7.  Murray was an intelligent and very worthy man, to whose various labours in the compilation of books our schools are under many obligations.  But in original thought and critical skill he fell far below most of “the authors to whom,” he confesses, “the grammatical part of his compilation is principally indebted for its materials; namely, Harris, Johnson, Lowth, Priestley, Beattie, Sheridan, Walker, Coote, Blair, and Campbell.”—­Introd. to Lindley Murray’s Gram., p. 7.  It is certain and evident that he entered upon his task with a very insufficient preparation.  His biography, which was commenced by himself and completed by one of his most partial friends, informs us, that, “Grammar did not particularly engage his attention, until a short time previous to the publication of his first work on that subject;” that, “His Grammar, as it appeared in the first edition, was completed in rather less than a year;” that, “It was begun in the spring of 1794, and published in the spring of 1795—­though he had an intervening illness, which, for several weeks, stopped the progress of the work;” and that, “The Exercises and Key were also composed in about a year.”—­Life of L. Murray, p. 188.  From the very first sentence of his book, it appears that he entertained but a low and most erroneous idea of the duties of that sort of character in which he was about to come before the public.[8] He improperly imagined, as many others have done, that “little can be expected” from a modern grammarian, or (as he chose to express it) “from a new compilation, besides a careful selection of the most useful matter, and some degree of improvement in the mode of adapting it to the understanding, and the gradual progress of learners.”—­Introd. to L. Murray’s Gram.; 8vo, p. 5; 12mo, p. 3.  As if, to be master of his own art—­to think and write well himself, were no part of a grammarian’s business!  And again, as if the jewels of scholarship, thus carefully selected, could need a burnish or a foil from other hands than those which fashioned them!

8.  Murray’s general idea of the doctrines of grammar was judicious.  He attempted no broad innovation on what had been previously taught; for he had neither the vanity to suppose he could give currency to novelties, nor the folly to waste his time in labours utterly nugatory.  By turning his own abilities to their best account, he seems to have done much to promote and facilitate the study of our language.  But his notion of grammatical authorship, cuts off from it all pretence to literary merit, for the sake of doing good; and, taken in any other sense than as a forced apology for his own assumptions, his language on this point is highly injurious towards the very authors whom he copied.  To justify himself, he ungenerously places them, in common with others, under a degrading necessity which no able grammarian ever felt, and which every man of genius or learning must repudiate.  If none of our older grammars