he has neither written for bread, nor on the credit of its proceeds built castles in the air.  His ambition was, to make an acceptable book, by which the higher class of students might be thoroughly instructed, and in which the eyes of the critical would find little to condemn.  He is too well versed in the history of his theme, too well aware of the precarious fortune of authors, to indulge in any confident anticipations of extraordinary success:  yet he will not deny that his hopes are large, being conscious of having cherished them with a liberality of feeling which cannot fear disappointment.  In this temper he would invite the reader to a thorough perusal of these pages.

37.  A grammar should speak for itself.  In a work of this nature, every word or tittle which does not recommend the performance to the understanding and taste of the skillful, is, so far as it goes, a certificate against it.  Yet if some small errors shall have escaped detection, let it be recollected that it is almost impossible to compose and print, with perfect accuracy, a work of this size, in which so many little things should be observed, remembered, and made exactly to correspond.  There is no human vigilance which multiplicity may not sometimes baffle, and minuteness sometimes elude.  To most persons grammar seems a dry and difficult subject; but there is a disposition of mind, to which what is arduous, is for that very reason alluring.  “Quo difficilius, hoc praeclarius,” says Cicero; “The more difficult, the more honourable.”  The merit of casting up a high-way in a rugged land, is proportionate not merely to the utility of the achievement, but to the magnitude of the obstacles to be overcome.  The difficulties encountered in boyhood from the use of a miserable epitome and the deep impression of a few mortifying blunders made in public, first gave the author a fondness for grammar; circumstances having since favoured this turn of his genius, he has voluntarily pursued the study, with an assiduity which no man will ever imitate for the sake of pecuniary recompense.

CHAPTER X.

OF GRAMMATICAL DEFINITIONS.

“Scientiam autem nusquam esse censebant, nisi in animi motionibus atque rationibus:  qua de causa definitiones rerum probabant, et has ad omnia, de quibus disceptabatur, adhibebant.”—­CICERONIS Academica, Lib. i, 9.

1.  “The first and highest philosophy,” says Puffendorf, “is that which delivers the most accurate and comprehensive definitions of things.”  Had all the writers on English grammar been adepts in this philosophy, there would have been much less complaint of the difficulty and uncertainty of the study.  “It is easy,” says Murray, “to advance plausible objections against almost every definition, rule, and arrangement of grammar.”—­Gram., 8vo, p. 59.  But, if this is true, as regards his, or any other work, the reason, I am persuaded, is far