[72] Felton, who is confessedly a modifier of Murray, claims as a merit, “the rejection of several useless parts of speech” yet acknowledges “nine,” and treats of ten; “viz., Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Participles, Prepositions, Adjectives, [Articles,] Adverbs, Conjunctions, Exclamations.”—­O.  C. Felton’s Gram. p. 5, and p. 9.

[73] Quintilian is at fault here; for, in some of his writings, if not generally, Aristotle recognized four parts of speech; namely, verbs, nouns, conjunctions, and articles.  See Aristot. de Poetica, Cap. xx.

[74] “As there are ten different characters or figures in arithmetic to represent all possible quantities, there are also ten kinds of words or parts of speech to represent all possible sentences:  viz.:  article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection.”—­Chauvier’s Punctuation, p. 104.

[75] The Friend, 1829, Vol. ii, p. 117.

[76] The Friend, Vol. ii, p. 105.

[77] See the Preface to my Compendious English Grammar in the American editions of the Treasury of Knowledge, Vol. i, p. 8.

[78] Some say that Brightland himself was the writer of this grammar; but to suppose him the sole author, hardly comports with its dedication to the Queen, by her “most Obedient and Dutiful Subjects, the Authors;” or with the manner in which these are spoken of, in the following lines, by the laureate: 

“Then say what Thanks, what Praises must attend The Gen’rous Wits, who thus could condescend!  Skill, that to Art’s sublimest Orb can reach, Employ’d its humble Elements to Teach!  Yet worthily Esteem’d, because we know To raise Their Country’s Fame they stoop’d so low.”—­TATE.

[79] Dr. Campbell, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, page 158th, makes a difficulty respecting the meaning of this passage:  cites it as an instance of the misapplication of the term grammar; and supposes the writer’s notion of the thing to have been, “of grammar in the abstract, an universal archetype by which the particular grammars of all different tongues ought to be regulated.”  And adds, “If this was his meaning, I cannot say whether he is in the right or in the wrong, in this accusation.  I acknowledge myself to be entirely ignorant of this ideal grammar.”  It would be more fair to suppose that Dr. Swift meant by “grammar” the rules and principles according to which the English language ought to be spoken and written; and, (as I shall hereafter show,) it is no great hyperbole to affirm, that every part of the code—­nay, well-nigh every one of these rules and principles—­is, in many instances, violated, if not by what may be called the language itself, at least by those speakers and writers who are under the strongest obligations to know and observe its true use.