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 be noticed William Walker, the preceptor of Sir Isaac Newton, a teacher and grammarian of extraordinary learning, who died in 1684.  He has left us sundry monuments of his taste and critical skill:  one is his “Treatise of English Particles,”—­a work of great labour and merit, but useless to most people now-a-days, because it explains the English in Latin; an other, his “Art of Teaching Improv’d,”—­which is also an able treatise, and apparently well adapted to its object, “the Grounding of a Young Scholar in the Latin Tongue.”  In the latter, are mentioned other works of his, on “Rhetorick, and Logick” which I have not seen.

28.  In 1706, Richard Johnson published an octavo volume of more than four hundred pages, entitled, “Grammatical Commentaries; being an Apparatus to a New National Grammar:  by way of animadversion upon the falsities, obscurities, redundancies and defects of Lily’s System now in use.”  This is a work of great acuteness, labour, and learning; and might be of signal use to any one who should undertake to prepare a new or improved Latin grammar:  of which, in my opinion, we have yet urgent need.  The English grammarian may also peruse it with advantage, if he has a good knowledge of Latin—­and without such knowledge he must be ill prepared for his task.  This work is spoken of and quoted by some of the early English grammarians; but the hopes of the writer do not appear to have been realized.  His book was not calculated to supply the place of the common one; for the author thought it impracticable to make a new grammar, suitable for boys, and at the same time to embrace in it proofs sufficient to remove the prejudices of teachers in favour of the old.  King Henry’s edict in support of Lily, was yet in force, backed by all the partiality which long habit creates; and Johnson’s learning, and labour, and zeal, were admired, and praised, and soon forgot.

29.  Near the beginning of the last century, some of the generous wits of the reign of Queen Anne, seeing the need there was of greater attention to their vernacular language, and of a grammar more properly English than any then in use, produced a book with which the later writers on the same subjects, would have done well to have made themselves better acquainted.  It is entitled “A Grammar of the English Tongue; with the Arts of Logick, Rhetorick, Poetry, &c.  Illustrated with useful Notes; giving the Grounds and Reasons of Grammar in General.  The Whole making a Compleat System of an English Education. Published by JOHN BRIGHTLAND, for the Use of the Schools of Great Britain and Ireland.”  It is ingeniously recommended in a certificate by Sir Richard Steele, or the Tattler, under the fictitious name of Isaac