OBS. 15.—­Strictures like the foregoing, did they not involve the defence of grammar itself, so as to bear upon interests more important than the success or failure of an elementary book, might well be withheld through motives of charity, economy, and peace.  There is many a grammar now extant, concerning which a truly critical reader may know more at first sight, than ever did he that made it.  What such a reader will be inclined to rate beneath criticism, an other perhaps will confidently pronounce above it.  If my remarks are just, let the one approve them for the other’s sake.  For what becomes of the teaching of grammar, when that which is received as the most excellent method, must be exempted from censure by reason of its utter worthlessness?  And what becomes of Universal Syntax, when the imperfect systems of the Latin and Greek grammars, in stead of being amended, are modelled to the grossest faults of what is worthless in our own?[329]

OBS. 16.—­What arrangement of Latin or Greek syntax may be best in itself, I am not now concerned to show.  Lily did not divide his, as others have divided the subject since; but first stated briefly his three concords, and then proceeded to what he called the construction of the several parts of speech, taking them in their order.  The three concords of Lily are the following:  (1.) Of the Nominative and Verb; to which the accusative before an infinitive, and the collective noun with a plural verb, are reckoned exceptions; while the agreement of a verb or pronoun with two or more nouns, is referred to the figure syllepsis. (2.) Of the Substantive and Adjective; under which the agreement of participles, and of some pronouns, is placed in the form of a note. (3.) Of the Relative and Antecedent; after which the two special rules for the cases of relatives are given as underparts.  Dr. Adam divided his syntax into two parts; of Simple Sentences, and of Compound Sentences.  His three concords are the following:  (1.) Of one Substantive with an Other; which construction is placed by Lily and many others among the figures of syntax, and is called apposition. (2.) Of an Adjective with a Substantive; under which principle, we are told to take adjective pronouns and participles. (3.) Of a Verb with a Nominative; under which, the collective noun with a verb of either number, is noticed in an observation.  The construction of relatives, of conjunctions, of comparatives, and of words put absolute, this author reserves for the second part of his syntax; and the agreement of plural verbs or pronouns with joint nominatives or antecedents, which Ruddiman places in an observation on his four concords, is here absurdly reckoned a part of the construction of conjunctions.  Various divisions and subdivisions of the Latin syntax, with special dispositions of some particular principles of it, may be seen in the elaborate grammars of Despauter,