38.  Whether, in what I have been enabled to do, there will be found a remedy for this complaint, must be referred to the decision of others.  Upon the probability of effecting this, I have been willing to stake some labour; how much, and with what merit, let the candid and discerning, when they shall have examined for themselves, judge.  It is certain that we have hitherto had, of our language, no complete grammar.  The need of such a work I suppose to be at this time in no small degree felt, especially by those who conduct our higher institutions of learning; and my ambition has been to produce one which might deservedly stand along side of the Port-Royal Latin and Greek Grammars, or of the Grammaire des Grammaires of Girault Du Vivier.  If this work is unworthy to aspire to such rank, let the patrons of English literature remember that the achievement of my design is still a desideratum.  We surely have no other book which might, in any sense, have been called “the Grammar of English Grammars;” none, which, either by excellence, or on account of the particular direction of its criticism, might take such a name.  I have turned the eyes of Grammar, in an especial manner, upon the conduct of her own household; and if, from this volume, the reader acquire a more just idea of the grammar which is displayed in English grammars, he will discover at least one reason for the title which has been bestowed upon the work.  Such as the book is, I present it to the public, without pride, without self-seeking, and without anxiety:  knowing that most of my readers will be interested in estimating it justly; that no true service, freely rendered to learning, can fail of its end; and that no achievement merits aught with Him who graciously supplies all ability.  The opinions expressed in it have been formed with candour, and are offered with submission.  If in any thing they are erroneous, there are those who can detect their faults.  In the language of an ancient master, the earnest and assiduous Despauter, I invite the correction of the candid:  “Nos quoque, quantumcunque diligentes, cum a candidis tum a lividis carpemur:  a candidis interdum juste; quos oro, ut de erratis omnibus amice me admoneant—­erro nonnunquam quia homo sum.”

GOOLD BROWN.

New York, 1836.

THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH GRAMMARS.

Grammar, as an art, is the power of reading, writing, and speaking correctly.  As an acquisition, it is the essential skill of scholarship.  As a study, it is the practical science which teaches the right use of language.

An English Grammar is a book which professes to explain the nature and structure of the English language; and to show, on just authority, what is, and what is not, good English.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR, in itself, is the art of reading, writing, and speaking the English language correctly.  It implies, in the adept, such knowledge as enables him to avoid improprieties of speech; to correct any errors that may occur in literary compositions; and to parse, or explain grammatically, whatsoever is rightly written.