upbraiding, and vilifying
the writer. Of what _use_ this was, others may judge.

This extraordinary grammarian survived the publication of my criticism
about ten years, and, it is charitably hoped, died happily; while I have
had, for a period somewhat longer, all the benefits which his earnest
"_castigation_" was fit to confer. It is not perceived, that what was
written before these events, should now be altered or suppressed by reason
of them. With his pretended "defence," I shall now concern myself no
further than simply to deny one remarkable assertion contained in it; which
is this--that I, Goold Brown, "at the funeral of Aaron Ely," in 1830,
"praised, and _highly_ praised, this self-same Grammar, and declared it to
be 'A GOOD WORK!'"--KIRKHAM, _in the Knickerbocker_, Oct., 1837, p. 362. I
treated him always courteously, and, on this solemn occasion, walked with
him without disputing on grammar; but, if this statement of his has any
reasonable foundation, I know not what it is.--G. B. in 1850.

[17] See _Notes to Pope's Dunciad_, Book II, verse 140.

[18] A modern namesake of the Doctor's, the _Rev. David Blair_, has the
following conception of the _utility_ of these speculations: "To enable
children to comprehend the _abstract idea_ that all the words in a language
consist but of _nine kinds_, it will be found useful to explain how _savage
tribes_ WHO _having no language_, would first invent one, beginning with
interjections and nouns, and proceeding from one part of speech to another,
as their introduction might successively be called for by necessity or
luxury."--_Blair's Pract. Gram., Pref._, p. vii.

[19] "Interjections, I _shewed_, or passionate exclamations, were the
_first elements_ of speech. Men laboured to communicate their feelings to
one another, by those expressive cries and gestures which nature taught
them."--_Dr. Hugh Blair's Lectures_, p. 57.

[20] "It is certain that the verb was invented before the noun, in all the
languages of which a tolerable account has been procured, either in ancient
or modern times."--_Dr. Alex. Murray's History of European Languages_, Vol.
I, p. 326.

[21] The Greek of this passage, together with a translation not very
different from the foregoing, is given as a marginal note, in _Harris's
Hermes_, Book III, Chap. 3d.

[22] The Bible does not say positively that there was no diversity of
languages _before the flood_; but, since the life-time of Adam extended
fifty-