might_ teach the making of shoes by lectures."
--_Boswell's Life of Johnson_.

39. With singular ignorance and untruth, this gentleman claims to have
invented a better method of analysis than had ever been practised before.
Of other grammars, his preface avers, "They have _all overlooked_ what the
author considers a very important object; namely, _a systematick order of
parsing_."--_Grammar_, p. 9. And, in his "Hints to Teachers," presenting
himself as a model, and his book as a paragon, he says: "By pursuing this
system, he can, with less labour, advance a pupil _farther_ in the
practical knowledge of this _abstruse science_, in _two months_, than he
could in _one year_, when he taught in the _old way_."--_Grammar_, p. 12.
What his "_old way_" was, does not appear. Doubtless something sufficiently
bad. And as to his new way, I shall hereafter have occasion to show that
_that_ is sufficiently bad also. But to this gasconade the simple-minded
have given credit--because the author showed certificates that testified to
his great success, and called him "amiable and modest!" But who can look
into the book, or into the writer's pretensions in regard to his
predecessors, and conceive the merit which has made him--"preeminent by so
much odds?" Was Murray less praiseworthy, less amiable, or less modest? In
illustration of my topic, and for the sake of literary justice, I have
selected that honoured "_Compiler_" to show the abuses of praise; let the
history of this his vaunting _modifier_ cap the climax of vanity. In
general, his amendments of "that eminent philologist," are not more
skillful than the following touch upon an eminent dramatist; and here, it
is plain, he has mistaken two nouns for adjectives, and converted into bad
English a beautiful passage, the sentiment of which is worthy of an
_author's_ recollection:

"The evil _deed_ or _deeds_ that men do, _lives_ after them;
The good _deed_ or _deeds is_ oft interred with their bones." [16]
_Kirkham's Grammar_, p. 75.

40. Lord Bacon observes, "Nothing is thought so easy a request to a great
person as his letter; and yet, if it be not in a good cause, it is so much
out of his reputation." It is to this mischievous facility of
recommendation, this prostituted influence of great names, that the
inconvenient diversity of school-books, and the continued use of bad ones,
are in a great measure to be attributed. It belongs to those who understand
th