mmendations," is said to have wrought for him, in a very few years, a
degree of success and fame, at which both the eulogists of Murray and the
friends of English grammar may hang their heads. As to a "_compromise_"
with any critic or reviewer whom he cannot bribe, it is enough to say of
that, it is morally impossible. Nor was it necessary for such an author to
throw the gauntlet, to prove himself not lacking in "_self-confidence_." He
can show his "_moral courage_," only by daring do right.

31. In 1829, after his book had gone through ten editions, and the demand
for it had become so great as "to call forth twenty thousand copies during
the year," the prudent author, intending to veer his course according to
the _trade-wind_, thought it expedient to retract his former
acknowledgement to "our best modern philologists," and to profess himself a
modifier of the Great Compiler's code. Where then holds the anchor of his
praise? Let the reader say, after weighing and comparing his various
pretensions:

"Aware that there is, in the _publick_ mind, a strong predilection for the
doctrines contained in Mr. Murray's grammar, he has thought proper, not
merely from motives of policy, but from choice, _to select his principles
chiefly from that work_; and, moreover, to adopt, as far as consistent with
his own views, _the language of that eminent philologist_. In no instance
has he varied from him, unless he conceived that, in so doing, _some
practical advantage_ would be gained. He hopes, _therefore_, to escape the
censure so frequently and so justly awarded to those _unfortunate
innovators_ who have not scrupled to alter, mutilate, and torture the text
of that able writer, merely to gratify an itching propensity to figure in
the world _as authors_, and gain an ephemeral popularity by arrogating to
themselves _the credit due to another_." [13]--_Kirkham's Gram._, 1829, p.
10.

32. Now these statements are either true or false; and I know not on which
supposition they are most creditable to the writer. Had any Roman
grammatist thus profited by the name of Varro or Quintilian, he would have
been filled with constant dread of somewhere meeting the injured author's
frowning shade! Surely, among the professed admirers of Murray, no other
man, whether innovator or copyist, unfortunate or successful, is at all to
be compared to this gentleman for the audacity with which he has "not
scrupled to alter, mutilate, and torture, the text of th