learning. Intending to develop not only the principles but also the history
of grammar, I could not but speak of its authors. The writer who looks
broadly at the past and the present, to give sound instruction to the
future, must not judge of men by their shadows. If the truth, honestly
told, diminish the stature of some, it does it merely by clearing the sight
of the beholder. Real greatness cannot suffer loss by the dissipating of a
vapour. If reputation has been raised upon the mist of ignorance, who but
the builder shall lament its overthrow? If the works of grammarians are
often ungrammatical, whose fault is this but their own? If _all_
grammatical fame is little in itself, how can the abatement of what is
undeserved of it be much? If the errors of some have long been tolerated,
what right of the critic has been lost by nonuser? If the interests of
Science have been sacrificed to Mammon, what rebuke can do injustice to the
craft? Nay, let the broad-axe of the critic hew up to the line, till every
beam in her temple be smooth and straight. For, "certainly, next to
commending good writers, the greatest service to learning is, to expose the
bad, who can only in that way be made of any use to it." [17] And if, among
the makers of grammars, the scribblings of some, and the filchings of
others, are discreditable alike to themselves and to their theme, let the
reader consider, how great must be the intrinsic worth of that study which
still maintains its credit in spite of all these abuses!

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.

"Tot fallaciis obrutum, tot hallucinationibus demersum, tot adhuc tenebris
circumfusum studium hocce mihi visum est, ut nihil satis tuto in hac
materia praestari posse arbitratus sim, nisi nova quadam arte critica
praemissa."--SCIPIO MAFFEIUS: _Cassiod. Complexiones_, p. xxx.

1. The origin of things is, for many reasons, a peculiarly interesting
point in their history. Among those who have thought fit to inquire into
the prime origin of speech, it has been matter of dispute, whether we ought
to consider it a special gift from Heaven, or an acquisition of industry--a
natural endowment, or an artificial invention. Nor is any thing that has
ever yet been said upon it, sufficient to set the question permanently at
rest. That there is in some words, and perhaps in some of every language, a
natural connexion between the sounds uttered and the things signified,
cannot be denied; yet, on the