[60] William C. Woodbridge edited the Journal, and probably wrote the
article, from which the author of "English Grammar on the Productive
System" took his "_Preface_."

[61] Many other grammars, later than Murray's, have been published, some in
England, some in America, and some in both countries; and among these there
are, I think, a few in which a little improvement has been made, in the
methods prescribed for the exercises of parsing and correcting. In most,
however, _nothing of the kind has been attempted_. And, of the formularies
which have been given, the best that I have seen, are still miserably
defective, and worthy of all the censure that is expressed in the paragraph
above; while others, that appear in works not entirely destitute of merit,
are absolutely _much worse_ than Murray's, and worthy to condemn to a
speedy oblivion the books in which they are printed. In lieu of forms of
expression, clear, orderly, accurate, and full; such as a young parser
might profitably imitate; such as an experienced one would be sure to
approve; what have we? A chaos of half-formed sentences, for the ignorant
pupil to flounder in; an infinite abyss of blunders, which a world of
criticism could not fully expose! See, for example, the seven pages of
parsing, in the neat little book entitled, "A Practical Grammar of the
English Language, by the Rev. David Blair: Seventh Edition: London, 1815:"
pp. 49 to 57. I cannot consent to quote more than one short paragraph of
the miserable jumble which these pages contain. Yet the author is evidently
a man of learning, and capable of writing well on some subjects, if not on
this. "Bless the Lord, O my soul!" Form: "_Bless_, a verb, (repeat 97);
active (repeat 99); active voice (102); _infinitive mood_ (107); _third
person, soul being the nominative_ (118); present tense (111); conjugate
the verb after the pattern (129); its object is Lord (99)."--_Blair's
Gram._, p. 50. Of the paragraphs referred to, I must take some notice:
"107. The _imperative_ mood commands or orders or intreats."--_Ib._, p. 19.
"118. The _second person_ is always the pronoun _thou_ or _you_ in the
singular, and _ye_ or _you_ in the plural."--_Ib._, p. 21. "111. The
_imperative_ mood has no distinction of tense: and the _infinitive_ has no
distinction of persons."--_Ib._, p. 20. Now the author should have said:
"_Bless_ is a redundant active-transitive verb, from _bless, blessed_ or
_blest, blessing, blessed_ or _blest_