f speech."--_Rudiments of English Gram._, p. 3. All this
comports well enough with Dr. Priestley's haste and carelessness; but it is
not true, that he either adopted, "the usual distribution of words," or
made an other "as comprehensive and distinct as any." His "_innovation_,"
too, which has since been countenanced by many other writers, I have
already shown to be greater, than if, by a promotion of the article and the
adjective, he had made the parts of speech ten. Dr. Beattie, who was
Priestley's coeval, and a much better scholar, adopted this number without
hesitation, and called every one of them by what is still its right name:
"In English there are _ten_ sorts of words, which are all found in the
following short sentence; 'I now see the good man coming; but, alas! he
walks with difficulty.' _I_ and _he_ are pronouns; _now_ is an adverb;
_see_ and _walks_ are verbs; _the_ is an article; _good_, an adjective;
_man_ and _difficulty_ are nouns, the former substantive, the latter
abstract; _coming_ is a participle; _but_, a conjunction; _alas!_ an
interjection; _with_, a preposition. That no other sorts of words are
necessary in language, will appear, when we have seen in what respects
these are necessary."--_Beattie's Moral Science_, Vol. i, p. 30. This
distribution is precisely that which the best _French_ grammarians have
_usually_ adopted.

8. Dr. Johnson professes to adopt the division, the order, and the terms,
"of the common grammarians, without inquiring whether a fitter distribution
might not be found."--_Gram. before 4to Dict._, p. 1. But, in the Etymology
of his Grammar, he makes no enumeration of the parts of speech, and treats
only of articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs; to which if we
add the others, according to the common grammarians, or according to his
own Dictionary, the number will be _ten_. And this distribution, which was
adopted by Dr. Ash about 1765, by Murray the schoolmaster about 1790, by
Caleb Alexander in 1795, and approved by Dr. Adam in 1793, has since been
very extensively followed; as may be seen in Dr. Crombie's treatise, in the
Rev. Matt. Harrison's, in Dr. Mandeville's reading-books, and in the
grammars of Harrison, Staniford, Alden, Coar, John Peirce, E. Devis, C.
Adams, D. Adams, Chandler, Comly, Jaudon, Ingersoll, Hull, Fuller,
Greenleaf, Kirkham, Ferd. H. Miller, Merchant, Mack, Nutting, Bucke, Beck,
Barrett, Barnard, Maunder, Webber, Emmons, Hazen, Bingham, Sanders,