. The best Latin grammarians admit that the Adjective ought not to be
called a Noun; and the best Greek grammarians, that the Interjections ought
not to be included among Adverbs. With respect to Participles, a vast
majority of grammarians in general, make them a distinct species, or part
of speech; but, on this point, the English grammarians are about equally
divided: nearly one half include them with the verbs, and a few call them
adjectives. In grammar, it is wrong to deviate from the old groundwork,
except for the sake of truth and improvement; and, in this case, to vary
the series of parts, by suppressing one and substituting an other, is in
fact a greater innovation, than to make the terms ten, by adding one and
dividing an other. But our men of nine parts of speech innovated yet more:
they added the Article, as did the Greeks; divided the Noun into
Substantive and Adjective; and, without good reason, suppressed the
Participle. And, of latter time, not a few have thrown the whole into
confusion, to show the world "the order of [their] understanding." What was
grammar fifty years ago, some of these have not thought it worth their
while to inquire! And the reader has seen, that, after all this, they can
complacently talk of "the censure so frequently and so justly awarded to
_unfortunate innovators_."--KIRKHAM'S _Gram._, p. 10.

7. The old scheme of the Latin grammarians has seldom, if ever, been
_literally_ followed in English; because its distribution of the parts of
speech, as declined and undeclined, would not be true with respect to the
English participle. With the omission of this unimportant distinction, it
was, however, scrupulously retained by Dilworth, by the author of the
British Grammar, by William Ward, by Buchanan, and by some others now
little known, who chose to include both the article and the adjective with
the noun, rather than to increase the number of the parts of speech beyond
eight. Dr. Priestley says, "I shall adopt the _usual distribution_ of words
into eight classes; viz. Nouns, Adjectives, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs,
Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections.[71] I do this in compliance
with the practice of most Grammarians; and because, _if any number, in a
thing so arbitrary, must be fixed upon_, this seems to be as comprehensive
and distinct as any. All the innovation I have made hath been to throw out
the _Participle_, and substitute the _Adjective_, as more evidently a
distinct part o