sed with many
errors. Murray, not having mounted to the original sources of information,
and professing only to select and arrange the rules and criticisms of
preceding writers, has furnished little or nothing new. Of the numerous
compilations of inferior character, it may be affirmed, that they have
added nothing to the stock of grammatical knowledge." And the concluding
sentence of this work, as well as of his Improved Grammar, published in
1831, extends the censure as follows: "It is not the English language only
whose history and principles are yet to be illustrated; but the grammars
and dictionaries of _all other_ languages, with which I have any
acquaintance, must be revised and corrected, before their elements and true
construction can be fully understood." In an advertisement to the grammar
prefixed to his quarto American Dictionary, the Doctor is yet more severe
upon books of this sort. "I close," says he, "with the single remark, that
from all the observations I have been able to make, I am convinced the
dictionaries and grammars which have been used in our seminaries of
learning for the last forty or fifty years, are _so incorrect and
imperfect_ that they have introduced or sanctioned more errors than they
have amended; in other words, had the people of England and of these States
been left to learn the pronunciation and construction of their vernacular
language solely by tradition, and the reading of good authors, the language
would have been spoken and written with more purity than it has been and
now is, by those who have learned to adjust their language by the rules
which dictionaries prescribe."

27. Little and much are but relative terms; yet when we look back to the
period in which English grammar was taught only in Latin, it seems
extravagant to say, that "little improvement has been made" in it since. I
have elsewhere expressed a more qualified sentiment. "That the grammar of
our language has made considerable progress since the days of Swift, who
wrote a petty treatise on the subject, is sufficiently evident; but whoever
considers what remains to be done, cannot but perceive how ridiculous are
many of the boasts and felicitations which we have heard on that topic."
[77] Some further notice will now be taken of that progress, and of the
writers who have been commonly considered the chief promoters of it, but
especially of such as have not been previously mentioned in a like
connexion. Among these may