t of
his phraseology yet become obsolete. But it ought to be known, that the
printers or editors of the editions which are now read, have taken
extensive liberty in modernizing his orthography, as well as that of other
old authors still popular. How far such liberty is justifiable, it is
difficult to say. Modern readers doubtless find a convenience in it. It is
very desirable that the orthography of our language should be made uniform,
and remain permanent. Great alterations cannot be suddenly introduced; and
there is, in stability, an advantage which will counterbalance that of a
slow approximation to regularity. Analogy may sometimes decide the form of
variable words, but the concurrent usage of the learned must ever be
respected, in this, as in every other part of grammar.

25. Among the earliest of the English grammarians, was Ben Jonson, the
poet; who died in the year 1637, at the age of sixty-three. His grammar,
(which Horne Tooke mistakingly calls "the _first_ as well as the _best_
English grammar,") is still extant, being published in the several editions
of his works. It is a small treatise, and worthy of attention only as a
matter of curiosity. It is written in prose, and designed chiefly for the
aid of foreigners. Grammar is an unpoetical subject, and therefore not
wisely treated, as it once very generally was, in verse. But every poet
should be familiar with the art, because the formal principles of his own
have always been considered as embraced in it. To its poets, too, every
language must needs be particularly indebted; because their compositions,
being in general more highly finished than works in prose, are supposed to
present the language in its most agreeable form. In the preface to the
Poems of Edmund Waller, published in 1690, the editor ventures to say, "He
was, indeed, the Parent of English Verse, and the first that shewed us our
Tongue had Beauty and Numbers in it. Our Language owes more to Him, than
the French does to Cardinal Richelieu and the whole Academy. * * * * The
Tongue came into His hands a rough diamond: he polished it first; and to
_that_ degree, that all artists since him have admired the workmanship,
without pretending to mend it."--_British Poets_, Vol. ii, Lond., 1800:
_Waller's Poems_, p. 4.

26. Dr. Johnson, however, in his Lives of the Poets, abates this praise,
that he may transfer the greater part of it to Dryden and Pope. He admits
that, "After about half a century of forced