ay in a
rugged land, is proportionate not merely to the utility of the achievement,
but to the magnitude of the obstacles to be overcome. The difficulties
encountered in boyhood from the use of a miserable epitome and the deep
impression of a few mortifying blunders made in public, first gave the
author a fondness for grammar; circumstances having since favoured this
turn of his genius, he has voluntarily pursued the study, with an assiduity
which no man will ever imitate for the sake of pecuniary recompense.

CHAPTER X.

OF GRAMMATICAL DEFINITIONS.

"Scientiam autem nusquam esse censebant, nisi in animi motionibus atque
rationibus: qua de causa _definitiones_ rerum probabant, et has ad omnia,
de quibus disceptabatur, adhibebant."--CICERONIS _Academica_, Lib. i, 9.

1. "The first and highest philosophy," says Puffendorf, "is that which
delivers the most accurate and comprehensive _definitions_ of things." Had
all the writers on English grammar been adepts in this philosophy, there
would have been much less complaint of the difficulty and uncertainty of
the study. "It is easy," says Murray, "to advance plausible objections
against almost every definition, rule, and arrangement of
grammar."--_Gram._, 8vo, p. 59. But, if this is true, as regards his, or
any other work, the reason, I am persuaded, is far less inherent in the
nature of the subject than many have supposed.[64] Objectionable
definitions and rules are but evidences of the ignorance and incapacity of
him who frames them. And if the science of grammar has been so unskillfully
treated that almost all its positions may be plausibly impugned, it is time
for some attempt at a reformation of the code. The language is before us,
and he who knows most about it, can best prescribe the rules which we ought
to observe in the use of it. But how can we expect children to deduce from
a few particulars an accurate notion of general principles and their
exceptions, where learned doctors have so often faltered? Let the abettors
of grammatical "_induction_" answer.

2. Nor let it be supposed a light
matter to prescribe with certainty the principles of grammar. For, what is
requisite to the performance? To know certainly, in the first place, what
is the _best usage_. Nor is this all. Sense and memory must be keen, and
tempered to retain their edge and hold, in spite of any difficulties which
the subject may present. To understand things exactly as they are; to
discern