The Grammar of English Grammars. Goold Brown
proprietors and publishers may profit by the credit of a book, shall it be thought illiberal to criticise it? Is the author himself to be disbelieved, that the extravagant praises bestowed upon him may be justified? "Superlative commendation," says Dillwyn, "is near akin to detraction." (See his Reflections, p. 22.) Let him, therefore, who will charge detraction upon me, first understand wherein it consists. I shall criticise, freely, both the works of the living, and the doctrines of those who, to us, live only in their works; and if any man dislike this freedom, let him rebuke it, showing wherein it is wrong or unfair. The amiable author just quoted, says again: "Praise has so often proved an impostor, that it would be well, wherever we meet with it, to treat it as a vagrant."—Ib., p. 100. I go not so far as this; but that eulogy which one knows to be false, he cannot but reckon impertinent.
3. Few writers on grammar have been more noted than WILLIAM LILY and LINDLEY MURRAY. Others have left better monuments of their learning and talents, but none perhaps have had greater success and fame. The Latin grammar which was for a long time most popular in England, has commonly been ascribed to the one; and what the Imperial Review, in 1805, pronounced "the best English grammar, beyond all comparison, that has yet appeared," was compiled by the other. And doubtless they have both been rightly judged to excel the generality of those which they were intended to supersede; and both, in their day, may have been highly serviceable to the cause of learning. For all excellence is but comparative; and to grant them this superiority, is neither to prefer them now, nor to justify the praise which has been bestowed upon their authorship. As the science of grammar can never be taught without a book, or properly taught by any book which is not itself grammatical, it is of some importance both to teachers and to students, to make choice of the best. Knowledge will not advance where grammars hold rank by prescription. Yet it is possible that many, in learning to write and speak, may have derived no inconsiderable benefit from a book that is neither accurate nor complete.
4. With respect to time, these two grammarians were three centuries apart; during which period, the English language received its most classical refinement, and the relative estimation of the two studies, Latin and English grammar, became in a great measure reversed. Lily was an Englishman, born at Odiham,[6] in Hampshire, in 1466. When he had arrived at manhood, he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and while abroad studied some time at Rome, and also at Paris. On his return he was thought one of the most accomplished scholars in England. In 1510, Dr. John Colet, dean of St. Paul's church, in London, appointed him the first high master of St. Paul's School, then recently founded by this gentleman's munificence. In this situation, Lily appears to have taught with great credit to himself till 1522, when he died of the plague, at the age of 56. For the use of this school, he wrote and published certain parts of the grammar which has since borne his name. Of the authorship of this work many curious particulars are stated in the preface by John Ward, which may be seen in the edition of 1793. Lily had able rivals, as well as learned coadjutors and friends. By the aid of the latter, he took precedence of the former; and his publications, though not voluminous, soon gained a general popularity. So that when an arbitrary king saw fit to silence competition among the philologists, by becoming himself, as Sir Thomas Elliott says, "the chiefe authour and setter-forth of an introduction into grammar, for the childrene of his lovynge subjects," Lily's Grammar was preferred for the basis of the standard. Hence, after the publishing of it became a privilege patented by the crown, the book appears to have been honoured with a royal title, and to have been familiarly called King Henry's Grammar.
5. Prefixed to this book, there appears a very ancient epistle to the reader, which while it shows the reasons for this royal interference with grammar, shows also, what is worthy of remembrance, that guarded and maintained as it was, even royal interference was here ineffectual to its purpose. It neither produced uniformity in the methods of teaching, nor, even for instruction in a dead language, entirely prevented the old manual from becoming diverse in its different editions. The style also may serve to illustrate what I have elsewhere said about the duties of a modern grammarian. "As for the diversitie of grammars, it is well and profitably taken awaie by the King's Majesties wisdome; who, foreseeing the inconvenience, and favorably providing the remedie, caused one kind of grammar by sundry learned men to be diligently drawn, and so to be set out, only every where to be taught, for the use of learners, and for the hurt in changing of schoolemaisters." That is, to prevent the injury which schoolmasters were doing by a whimsical choice, or frequent changing, of grammars. But, says the letter, "The varietie of teaching is divers yet, and alwaies will be; for that every schoolemaister liketh that he knoweth, and seeth not the use of that he knoweth not; and therefore judgeth that the most sufficient waie, which he seeth to be the readiest meane, and perfectest kinde, to bring a learner to have a thorough knowledge therein." The only remedy for such an evil then is, to teach those who are to be teachers, and to desert all who, for any whim of their own, desert sound doctrine.
6. But, to return. A law was made in England by Henry the Eighth, commanding Lily's Grammar only, (or that which has commonly been quoted as Lily's,) to be everywhere adopted and taught, as the common standard of grammatical instruction.[7] Being long kept in force by means of a special inquiry, directed to be made by the bishops at their stated visitations, this law, for three hundred years, imposed the book on all the established schools of the realm. Yet it is certain, that about one half of what has thus gone under the name of Lily, ("because," says one of the patentees, "he had so considerable a hand in the composition,") was written by Dr. Colet, by Erasmus, or by others who improved the work after Lily's death. And of the other half, it has been incidentally asserted in history, that neither the scheme nor the text was original. The Printer's Grammar, London, 1787, speaking of the art of type-foundery, says: "The Italians in a short time brought it to that perfection, that in the beginning of the year 1474, they cast a letter not much inferior to the best types of the present age; as may be seen in a Latin Grammar, written by Omnibonus Leonicenus, and printed at Padua on the 14th of January, 1474; from whom our grammarian, Lily, has taken the entire scheme of his Grammar, and transcribed the greatest part thereof, without paying any regard to the memory of this author." The historian then proceeds to speak about types. See also the same thing in the History of Printing, 8vo, London, 1770. This is the grammar which bears upon its title page: "Quam solam Regia Majestas in omnibus scholis docendam prcæcipit."
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