his own language, would he able to comprehend one sentence of it. It appears to be a work of labour, and yet is in truth one of the most idle performances ever offered to the public; compiled by an author who possessed not one single requisite for the undertaking, and (being a publication of a set of booksellers) owing its success to that very circ.u.mstance which alone must make it impossible that it should deserve success."--_Tooke's Diversions of Purley_, Vol. i, p. 182.

34. _Dr. Ash's_ "Grammatical Inst.i.tutes, or Easy Introduction to Dr.

Lowth's English Grammar," is a meagre performance, the ease of which consists in nothing but its brevity. _Dr. Priestley_, who in the preface to his third edition acknowledges his obligations to Johnson, and also to Lowth, thought it premature to attempt an English grammar; and contented himself with publis.h.i.+ng a few brief "Rudiments," with a loose appendix consisting of "Notes and Observations, for the use of those who have made some proficiency in the language." He says, "With respect to our own language, there seems to be a kind of claim upon all who make use of it, to do something for its improvement; and the best thing we can do for this purpose at present, is, to exhibit its actual structure, and the varieties with which it is used. When these are once distinctly pointed out, and generally attended to, the best forms of speech, and those which are most agreeable to the a.n.a.logy of the language, will soon recommend themselves, and come into general use; and when, by this means, the language shall be written with sufficient uniformity, we may hope to see a complete grammar of it. At present, _it is by no means ripe for such a work_;[82] but we may approximate to it very fast, if all persons who are qualified to make remarks upon it, will give a little attention to the subject. In such a case, a few years might be sufficient to complete it."--_Priestley's Grammar, Preface_, p. xv. In point of time, both Ash and Priestley expressly claim priority to Lowth, for their first editions; but the former having allowed his work to be afterwards ent.i.tled an Introduction to Lowth's, and the latter having acknowledged some improvements in his from the same source, they have both been regarded as later authors.

35. The great work of the learned etymologist _John Horne Tooke_, consists of two octavo volumes, ent.i.tled, "EPEA PTEROENTA, or the Diversions of Purley." This work explains, with admirable sagacity, the origin and primitive import of many of the most common yet most obscure English words; and is, for that reason, a valuable performance. But as it contains nothing respecting the construction of the language, and embraces no proper system of grammatical doctrines, it is a great error to suppose that the common principles of practical grammar ought to give place to such instructions, or even be modelled according to what the author proves to be true in respect to the origin of particular words. The common grammarians were less confuted by him, than many of his readers have imagined; and it ought not to be forgotten that his purpose was as different from theirs, as are their schemes of Grammar from the plan of his critical "Diversions." In this connexion may be mentioned an other work of similar size and purpose, but more comprehensive in design; the "History of European Languages," by that astonis.h.i.+ng linguist the late _Dr. Alexander Murray_. This work was left unfinished by its lamented author; but it will remain a monument of erudition never surpa.s.sed, acquired in spite of wants and difficulties as great as diligence ever surmounted. Like Tooke's volumes, it is however of little use to the mere English scholar. It can be read to advantage only by those who are acquainted with several other languages. The works of _Crombie_ and _Coote_ are more properly essays or dissertations, than elementary systems of grammar.

36. The number of English grammars has now become so very great, that not even a general idea of the comparative merits or defects of each can here be given. I have examined with some diligence all that I have had opportunity to obtain; but have heard of several which I have never yet seen. Whoever is curious to examine at large what has been published on this subject, and thus to qualify himself to judge the better of any new grammar, may easily make a collection of one or two hundred bearing different names. There are also many works not called grammars, from which our copyists have taken large portions of their compilations. Thus Murray confessedly copied from ten authors; five of whom are Beattie, Sheridan, Walker, Blair, and Campbell. Dr. Beattie, who acquired great celebrity as a teacher, poet, philosopher, and logician, was well skilled in grammar; but he treated the subject only in critical disquisitions, and not in any distinct elementary work adapted to general use. Sheridan and Walker, being lexicographers, confined themselves chiefly to orthography and p.r.o.nunciation. Murray derived sundry principles from the writings of each; but the English Grammar prepared by the latter, was written, I think, several years later than Murray's. The learned doctors Blair and Campbell wrote on rhetoric, and not on the elementary parts of grammar. Of the two, the latter is by far the more accurate writer. Blair is fluent and easy, but he furnishes not a little false syntax; Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric is a very valuable treatise. To these, and five or six other authors whom I have noticed, was Lindley Murray "princ.i.p.ally indebted for his materials." Thus far of the famous contributors to English grammar. The Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, delivered at Harvard University by John Quincy Adams, and published in two octavo volumes in 1810, are such as do credit even to that great man; but they descend less to verbal criticism, and enter less into the peculiar province of the grammarian, than do most other works of a similar t.i.tle.

37. Some of the most respectable authors or compilers of more general systems of English grammar for the use of schools, are the writer of the British Grammar, Bicknell, Buchanan, William Ward, Alexander Murray the schoolmaster, Mennye, Fisher, Lindley Murray, Penning, W. Allen, Grant, David Blair, Lennie, Guy, Churchill. To attempt any thing like a review or comparative estimate of these, would protract this introduction beyond all reasonable bounds; and still others would be excluded, which are perhaps better ent.i.tled to notice. Of mere modifiers and abridgers, the number is so great, and the merit or fame so little, that I will not trespa.s.s upon the reader's patience by any further mention of them or their works.

Whoever takes an accurate and comprehensive view of the history and present state of this branch of learning, though he may not conclude, with Dr.

Priestley, that it is premature to attempt a complete grammar of the language, can scarcely forbear to coincide with Dr. Barrow, in the opinion that among all the treatises heretofore produced no such grammar is found.

"Some superfluities have been expunged, some mistakes have been rectified, and some obscurities have been cleared; still, however, that all the grammars used in our different schools, public as well as private, are disgraced by errors or defects, is a complaint as just as it is frequent and loud."--_Barrow's Essays_, p. 83.

38. Whether, in what I have been enabled to do, there will be found a remedy for this complaint, must be referred to the decision of others. Upon the probability of effecting this, I have been willing to stake some labour; how much, and with what merit, let the candid and discerning, when they shall have examined for themselves, judge. It is certain that we have hitherto had, of our language, no complete grammar. The need of such a work I suppose to be at this time in no small degree felt, especially by those who conduct our higher inst.i.tutions of learning; and my ambition has been to produce one which might deservedly stand along side of the Port-Royal Latin and Greek Grammars, or of the Grammaire des Grammaires of Girault Du Vivier. If this work is unworthy to aspire to such rank, let the patrons of English literature remember that the achievement of my design is still a desideratum. We surely have no other book which might, in any sense, have been called "_the Grammar of English Grammars_;" none, which, either by excellence, or on account of the particular direction of its criticism, might take such a name. I have turned the eyes of Grammar, in an especial manner, upon the conduct of her own household; and if, from this volume, the reader acquire a more just idea of _the grammar_ which is displayed in _English grammars_, he will discover at least one reason for the t.i.tle which has been bestowed upon the work. Such as the book is, I present it to the public, without pride, without self-seeking, and without anxiety: knowing that most of my readers will be interested in estimating it _justly_; that no true service, freely rendered to learning, can fail of its end; and that no achievement merits aught with Him who graciously supplies all ability. The opinions expressed in it have been formed with candour, and are offered with submission. If in any thing they are erroneous, there are those who can detect their faults. In the language of an ancient master, the earnest and a.s.siduous _Despauter_, I invite the correction of the candid: "Nos quoque, quantumcunque diligentes, c.u.m a candidis tum a lividis carpemur: a candidis interdum juste; quos oro, ut de erratis omnibus amice me admoneant--erro nonnunquam quia h.o.m.o sum."

GOOLD BROWN.

_New York_, 1836.

THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH GRAMMARS.