ll protect him from all censure; suppresses the names of
other writers, and leaves his examples to rest solely on his own authority;
and, "contented with the great respectability of his private character and
station, is satisfied with being _useful_ as an author."--_The Friend_,
Vol. iii, p. 33. By the high praises bestowed upon his works, his own voice
is overborne: the trumpet of fame has drowned it. His liberal authorship is
profitable in trade, and interest has power to swell and prolong the
strain.

19. The name and character of Lindley Murray are too venerable to allow us
to approach even the errors of his grammars, without some recognition of
the respect due to his personal virtues and benevolent intentions. For the
private virtues of Murray, I entertain as cordial a respect as any other
man. Nothing is argued against these, even if it be proved that causes
independent of true literary merit have given him his great and unexpected
fame as a grammarian. It is not intended by the introduction of these
notices, to impute to him any thing more or less than what his own words
plainly imply; except those inaccuracies and deficiencies which still
disgrace his work as a literary performance, and which of course he did not
discover. He himself knew that he had not brought the book to such
perfection as has been ascribed to it; for, by way of apology for his
frequent alterations, he says, "Works of this nature admit of repeated
improvements; and are, perhaps, never complete." Necessity has urged this
reasoning upon me. I am as far from any invidious feeling, or any sordid
motive, as was Lindley Murray. But it is due to truth, to correct erroneous
impressions; and, in order to obtain from some an impartial examination of
the following pages, it seemed necessary first to convince them, _that it
is possible_ to compose a better grammar than Murray's, without being
particularly indebted to him. If this treatise is not such, a great deal of
time has been thrown away upon a useless project; and if it is, the
achievement is no fit subject for either pride or envy. It differs from
his, and from all the pretended amendments of his, as a new map, drawn from
actual and minute surveys, differs from an old one, compiled chiefly from
others still older and confessedly still more imperfect. The region and the
scope are essentially the same; the tracing and the colouring are more
original; and (if the reader can pardon the suggestion) perha