worthy of attention only as a matter of curiosity. Grammar is an unpoetical subject, and therefore not wisely treated, (as it once very generally was,) in verse. But every poet should be familiar with the art, because the formal principles of his own have always been considered as embraced in it. To its poets every language must needs be particularly indebted; because their composition, being in general more highly finished than prose, is supposed to present the language in its most agreeable form. In the preface to the poems of Edmund Waller published in 1690, the editor ventures to say, "He was, indeed, the parent of English verse, and the first that showed us our tongue had beauty and numbers in it. Our language owes more to him than the French does to Cardinal Richelieu and the whole academy. The tongue came into his hands a rough diamond: he polished it first; and to that degree, that all artists since him have admired the workmanship, without pretending to mend it.” William Walker, the preceptor of Sir Isaac Newton, a teacher and grammarian of extraordinary learning, who died in 1684, has left us a monument of his taste and critical skill, in his Treatise of English Particles-a work of great labor and merit, but useless to most people now-a-days, because it explains the English in Latin. In 1706, Richard Johnson published an octavo volume of more than four hundred pages, entitled, "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, labor, 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 well calculated to supply the place of the common one; for the author thought it impracticable to make a new grammar suitable for boys, and embrace in it proofs sufficient to remove the prejudices of teachers in favor of the old. King Henry's edict in support of Lily, was yet in force, backed by the partiality which habit creates; and Johnson's learning, and labor, and zeal, were admired, and praised, and soon forgot. The grammar of the English Tongue, published by John Brightland, and recommended by Steele, or the Tatler, under the fictitious name of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. of which I have the seventh edition, dated 1746, is a duodecimo volume of three hundred pages, a work of no inconsiderable merit and originality, and written in a style which has scarcely been surpassed by any English grammarian since. It, however, unwisely makes the parts of speech four, gives them new names, and rejects more of the old system than the schools seem to have been willing to give up. Hence it does not appear to have been very extensively adopted. Whoever is curious to examine at large what has been published on this subject, and to qualify himself to judge accurately of the originality and comparative merits of the different grammars which are or have been used in English schools, may easily make a collection of one or two hundred, bearing different names. The treatises of the learned doctors, Harris, Lowth, Ash, Johnson, 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. Harris's Hermes is not an English grammar, but a philosophical inquiry concerning universal grammar. To this work Lowth referred those students who might desire to pursue the subject beyond the limits of his little treatise, or "Short Introduction;" which, he says, "was calculated for the learner even of the lowest class." But these two authors, if taken together, 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. Ash's work is still more meagre than Lowth's; Johnson's is all comprised in fourteen pages, and allows to the syntax but ten short lines; Priestley contented himself with adding a brief appendix of critical notes, to a petty code of the most common elements, alleging that the language was "by no means ripe for a complete grammar.” 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 entitled an Introduction to Lowth's Introduction, and the latter having acknowledged his obligations to Lowth for some improvements in his third edition, grammarians have uniformly spoken of them as later writers. Horne Tooke, and his convert Dr. Webster, deviated so widely from the common track, that few have been disposed to follow them; but, in his recent publications, the latter seems to have come nearly back to the old system. The works of Crombie and Coote are more properly essays or dissertations, than eleementary systems of grammar. 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 pronunciation. The learned doctors Blair and Campbell wrote on rhetoric, and not on the elementary parts of grammar. Of these, the latter is by far the more accurate writer. His philosophy of rhetoric is a very valuable treatise. Some of the most respectable authors or compilers of more general systems for the use of schools, are, the writer of the British Grammar, Bicknell, Buchanan, Mennye, Murray, Fisher, Fenning, Grant, Allen, David Blair, Guy, and Churchill. To attempt any thing like a review or comparison of these, would protract this discourse beyond all reasonable bounds. Of mere abridgers and modifiers the number is so great, and the merit so little, that I will not trespass upon your patience by any further mention of them or their works. Every intelligent man can surely discern the difference between originality of style, and innovation in doctrine—between a due regard to the opinions of others, and an actual usurpation of their text; and must be sensible, that, to improve the best of grammars, requires a degree of knowledge and skill which would enable a man to write in language of his own-to improve an inferior one would be a needless and foolish undertaking. 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 which have heretofore been popular no such grammar is found. In his Essays published in 1804, speaking of this subject, he says: "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." What further improvement has recently been made, I leave to the unbiassed judgment of others. The public are interested in estimating it justly. The opinions expressed on this occasion, have been formed with candor, and offered with submission. If in any thing they are erroneous, there are those present who can detect their faults. In the language of an ancient master, I invite the correction of the candid. quoque, quantumcunque diligentes, cùm a candidis tùm a lividis carpemur: a candidis interdum justè; quos oro, ut de erratis omnibus amicè me admoneant-erro nonnunquam quia homo sum."-Despauter. "Nos |