the remarks of the best authors on the subject.”  But, in truth, with several of the best English grammars published previously to his own, Murray appears to have been totally unacquainted.  The chief, if not the only school grammars which were largely copied by him, were Lowth’s and Priestley’s, though others perhaps may have shared the fate of these in being “superseded” by his.  It may be seen by inspection, that in copying these two authors, the compiler, agreeably to what he says above, omitted all names and references—­even such as they had scrupulously inserted:  and, at the outset, assumed to be himself the sole authority for all his doctrines and illustrations; satisfying his own mind with making, some years afterwards, that general apology which we are now criticising.  For if he so mutilated and altered the passages which he adopted, as to make it improper to add the names of their authors, upon what other authority than his own do they rest?  But if, on the other hand, he generally copied without alteration; his examples are still anonymous, while his first reason for leaving them so, is plainly destroyed:  because his position is thus far contradicted by the fact.

11.  In his later editions, however, there are two opinions which the compiler thought proper to support by regular quotations; and, now and then, in other instances, the name of an author appears.  The two positions thus distinguished, are these:  First, That the noun means is necessarily singular as well as plural, so that one cannot with propriety use the singular form, mean, to signify that by which an end is attained; Second, That the subjective mood, to which he himself had previously given all the tenses without inflection, is not different in form from the indicative, except in the present tense.  With regard to the later point, I have shown, in its proper place, that he taught erroneously, both before and after he changed his opinion; and concerning the former, the most that can be proved by quotation, is, that both mean and means for the singular number, long have been, and still are, in good use, or sanctioned by many elegant writers; so that either form may yet be considered grammatical, though the irregular can claim to be so, only when it is used in this particular sense.  As to his second reason for the suppression of names, to wit, “the uncertainty to whom the passages originally belonged,”—­to make the most of it, it is but partial and relative; and, surely, no other grammar ever before so multiplied the difficulty in the eyes of teachers, and so widened the field for commonplace authorship, as has the compilation in question.  The origin of a sentiment or passage may be uncertain to one man, and perfectly well known to an other.  The embarrassment which a compiler may happen to find from this source, is worthy of little sympathy.  For he cannot but know from what work he is taking any particular sentence or paragraph, and those parts of a grammar, which are new to the eye of a great grammarian, may very well be credited to him who claims to have written the book.  I have thus disposed of his second reason for the omission of names and references, in compilations of grammar.