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

24. When Cardell's system appeared, several respectable men, convinced by "his powerful demonstrations," admitted that he had made "many things in the established doctrines of the expounders of language appear sufficiently ridiculous;" [75] and willingly lent him the influence of their names, trusting that his admirable scheme of English grammar, in which their ignorance saw nothing but new truth, would be speedily "perfected and generally embraced." [76] Being invited by the author to a discussion of his principles, I opposed them in his presence, both privately and publicly; defending against him, not unsuccessfully, those doctrines which time and custom have sanctioned. And, what is remarkable, that candid opposition which Cardell himself had treated with respect, and parried in vain, was afterwards, by some of his converts, impeached of all unfairness, and even accused of wanting common sense. "No one," says Niebuhr, "ever overthrew a literary idol, without provoking the anger of its worshipers."—Philological Museum, Vol. i, p. 489. The certificates given in commendation of this "set of opinions," though they had no extensive effect on the public, showed full well that the signers knew little of the history of grammar; and it is the continual repetition of such things, that induces me now to dwell upon its history, for the information of those who are so liable to be deceived by exploded errors republished as novelties. A eulogist says of Cardell, "He had adopted a set of opinions, which, to most of his readers, appeared entirely new." A reviewer proved, that all his pretended novelties are to be found in certain grammars now forgotten, or seldom read. The former replies, Then he [Cardell,] is right—and the man is no less stupid than abusive, who finds fault; for here is proof that the former "had highly respectable authority for almost every thing he has advanced!"—See The Friend, Vol. ii, pp. 105 and 116, from which all the quotations in this paragraph, except one, are taken.

25. The reader may now be curious to know what these doctrines were. They were summed up by the reviewer, thus: "Our author pretends to have drawn principally from his own resources, in making up his books; and many may have supposed there is more novelty in them than there really is. For instance: 1. He classes the articles with adjectives; and so did Brightland, Tooke, Fisher, Dalton, and Webster. 2. He calls the participles, adjectives; and so did Brightland and Tooke. 3. He make the pronouns, either nouns or adjectives; and so did Adam, Dalton, and others. 4. He distributes the conjunctions among the other parts of speech; and so did Tooke. 5. He rejects the interjections; and so did Valla, Sanctius, and Tooke. 6. He makes the possessive case an adjective; and so did Brightland. 7. He says our language has no cases; and so did Harris. 8. He calls case, position; and so did James Brown. 9. He reduces the adjectives to two classes, defining and describing; and so did Dalton. 10. He declares all verbs to be active; and so did Harris, (in his Hermes, Book i, Chap. ix,) though he admitted the expediency of the common division, and left to our author the absurdity of contending about it. Fisher also rejected the class of neuter verbs, and called them all active. 11. He reduces the moods to three, and the tenses to three; and so did Dalton, in the very same words. Fisher also made the tenses three, but said there are no moods in English. 12. He makes the imperative mood always future; and so did Harris, in 1751. Nor did the doctrine originate with him; for Brightland, a hundred years ago, [about 1706,] ascribed it to some of his predecessors. 13. He reduces the whole of our syntax to about thirty lines; and two thirds of these are useless; for Dr. Johnson expressed it quite as fully in ten. But their explanations are both good for nothing; and Wallis, more wisely, omitted it altogether."—The Friend, Vol. ii, p. 59.

26. Dr. Webster says, in a marginal note to the preface of his Philosophical Grammar, "Since the days of Wallis, who published a Grammar of the English Language, in Latin, in the reign of Charles II.[,] from which Johnson and Lowth borrowed most of their rules, little improvement has been made in English grammar. Lowth supplied some valuable criticisms, most of which however respect obsolete phrases; but many of his criticisms are extremely erroneous, and they have had an ill effect, in perverting the true idioms of our language. Priestley furnished a number of new and useful observations on the peculiar phrases of the English language. To which may be added some good remarks of Blair and Campbell, interspersed with many errors. Murray, not having mounted to the original sources of information, and professing only to select and arrange the rules and criticisms of preceding writers, has furnished little or nothing new. Of the numerous compilations of inferior character, it may be affirmed, that they have added nothing to the stock of grammatical knowledge." And the concluding sentence of this work, as well as of his Improved Grammar, published in 1831, extends the censure as follows: "It is not the English language only whose history and principles are yet to be illustrated; but the grammars and dictionaries of all other languages, with which I have any acquaintance, must be revised and corrected, before their elements and true construction can be fully understood." In an advertisement to the grammar prefixed to his quarto American Dictionary, the Doctor is yet more severe upon books of this sort. "I close," says he, "with the single remark, that from all the observations I have been able to make, I am convinced the dictionaries and grammars which have been used in our seminaries of learning for the last forty or fifty years, are so incorrect and imperfect that they have introduced or sanctioned more errors than they have amended; in other words, had the people of England and of these States been left to learn the pronunciation and construction of their vernacular language solely by tradition, and the reading of good authors, the language would have been spoken and written with more purity than it has been and now is, by those who have learned to adjust their language by the rules which dictionaries prescribe."

27. Little and much are but relative terms; yet when we look back to the period in which English grammar was taught only in Latin, it seems extravagant to say, that "little improvement has been made" in it since. I have elsewhere expressed a more qualified sentiment. "That the grammar of our language has made considerable progress since the days of Swift, who wrote a petty treatise on the subject, is sufficiently evident; but whoever considers what remains to be done, cannot but perceive how ridiculous are many of the boasts and felicitations which we have heard on that topic." [77] Some further notice will now be taken of that progress, and of the writers who have been commonly considered the chief promoters of it, but especially of such as have not been previously mentioned in a like connexion. Among these may be noticed William Walker, the preceptor of Sir Isaac Newton, a teacher and grammarian of extraordinary learning, who died in 1684. He has left us sundry monuments of his taste and critical skill: one is his "Treatise of English Particles,"—a work of great labour and merit, but useless to most people now-a-days, because it explains the English in Latin; an other, his "Art of Teaching Improv'd,"—which is also an able treatise, and apparently well adapted to its object, "the Grounding of a Young Scholar in the Latin Tongue." In the latter, are mentioned other works of his, on "Rhetorick, and Logick" which I have not seen.

28. 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, labour, 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 calculated to supply the place of the common one; for the author thought it impracticable to make a new grammar, suitable for boys, and at the same time to embrace in it proofs sufficient to remove the prejudices of teachers in favour of the old. King Henry's edict in support of Lily, was yet in force, backed by all the partiality which long habit creates; and Johnson's learning, and labour, and zeal, were admired, and praised, and soon forgot.

29. Near the beginning of the last century, some of the generous wits of the reign of Queen Anne, seeing the need there was of greater attention to their vernacular language, and of a grammar more properly English than any then in use, produced a book with which the later writers on the same subjects, would have done well to have made themselves better acquainted. It is entitled "A Grammar of the English Tongue; with the Arts of Logick, Rhetorick, Poetry, &c. Illustrated with useful Notes; giving the Grounds and Reasons of Grammar in General. The Whole making a Compleat System of an English Education. Published by JOHN BRIGHTLAND, for the Use of the Schools of Great Britain and Ireland." It is ingeniously recommended in a certificate by Sir Richard Steele, or the Tattler, under the fictitious name of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., and in a poem of forty-three lines, by Nahum Tate, poet laureate to her Majesty. It is a duodecimo volume of three hundred pages; a work of no inconsiderable merit and originality; and written in a style which, though not faultless, has scarcely been surpassed by any English grammarian since. I quote it as Brightland's:[78] who were the real authors, does not appear. It seems to be the work of more than one, and perhaps the writers of the Tattler were the men. My copy is of the seventh edition, London, printed for Henry Lintot, 1746. It is evidently the work of very skillful hands; yet is it not in all respects well planned or well executed. It unwisely reduces the parts of speech to four; gives them new names; and rejects more of the old system than the schools could be made willing to give up. Hence it does not appear to have been very extensively adopted.

30. It is now about a hundred and thirty years, since Dr. Swift, in a public remonstrance addressed to the Earl of Oxford, complained of the imperfect state of our language, and alleged in particular, that "in many instances it offended against every part of grammar." [79] Fifty years afterward, Dr. Lowth seconded this complaint, and pressed it home upon the polite and the learned. "Does he mean," says the latter, "that the English language, as it is spoken by the politest part of the nation, and as it stands in the writings of the most approved authors, often offends against every part of grammar? Thus far, I am afraid the charge is true."—Lowth's Grammar, Preface, p. iv. Yet the learned Doctor, to whom much praise has been justly ascribed for the encouragement which he gave to this neglected study, attempted nothing more than "A Short Introduction to English Grammar;" which, he says, "was calculated for the learner even of the lowest class:" and those who would enter more deeply into the subject, he referred to Harris; whose work is not an English grammar, but "A Philosophical Inquiry concerning Universal Grammar." Lowth's Grammar was first published in 1758. At the commencement of his preface, the reverend author, after acknowledging the enlargement, polish, and refinement, which the language had received during the preceding two hundred years, ventures to add, "but, whatever other improvements it may