the imagination, who is ever ready to assume some new shape, and elude the vigilance of the inquirer.  But let the reader or student do his part; and, if he please, follow us with attention.  We will endeavour, with welded links, to bind this Proteus, in such a manner that he shall neither escape from our hold, nor fail to give to the consulter an intelligible and satisfactory response.  Be not discouraged, generous youth.  Hark to that sweet far-reaching note: 

   “Sed, quanto ille magis formas se vertet in omnes,
    Tanto, nate, magis contende tenacia vincla.” 
                    VIRGIL.  Geor.  IV, 411.

   “But thou, the more he varies forms, beware
    To strain his fetters with a stricter care.” 
                    DRYDEN’S VIRGIL.

5.  If for a moment we consider the good and the evil that are done in the world through the medium of speech, we shall with one voice acknowledge, that not only the faculty itself, but also the manner in which it is used, is of incalculable importance to the welfare of man.  But this reflection does not directly enhance our respect for grammar, because it is not to language as the vehicle of moral or of immoral sentiment, of good or of evil to mankind, that the attention of the grammarian is particularly directed.  A consideration of the subject in these relations, pertains rather to the moral philosopher.  Nor are the arts of logic and rhetoric now considered to be properly within the grammarian’s province.  Modern science assigns to these their separate places, and restricts grammar, which at one period embraced all learning, to the knowledge of language, as respects its fitness to be the vehicle of any particular thought or sentiment which the speaker or writer may wish to convey by it.  Accordingly grammar is commonly defined, by writers upon the subject, in the special sense of an art—­“the art of speaking or writing a language with propriety or correctness.”—­Webster’s Dict.

6.  Lily says, “Grammatica est recte scribendi atque loquendi ars;” that is, “Grammar is the art of writing and speaking correctly.”  Despauter, too, in his definition, which is quoted in a preceding paragraph, not improperly placed writing first, as being that with which grammar is primarily concerned.  For it ought to be remembered, that over any fugitive colloquial dialect, which has never been fixed by visible signs, grammar has no control; and that the speaking which the art or science of grammar teaches, is exclusively that which has reference to a knowledge of letters.  It is the certain tendency of writing, to improve speech.  And in proportion as books are multiplied, and the knowledge of written language is diffused, local dialects, which are beneath the dignity of grammar, will always be found to grow fewer, and their differences less.  There are, in the various parts of the world, many languages to which the art of grammar has never yet been applied; and to which, therefore, the definition or true idea of grammar, however general, does not properly extend.  And even where it has been applied, and is now honoured as a popular branch of study, there is yet great room for improvement:  barbarisms and solecisms have not been rebuked away as they deserve to be.