the French, Spanish, and others,) are almost as various and as faulty as the English, I am apprehensive that this is a desideratum not soon to be realized,--a design more plausible in the prospectus, than feasible in the attempt. At any rate, the grammars of different languages must needs differ as much as do the languages themselves, otherwise some of their principles will of course be false; and we have already seen that the nonobservance of this has been a fruitful source of error in respect to English syntax. The achievement, however, is not altogether impossible, if a man of competent learning will devote to it a sufficient degree of labour. But the mere revising or altering of some one grammar in each language, can scarcely amount to any thing more than a pretence of improvement. Waiving the pettiness of compiling upon the basis of an other man's compilation, the foundation of a good grammar for any language, must be both deeper and broader than all the works which Professor Bullions has selected to build upon: for the Greek, than Dr. Moor's "Elementa Linguæ, Græcæ;" for the Latin, than Dr. Adam's "Rudiments of Latin and English Grammar;" for the English, than Murray's "English Grammar," or Lennie's "Principles of English Grammar;" which last work, in fact, the learned gentleman preferred, though he pretends to have mended the code of Murray. But, certainly, Lennie never supposed himself a copyist of Murray; nor was he to much extent an imitator of him, either in method or in style.
OBS. 14.--We have, then, in this new American form of "The Principles of English Grammar," Lennie's very compact little book, altered, enlarged, and bearing on its title-page (which is otherwise in the very words of Lennie) an other author's name, and, in its early editions, the false and self-accusing inscription, "(ON THE PLAN OF MURRAY'S GRAMMAR.)" And this work, claiming to have been approved "by the most competent judges," now challenges the praise not only of being "better adapted to the use of academies and schools than any yet published" but of so presenting "the rules and principles of general grammar, as that they may apply to, and be in perfect harmony with, the grammars of the dead languages"-- Recommendations, p. iv. These are admirable professions for a critical author to publish; especially, as every rule or principle of General Grammar, condemning as it must whoever violates it, cannot but "be in perfect harmony with" every thing that is true. In this model for all grammars, Latin, Greek, &c., the doctrines of punctuation, of abbreviations, and of capital letters, and also sections on the rhetorical divisions of a discourse, the different kinds of composition, the different kinds of prose composition, and the different kinds of poetry, are made parts of the Syntax; while his hints for correct and elegant writing, and his section on the composition of letters and themes, which other writers suppose to belong rather to syntax, are here subjoined as parts of Prosody. In the exercises for parsing appended to his Etymology, the Doctor furnishes twenty-five Rules of Syntax, which, he says, "are not intended to be committed to memory, but to be used as directions to the beginner in parsing the exercises under them."--E. Gram., p. 75. Then, for his syntax proper, he copies from Lennie, with some alterations, thirty-four other rules, nine of which are double, and all are jumbled together by both authors, without any regard to the distinction of concord and government, so common in the grammars of the dead languages, and even, so far as I can discover, without any principle of arrangement whatever. They profess indeed to have placed those rules first, which are eaisest [sic--KTH] to learn, and oftenest to be applied; but the syntax of articles, which even on this principle should have formed the first of the series, is placed by Lennie as the thirty-fourth rule, and by his amender as the thirty-second. To all this complexity the latter adds twenty-two Special Rules, with an abundance of "Notes" "Observations" and "Remarks" distinguished by these titles, on some principle which no one but the author can understand. Lastly, his method of syntactical parsing is not only mixed up with etymological questions and answers, but his directions for it, with their exemplification, are perplexingly at variance with his own specimen of the performance. See his book, pages 131 and 133. So much for this grand scheme.
OBS. 15.--Strictures like the foregoing, did they not involve the defence of grammar itself, so as to bear upon interests more important than the success or failure of an elementary book, might well be withheld through motives of charity, economy, and peace. There is many a grammar now extant, concerning which a truly critical reader may know more at first sight, than ever did he that made it. What such a reader will be inclined to rate beneath criticism, an other perhaps will confidently pronounce above it. If my remarks are just, let the one approve them for the other's sake. For what becomes of the teaching of grammar, when that which is received as the most excellent method, must be exempted from censure by reason of its utter worthlessness? And what becomes of Universal Syntax, when the imperfect systems of the Latin and Greek grammars, in stead of being amended, are modelled to the grossest faults of what is worthless in our own?[329]
