duce from a few particulars an accurate notion of general principles and their exceptions, where learned doctors have often faltered?

The chief argument of these inductive grammarians is founded on the principle, that children cannot be instructed by means of any words which they do not understand. This principle is certainly false; else they could never be instructed by words at all. For no child ever fully understands a word, the first time he hears or sees it; and it is rather by frequent repetition and use, than by attention to a dictionary, that the meaning of words in general is fixed in the mind. Hence people make use of many terms which they cannot well explain, just as they do of many things which they cannot well describe. The first perception we have of any word, or other thing, when presented to the ear or the eye, gives us some knowledge of it; and the difference between this knowledge and that which we call an understanding of the word or thing, is, for the most part, only in degree. Definitions, or explanations, are useful; but an understanding of words may be acquired without them, else no man could ever have made a dictionary.

The best instruction is that which ultimately gives the greatest facility and skill in practice; and the right use of words is best taught, by that process which the most effectually conquers inattention, and leaves the learner the least excuse for his ignorance. In the language of some men, there is a vividness, an energy, a power of expression, which penetrates even the soul of dulness, and leaves an impression both of words unknown and of sentiments unfelt before. Such men can teach; but he who kindly accommodates himself to ignorance, shall never be greatly instrumental in removing it.

V. Of the origin and character of the English gram

mars.

The first attempts to teach the grammar of our language appear to have been made chiefly in Latin; and often the two

languages were combined in one book, for the purpose of teaching, sometimes both together, and sometimes the one through the medium of the other. In Ward's preface to Lily's (or King Henry's) grammar, as published in 1793, it is said, "If we look back to the origin of our common Latin grammar, we shall find it was no hasty performance, nor the work of a single person; but composed at different times by several eminent and learned men, till the whole was at length finished, and by the order of King Henry VIII. brought into that form in which it has ever since continued. The English Introduction was written by the reverend and learned Dr. John Colet, dean of St. Paul's, for the use of the school he had lately founded there; and was dedicated by him to William Lily, the first high master of that school in the year 1510; for which reason it has usually gone by the name of Paul's Accidence. The substance of it remains the same, as at first; though it has been much altered in the manner of expression, and sometimes the order, with other improvements. The English Syntax was the work of Lily, as appears by the title in the most ancient editions, which runs thus: Gulielmi Lilii Angli Rudimenta. But it has been greatly improved since his time, both with regard to the method, and an enlargement of double the quantity."

Paul's Accidence is therefore probably the oldest English grammar now extant. In fact, however, it can hardly be called an English grammar; because, though written in antique English, it was chiefly designed for the teaching of Latin. It begins thus: "In speech be these eight parts following: Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Participle, declined; Adverb, Conjunction, Preposition, Interjection, undeclined." This is the old platform of the Latin grammarians; which differs from that of the Greek grammars, only in having no Article, and in separating the Interjection from the class of Adverbs. It was followed by the author of the British grammar, by Priestley, by Buchanan, and others. Dr. Johnson professes to adopt the division, the order, and the terms, "of the common grammarians, without

inquiring whether a fitter distribution might not be found." But, in the Etymology of his grammar, he makes no enumeration of the parts of speech, and treats only of articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs; to which if we add the others, according to the common grammarians, or according to his own dictionary, the number will be ten. And this distribution, which was approved by Dr. Adam, and adopted by Dr. Ash, has been since very extensively followed; as may be seen in the grammars of Harrison, Staniford, Alden, Coar, Peirce, Comly, Jaudon, Ingersoll, Fisk, Greenleaf, Kirkham, Merchant, Bucke, Beck, Maunder, and many others. Dr. Lowth's distribution is the same, except that, in contradiction to the most general usage, he called the participle a verb, and thus made the number to be nine. He also has been followed by many; among whom are Bicknell, Burn, Lennie, Mennye, Murray, Allen, Guy, Churchill, Cobbett, David Blair, Davenport, Wilcox, Russell, Bacon, Lyon, Alger, Flint, Cooper, and Frost. But the last seven of these, and as many more in the preceding list, are confessedly mere modifiers of Murray; and perhaps, in such case, those are the most consistent who have deviated least from the authority they professed to follow.

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 profitable. 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 assuming the latter number. Every word in the language must be included in some class, and nothing is gained by making the classes 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 class of words which most grammarians have recognized as a distinct sort in their original classification.

Several writers on English grammar, seem not to have determined in their own minds, how many parts of speech there ought to be. Among these are Webster, Dalton, Cardell, Green, and Cobb. Dr. Webster, in his Philosophic Grammar, made the parts of speech seven; to most of which he In the sixth edition of his former gramgave new names. mar, (which, according to his own statement, he voluntarily suppressed, after reading Horne Tooke), he had reckoned only "six; nouns, articles, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, and abbreviations or particles." Dalton also in his grammar, which he dedicated to Horne Tooke, made the parts of speech six, but not the same six. He would have them to be, nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. This writer, like Brightland, Tooke, Fisher, and some few others, insists on it that the articles are adjectives; and so has Dr. Webster fixed them in his late valuable, but not faultless, dictionaries. But Booth, in his "Introduction to an Analytical Dictionary of the English Language," returns them to the class of pronouns; from which he thinks it strange that they were ever separated!

What can be more idle, than for teachers to reject the common classification of words, and puzzle the heads of schoolboys with speculations like these? 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 classes, according to 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, Brightland, Harris, and Fisher. Many of the ancients, Greeks, Hebrews, and Arabians, according to Quintilian, made them three. Plato, according to Harris, and the first inquirers into language, according to Horne Tooke, made

them two; nouns and verbs: which, Dalton says, "are the only parts essentially necessary for the communication of our thoughts." Those who know nothing about grammar, regard all words as of one class; and the ingenious reasoning of Cardell, being conducted without any fixed principles, arrives ultimately at the same conclusion. This writer, in his Essay on Language, reckons seven parts of speech; in his New York grammar, six; in his Hartford grammar, three, 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 classes of perceptions, and consequently three parts of speech."-Phil. Gram. p. 171.-While, in the same book, he affirms, that, "All other terms are but derivative forms and new applications of nouns."-p. 21.—But Neef, in his zeal for simplification, carries the anticlimax fairly off the brink; and declares, "In the grammar which will be the work of my pupils, there shall be found no nouns, no pronouns, 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."-Method of Education, p. 60.

But those writers on grammar, who do not even pretend to follow or respect the authority and custom of the learned, are, it would seem, not so properly to be reckoned grammarians, as antigrammarians. They are the zealots and overturners of literature, more apt to object than to teach, more ingenious to pull down than to build up; whose works are unworthy of serious refutation, and can serve no other useful purpose, than to make men of sense more firm in defence of practical instruction. The names of these I shall not, in this connexion, enumerate; nor needs there any apology for the omission, after what has been said of their character.

Among the earliest of the English grammarians, was Ben Johnson, the poet; who died in the year 1637, at the age of sixty-three. His grammar is still extant, being published in the several editions of his works. It is a meagre treatise, and