y of verbs, nouns, and conjunctions: as the verb is
what we say, and the noun, that of which we say it, they judged the power
of discourse to be in _verbs_, and the matter in _nouns_, but the connexion
in _conjunctions_. Little by little, the philosophers, and especially the
Stoics, increased the number: first, to the conjunctions were added
_articles_; afterwards, _prepositions_; to nouns, was added the
_appellation_; then the _pronoun_; afterwards, as belonging to each verb,
the _participle_; and, to verbs in common, _adverbs_. Our language [i. e.,
the _Latin_] does not require articles, wherefore they are scattered among
the other parts of speech; but there is added to the foregoing the
_interjection_. But some, on the authority of good authors, make the parts
only eight; as Aristarchus, and, in our day, Palaemon; who have included the
vocable, or appellation, with the noun, as a species of it. But they who
make the noun one and the vocable an other, reckon nine. But there are also
some who divide the vocable from the appellation; making the former to
signify any thing manifest to sight or touch, as _house, bed_; and the
latter, any thing to which either or both are wanting, as _wind, heaven,
god, virtue_. They have also added the _asseveration_ and the
_attrectation_, which I do not approve. Whether the vocable or appellation
should be included with the noun or not, as it is a matter of little
consequence, I leave to the decision of others."--See QUINTIL. _de Inst.
Orat._, Lib. i, Cap. 4, Sec.24.

11. Several writers on English grammar,
indulging a strange unsettlement of plan, seem not to have determined in
their own minds, how many parts of speech there are, or ought to be. Among
these are Horne Tooke, Webster, Dalton, Cardell, Green, and Cobb; and
perhaps, from what he says above, we may add the name of Priestley. The
present disputation about the sorts of words, has been chiefly owing to the
writings of Horne Tooke, who explains the minor parts of speech as mere
abbreviations, and rejects, with needless acrimony, the common
classification. But many have mistaken the nature of his instructions, no
less than that of the common grammarians. This author, in his third
chapter, supposes his auditor to say, "But you have not all this while
informed me _how many parts of speech_ you mean to lay down." To whom he
replies, "That shall be as you please. Either _two_, or _twenty_, or
_more_." Such looseness comported well en