ableness, yet always positive; for his
inconsistency, yet very learned; for his zeal "to correct popular errors,"
yet often himself erroneous; for his fertility in resources, yet sometimes
meagre; for his success as an author, yet never satisfied; for his boldness
of innovation, yet fond of appealing to antiquity. His grammars are the
least judicious, and at present the least popular, of his works. They
consist of four or five different treatises, which for their mutual credit
should never be compared: it is impossible to place any firm reliance upon
the authority of a man who contradicts himself so much. Those who imagine
that the last opinions of so learned a man must needs be right, will do
well to wait, and see what will be his last: they cannot otherwise know to
what his instructions will finally lead: Experience has already taught him
the folly of many of his pretended improvements, and it is probable his
last opinions of English grammar will be most conformable to that just
authority with which he has ever been tampering. I do not say that he has
not exhibited ingenuity as well as learning, or that he is always wrong
when he contradicts a majority of the English grammarians; but I may
venture to say, he was wrong when he undertook to disturb the common scheme
of the parts of speech, as well as when he resolved to spell all words
exactly as they are pronounced.

14. It is not commonly known with how rash a hand this celebrated author
has sometimes touched the most settled usages of our language. In 1790,
which was seven years after the appearance of his first grammar, he
published an octavo volume of more than four hundred pages, consisting of
Essays, moral, historical, political, and literary, which might have done
him credit, had he not spoiled his book by a grammatical whim about the
reformation of orthography. Not perceiving that English literature,
multiplied as it had been within two or three centuries, had acquired a
stability in some degree corresponding to its growth, he foolishly imagined
it was still as susceptible of change and improvement as in the days of its
infancy. Let the reader pardon the length of this digression, if for the
sake of any future schemer who may chance to adopt a similar conceit, I
cite from the preface to this volume a specimen of the author's practice
and reasoning. The ingenious attorney had the good sense quickly to abandon
this project, and content himself with less glaring inn