18.  It is really remarkable to find an author and his admirers so much at variance, as are Murray and his commenders, in relation to his grammatical authorship; and yet, under what circumstances could men have stronger desires to avoid apparent contradiction?  They, on the one side, claim for him the highest degree of merit as a grammarian; and continue to applaud his works as if nothing more could be desired in the study of English grammar—­a branch of learning which some of them are willing emphatically to call “his science.”  He, on the contrary, to avert the charge of plagiarism, disclaims almost every thing in which any degree of literary merit consists; supposes it impossible to write an English grammar the greater part of which is not a “compilation;” acknowledges that originality belongs to but a small part of his own; trusts that such a general acknowledgement will protect him from all censure; suppresses the names of other writers, and leaves his examples to rest solely on his own authority; and, “contented with the great respectability of his private character and station, is satisfied with being useful as an author.”—­The Friend, Vol. iii, p. 33.  By the high praises bestowed upon his works, his own voice is overborne:  the trumpet of fame has drowned it.  His liberal authorship is profitable in trade, and interest has power to swell and prolong the strain.

19.  The name and character of Lindley Murray are too venerable to allow us to approach even the errors of his grammars, without some recognition of the respect due to his personal virtues and benevolent intentions.  For the private virtues of Murray, I entertain as cordial a respect as any other man.  Nothing is argued against these, even if it be proved that causes independent of true literary merit have given him his great and unexpected fame as a grammarian.  It is not intended by the introduction of these notices, to impute to him any thing more or less than what his own words plainly imply; except those inaccuracies and deficiencies which still disgrace his work as a literary performance, and which of course he did not discover.  He himself knew that he had not brought the book to such perfection as has been ascribed to it; for, by way of apology for his frequent alterations, he says, “Works of this nature admit of repeated improvements; and are, perhaps, never complete.”  Necessity has urged this reasoning upon me.  I am as far from any invidious feeling, or any sordid motive, as was Lindley Murray.  But it is due to truth, to correct erroneous impressions; and, in order to obtain from some an impartial examination of the following pages, it seemed necessary first to convince them, that it is possible to compose a better grammar than Murray’s, without being particularly indebted to him.  If this treatise is not such, a great deal of time has been thrown away upon a useless project; and if it is, the achievement is no fit subject for either pride or envy.  It differs from his, and from all the pretended amendments of his, as a new map, drawn from actual and minute surveys, differs from an old one, compiled chiefly from others still older and confessedly still more imperfect.  The region and the scope are essentially the same; the tracing and the colouring are more original; and (if the reader can pardon the suggestion) perhaps more accurate and vivid.