ms of thought, which will fasten on the memory a worthy
sentiment, or relieve the dullness of minute instruction. Such examples
have been taken from various authors, and interspersed through the
following pages. The moral effect of early lessons being a point of the
utmost importance, it is especially incumbent on all those who are
endeavouring to confer the benefits of intellectual culture, to guard
against the admission or the inculcation of any principle which may have an
improper tendency, and be ultimately prejudicial to those whom they
instruct. In preparing this treatise for publication, the author has been
solicitous to avoid every thing that could be offensive to the most
delicate and scrupulous reader; and of the several thousands of quotations
introduced for the illustration or application of the principles of the
science, he trusts that the greater part will be considered valuable on
account of the sentiments they contain.

35. The nature of the subject almost entirely precludes invention. The
author has, however, aimed at that kind and degree of originality which are
to be commended in works of this sort. What these are, according to his
view, he has sufficiently explained in a preceding chapter. And, though he
has taken the liberty of a grammarian, to think for himself and write in a
style of his own, he trusts it will be evident that few have excelled him
in diligence of research, or have followed more implicitly the dictates of
that authority which gives law to language. In criticising the critics and
grammatists of the schools, he has taken them upon their own
ground--showing their errors, for the most part, in contrast with the
common principles which they themselves have taught; and has hoped to
escape censure, in his turn, not by sheltering himself under the name of a
popular master, but by a diligence which should secure to his writings at
least the humble merit of self-consistency. His progress in composing this
work has been slow, and not unattended with labour and difficulty. Amidst
the contrarieties of opinion, that appear in the various treatises already
before the public, and the perplexities inseparable from so complicated a
subject, he has, after deliberate consideration, adopted those views and
explanations which appeared to him the least liable to objection, and the
most compatible with his ultimate object--the production of a work which
should show, both extensively and accurately, what is,