The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

4. Yet a slight acquaintance with the history of grammar will suffice to show us, that it is much easier to acknowledge this principle, and to commend it in words, than to ascertain what it is, and abide by it in practice. Good use is that which is neither ancient nor recent, neither local nor foreign, neither vulgar nor pedantic; and it will be found that no few have in some way or other departed from it, even while they were pretending to record its dictates. But it is not to be concealed, that in every living language, it is a matter of much inherent difficulty, to reach the standard of propriety, where usage is various; and to ascertain with clearness the decisions of custom, when we descend to minute details. Here is a field in which whatsoever is achieved by the pioneers of literature, can be appreciated only by thorough scholars; for the progress of improvement in any art or science, can be known only to those who can clearly compare its ruder with its more refined stages; and it often happens that what is effected with much labour, may be presented in a very small compass.

5. But the knowledge of grammar may retrograde; for whatever loses the vital principle of renovation and growth, tends to decay. And if mere copyists, compilers, abridgers, and modifiers, be encouraged as they now are, it surely will not advance. Style is liable to be antiquated by time, corrupted by innovation, debased by ignorance, perverted by conceit, impaired by negligence, and vitiated by caprice. And nothing but the living spirit of true authorship, and the application of just criticism, can counteract the natural tendency of these causes. English grammar is still in its infancy; and even bears, to the imagination of some, the appearance of a deformed and ugly dwarf among the liberal arts. Treatises are multiplied almost innumerably, but still the old errors survive. Names are rapidly added to our list of authors, while little or nothing is done for the science. Nay, while new blunders have been committed in every new book, old ones have been allowed to stand as by prescriptive right;. and positions that were never true, and sentences that were never good English, have been published and republished under different names, till in our language grammar has become the most ungrammatical of all studies! "Imitators generally copy their originals in an inverse ratio of their merits; that is, by adding as much to their faults, as they lose of their merits."—KNIGHT, on the Greek Alphabet, p. 117.

   "Who to the life an exact piece would make,
    Must not from others' work a copy take."—Cowley.

6. All science is laid in the nature of things; and he only who seeks it there, can rightly guide others in the paths of knowledge. He alone can know whether his predecessors went right or wrong, who is capable of a judgement independent of theirs. But with what shameful servility have many false or faulty definitions and rules been copied and copied from one grammar to another, as if authority had canonized their errors, or none had eyes to see them! Whatsoever is dignified and fair, is also modest and reasonable; but modesty does not consist in having no opinion of one's own, nor reason in following with blind partiality the footsteps of others. Grammar unsupported by authority, is indeed mere fiction. But what apology is this, for that authorship which has produced so many grammars without originality? Shall he who cannot write for himself, improve upon him who can? Shall he who cannot paint, retouch the canvass of Guido? Shall modest ingenuity be allowed only to imitators and to thieves? How many a prefatory argument issues virtually in this! It is not deference to merit, but impudent pretence, practising on the credulity of ignorance! Commonness alone exempts it from scrutiny, and the success it has, is but the wages of its own worthlessness! To read and be informed, is to make a proper use of books for the advancement of learning; but to assume to be an author by editing mere commonplaces and stolen criticisms, is equally beneath the ambition of a scholar and the honesty of a man.

   "'T is true, the ancients we may rob with ease;
    But who with that mean shift himself can please?"
            Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.

7. Grammar being a practical art, with the principles of which every intelligent person is more or less acquainted, it might be expected that a book written professedly on the subject, should exhibit some evidence of its author's skill. But it would seem that a multitude of bad or indifferent writers have judged themselves qualified to teach the art of speaking and writing well; so that correctness of language and neatness of style are as rarely to be found in grammars as in other books. Nay, I have before suggested that in no other science are the principles of good writing so frequently and so shamefully violated. The code of false grammar embraced in the following work, will go far to sustain this opinion. There have been, however, several excellent scholars, who have thought it an object not unworthy of their talents, to prescribe and elucidate the principles of English Grammar. But these, with scarcely any exception, have executed their inadequate designs, not as men engaged in their proper calling, but as mere literary almoners, descending for a day from their loftier purposes, to perform a service, needful indeed, and therefore approved, but very far from supplying all the aid that is requisite to a thorough knowledge of the subject. Even the most meritorious have left ample room for improvement, though some have evinced an ability which does honour to themselves, while it gives cause to regret their lack of an inducement to greater labour. The mere grammarian can neither aspire to praise, nor stipulate for a reward; and to those who were best qualified to write, the subject could offer no adequate motive for diligence.

8. Unlearned men, who neither make, nor can make, any pretensions to a knowledge of grammar as a study, if they show themselves modest in what they profess, are by no means to be despised or undervalued for the want of such knowledge. They are subject to no criticism, till they turn authors and write for the public. And even then they are to be treated gently, if they have any thing to communicate, which is worthy to be accepted in a homely dress. Grammatical inaccuracies are to be kindly excused, in all those from whom nothing better can be expected; for people are often under a necessity of appearing as speakers or writers, before they can have learned to write or speak grammatically. The body is more to be regarded than raiment; and the substance of an interesting message, may make the manner of it a little thing. Men of high purposes naturally spurn all that is comparatively low; or all that may seem nice, overwrought, ostentatious, or finical. Hence St. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, suggests that the design of his preaching might have been defeated, had he affected the orator, and turned his attention to mere "excellency of speech," or "wisdom of words." But this view of things presents no more ground for neglecting grammar, and making coarse and vulgar example our model of speech, than for neglecting dress, and making baize and rags the fashionable costume. The same apostle exhorts Timothy to "hold fast the form of sound words," which he himself had taught him. Nor can it be denied that there is an obligation resting upon all men, to use speech fairly and understandingly. But let it be remembered, that all those upon whose opinions or practices I am disposed to animadvert, are either professed grammarians and philosophers, or authors who, by extraordinary pretensions, have laid themselves under special obligations to be accurate in the use of language. "The wise in heart shall be called prudent; and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning."—Prov., xvi, 21. "The words of a man's mouth are as deep waters, and the well-spring of wisdom [is] as a flowing brook."—Ib., xviii, 4. "A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul."—Ib., xviii, 7.

9. The old maxim recorded by Bacon, "Loquendum ut vulgus, sentiendum ut sapientes,"—"We should speak as the vulgar, but think as the wise," is not to be taken without some limitation. For whoever literally speaks as the vulgar, shall offend vastly too much with his tongue, to have either the understanding of the wise or the purity of the good. In all untrained and vulgar minds, the ambition of speaking well is but a dormant or very weak principle. Hence the great mass of uneducated people are lamentably careless of what they utter, both as to the matter and the manner; and no few seem naturally prone to the constant imitation of low example, and some, to the practice of every abuse of which language is susceptible. Hence, as every scholar knows, the least scrupulous of our lexicographers notice many terms but to censure them as "low," and omit many more as being beneath their notice. Vulgarity of language, then, ever has been, and ever must be, repudiated by grammarians. Yet we have had pretenders to grammar, who could court the favour of the vulgar, though at the expense of all the daughters of Mnemosyne.

10. Hence the enormous insult to learning and the learned, conveyed in the following scornful quotations: "Grammarians, go to your tailors and shoemakers, and learn from them the rational art of constructing your grammars!"—Neef's Method of Education, p. 62. "From a labyrinth without a clew, in which the most enlightened scholars of Europe have mazed themselves and misguided others, the author ventures to turn aside."—Cardell's Gram., 12mo, p. 15. Again: "The nations of unlettered men so adapted their language to philosophic truth, that all physical and intellectual research can find no essential rule to reject or change."—Ibid., p. 91. I have shown that "the nations of unlettered men" are among that portion of the earth's population, upon whose language the genius of grammar has never yet condescended to look down! That people who make no pretensions to learning, can furnish better models or instructions than "the most enlightened scholars," is an opinion which ought not to be disturbed by argument.

11. I regret to say, that even Dr. Webster, with all his obligations and pretensions to literature, has well-nigh taken ground with Neef and Cardell, as above cited; and has not forborne to throw contempt, even on grammar as such, and on men of letters indiscriminately, by supposing the true principles of every language to be best observed and kept by the illiterate. What marvel then, that all his multifarious grammars of the English language are despised? Having suggested that the learned must follow the practice of the populace, because they cannot control it, he adds: "Men of letters may revolt at this suggestion, but if they will attend to the history of our language, they will find the fact to be as here stated. It is commonly supposed that the tendency of this practice of unlettered men is to corrupt the language. But the fact is directly the reverse. I am prepared to prove, were it consistent with the nature of this work, that nineteen-twentieths of all the corruptions of our language, for five hundred years past, have been introduced by authors—men who have made alterations in particular idioms which they did not understand. The same remark is applicable to the orthography and pronunciation. The tendency of unlettered men is to uniformity—to analogy; and so strong is this disposition, that the common people have actually converted some of our irregular verbs into regular ones. It is to unlettered people that we owe the disuse of holpen, bounden, sitten, and the use of the regular participles, swelled, helped, worked, in place of the ancient ones. This popular tendency is not to be contemned and disregarded, as some of the learned affect to do;[3] for it is governed by the natural, primary principles of all languages, to which we owe all their regularity and all their melody; viz., a love of uniformity in words of a like character, and a preference of an easy natural pronunciation, and a desire to express the most ideas with the smallest number of words and syllables. It is a fortunate thing for language, that these natural principles generally prevail over arbitrary and artificial rules."—Webster's Philosophical Gram., p. 119; Improved Gram., p. 78. So much for unlettered erudition!

12. If