"is, a critical knowledge of ancient languages, and "much reading of ancient authors. The greatest "critic and most able grammarian of the last age,

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was frequently at a loss in matters of ordinary

use and common construction in his own verna"cular idiom."

The design of the following work is to teach the grammar of the English tongue; not by arbitrary and capricious rules; and much less by such as are taken from the customs of other languages; but by a methodical collection of observations, comprising all those current phrases and forms of speech, which are to be found in our best and most approved writers and speakers. It is certainly the business of a grammarian to find out, and not to make, the laws of a language. In this work the Author does not assume the character of a legislator, but appears as a faithful compiler of the scattered laws. He does not presume to regulate the customs and fashions of our speech, but only notes and collects them.

It matters not what causes these customs and fashions owe their birth to; the moment they

become general, they are laws of the language, and a grammarian can only remonstrate, how much soever he disapprove. From his opinions and precepts an appeal may always be made to the tribunal of use, as to the supreme authority and last resort, since in language as in law, "communis error facit "jus" and custom has a prescriptive right to talk bad grammar. By the general consent of a nation, certain sounds and certain written signs, together with their inflections and combinations, come to be used as denoting certain ideas and their relations; and the man that chuses to deviate from the custom of his country in expressing his thoughts, is as ridiculous as though he were to walk the streets in a Spanish cloak, or a Roman toga. Perhaps he might say, these garments are more elegant and more commodious than a suit of English broad cloth; but I believe this excuse would hardly protect him from derision and disgrace.

Besides the principal purpose for which this little book was written (that of instructing youth), I hope

the perusal of it may not be useless to those that

are already acquainted with polite literature. Much reading and good company are supposed to be the best method of getting at the niceties and elegancies of a language; but this road is long and irksome. It is certainly a safer and a readier way to sail by compass than to rove at random, and any person who wished to become acquainted with the various productions of nature, would do better to study the systems of our best naturalists, than to go wandering about from land to land, lighting here upon one, and there upon another, merely out of a desire to see them all. I hope also this book may be useful to those foreigners that wish to learn the English tongue, it being intended to contain all our most usual Anglicisms, all those phrases and peculiarities, which form the characteristics of our language. I will not take upon me to say that we have no grammar capable of teaching a foreigner to read our authors; but this I am sure of, that we have none by which he can be enabled to understand our conversation.

ADDITION, 1834.-EXTRACT OF a Letter from MR. BURKE TO MR. MURPHY.

"THERE is a style which daily gains ground "amongst us, which I should be sorry to see farther "advanced by the authority of a writer of your just "reputation. The tendency of the mode to which "I allude is, to establish two very different idioms

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amongst us, and to introduce a marked distinction "between the English that is written, and the "English that is spoken. The practice, if grown a "little more general, would confirm this distemper,

(such I must think it) in our language, and perhaps "render it incurable.

"From this feigned manner, or falsetto, as I think “the musicians call something of the same sort in

singing, no one modern historian, Robertson only "excepted, is perfectly free. It is assumed, I know, "to give dignity and variety to the style; but what

ever success the attempt may sometimes have, "it is always obtained at the expense of purity,

C

"and of the graces that are natural and appropriate "to our language. It is true, that when the exigence "calls for auxiliaries of all sorts, and common lan

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guage becomes unequal to the demands of extra

ordinary thoughts, something ought to be conceded "to the necessities which make Ambition Virtue;" "but the allowances to necessities ought not to grow "into a practice. These portents and prodigies ought "not to grow too common."

TO MR. HENDERSON.

London, 1785.

I WENT, as I promised, to see the new "HAMLET," whose provincial fame had excited your curiosity as well as mine.

There has not been such a first appearance since yours; yet Nature, though she has been bountiful to him in figure and feature, has denied him a voice -of course he could not exemplify his own direction