With an introduction historical and critical; the whole methodically arranged and amply illustrated; with forms of correcting and of parsing, improprieties for correction, examples for parsing, questions for an examination, exercises for writing, observations for the advanced student, decisions and proofs for the settlement of disputed points, occasional strictures and defenses, an exhibition of the several methods of analysis, and a key to the oral exercises: to which are added four appendixes, pertaining separately to the four parts of grammar.
PREFACE
The present performance is, so far as the end could be reached, the fulfillment of a design, formed about twenty-seven years ago, of one day, presenting to the world, if I might, something like a complete grammar of the English language;— not a mere work of criticism, nor yet a work too tame, indecisive, and uncritical; for, in books of either of these sorts, our libraries already abound;—not a mere philosophical investigation of what is general or universal in grammar, nor yet a minute detail of what forms only a part of our own philology; for either of these plans falls very far short of such a purpose;—not a mere grammatical compend, abstract, or compilation, sorting with other works already before the public; for, in the production of school grammars, the author had early performed his part; and, of small treatises on this subject, we have long had a superabundance rather than a lack.
