all with their construction. But who does not see that it is impossible to lay down rules for the construction of words, without first dividing them into the classes to which such rules apply? For example: if a man means to teach, that, “A verb must agree with its subject, or nominative, in person and number," must he not first show the learner what words are verbs? and ought he not to see in this rule a tenson for not calling the participle a verb? Let the careless followers of Lowth and Priestley answer. Tooke did not care to preserve any parts of speech at all. His work is not a system of grammar; nor can it be made the basis of any regular scheme of grammatical instruction. He who will not grant that the same words may possibly be used as different parts of speech, must make his parts of speech either very few or very many. This author says, "I do not allow that any words change their nature in this manner, so as to belong sometimes to one part of speech, and sometimes to another, from the different ways of using them. I never could perceive any such fluctuation in any word whatever."-Diversions of Purley, Vol. p. 68.

12. From his own positive language, I imagine this ingenious author never well considered what constitutes the sameness of words, or wherein lies the difference of the parts of speech; and, without understanding these things, a grammarian cannot but fall into errors, unless he will follow somebody that knows them. But Tooke confessedly contradicts and outfaces "all other Grammarians," in the passage just cited. Yet it is plain, that the whole science of grammar-or at least the whole of etymology and syntax, which are its two principal parts-is based upon a division of words into the parts of speech; a division which necessarily refers, in many instances, the same words to different sections according to the manner in which they are used. "Certains mots répondent, ainsi au même temps, a diverses parties d'oraison selon que la grammaire les emploie diversement."-Buffier, Art. 150. "Some words, from the different ways in which they are used, belong sometimes to one part of speech, sometimes to another."-M'Culloch's Gram., p. 37. "And so say all other Grammarians."-Tooke, as above.

66

13. The history of Dr. Webster, as a grammarian, is singular. He is remarkable for his changeableness, yet always positive; for his inconsistency, yet very learned; for his zeal to correct popular errors," yet often himself erroneous; for his fertility in resources, yet sometimes meagre; for his success as an author, yet never satisfied; for his boldness of innovation, yet fond of appealing to antiquity. His grammars are the least judicious, and at present the least popular, of his works. They consist of four or five different treatises, which for their mutual credit should never be compared: it is impossible to place any firm reliance upon the authority of a man who contradicts himself so much. Those who imagine that the last opinions of so learned a man must needs be right, will do well to wait, and see what will be his last: they cannot otherwise know to what his instructions will finally leal. Experience has already taught him the folly of many of his pretended improvements, and it is proba ble his last opinions of English grammar will be most conformable to that just authority with which he has ever been tampering. I do not say that he has not exhibited ingenuity as well as learning, or that he is always wrong when he contradicts a majority of the English grammarians; but I may venture to say, he was wrong when he undertook to disturb the common scheme of the parts of speech, as well as when he resolved to spell all words exactly as they are pronounced.

14. It is not commonly known with how rash a hand this celebrated author has sometimes touched the most settled usages of our language. In 1790, which was seven years after the appearance of his first grammar, he published an octavo volume of more than four hundred pages, consisting of Essays, moral, historical, political, and literary, which might have done him credit, had he not spoiled his book by a grammatical whim about the reformation of orthography. Not perceiving that English literature, multiplied as it had been within two or three centuries, had acquired a stability in some degree corresponding to its growth, he foolishly imagined it was still as susceptible of change and improvement as in the days of its infancy. Let the reader pardon the length of this digression, if for the sake of any future schemer

who may chance to adopt a similar conceit, I cite from the preface to this volume a specimen of the author's practice and reasoning. The ingenious attorney had the good sense quickly to abandon this project, and content himself with less glaring innovations; else he had never stood as he now does, in the estimation of the public. But there is the more need to record the example, because in one of the southern states the experiment has recently been tried again. A still abler member of the same profession, has renewed it but lately; and it is said there are yet remaining some converts to this notion of improvement. I copy literally, leaving all my readers and his to guess for themselves why he spelled "writers" with a w and "riting" without.

15. "During the course of ten or twelv yeers, I hav been laboring to correct popular errors, and to assist my yung brethren in the road to truth and virtue; my publications for theze purposes hav been numerous; much time haz been spent, which I do not regret, and much censure incurred, which my hart tells me I do not dezerv." * ** ** 66 The reeder wil observ that the orthography of the volum iz not uniform. The reezon iz, that many of the essays hav been published before, in the common orthography, and it would hav been a laborious task to copy the whole, for the sake of changing the spelling. In the essays, ritten within the last yeer, a considerable change of spelling iz introduced by way of experiment. This liberty waz taken by the writers before the age of queen Elizabeth, and to this we are indeted for the preference of modern spelling over that of Gower and Chaucer. The man who admits that the change of housbonde, mynde, ygone, moneth into husband, mind, gone, month, iz an improovment, must acknowlege also the riting of helth, breth, rong, tung, munth, to be an improovment. There iz no alternativ. Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors."-Noah Webster's Essays, Proface, p. xi.

16. But let us return, with our author, to the question of the parts of speech. I have shown that if we do not mean to adopt some less convenient scheme, we must count them ten, and preserve their ancient order as well as their ancient names.* And, after all his vacillation in consequence of reading Horne Tooke, it would not be strange if Dr. Webster should come at last to the same conclusion. He was not very far from it in 1828, as may be shown by his own testimony, which he then took occasion to record. I will give his own words on the point: "There is great difficulty in devising a correct classification of the several sorts of words; and probably no classification that shall be simple and at the same time philosophically correct, can be invented. There are some words that do not strictly fall under any description of any class yet devised. Many attempts have been made and are still making to remedy this evil; but such schemes as I have seen, do not, in my apprehension, correct the defects of the old schemes, nor simplify the subject. On the other hand, all that I have seen, serve only to obscure and embarrass the subject, by substituting new arrangements and new terms which are as incorrect as the old ones, and less intelligible. I have attentively viewed these subjects, in all the lights which my opportunities have afforded, and am convinced that the distribution of words, most generally received, is the best that can be formed, with some slight alterations adapted to the particular construction of the English language."

17. This passage is taken from the advertisement, or preface, to the Grammar which accompanies the author's edition of his great quarto Dictionary. Now the several schemes which bear his own name, were doubtless all of them among those which he had "seen;" so that he here condemns them all collectively, as he had previously condemned some of them at each reformation. Nor is the last exempted. For although he here plainly gives his vote for that common scheme which he first condemned, he does not adopt it without" some slight alterations ;" and in contriving these alterations he is inconsistent with his own professions. He makes the

"As there are ten different characters or figures in arithmetic to represent all possible quantities, there are also ten kinds of words or parts of speech to represent all possible sentences: viz.: article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection."—Chauvier's Punctuation, p. 104.

parts of speech eight, thus: "1. The name or noun; 2. The pronoun or substitute; 3. The adjective, attribute, or attributive; 4. The verb; 5. The adverb; 6. The preposition; 7. The connective or conjunction; 8. The exclamation or interjection." In his Rudiments of English Grammar, published in 1811, "to unfold the true principles of the language," his parts of speech were seven; "viz. 1. Names or nouns; 2. Substitutes or pronouns; 3. Attributes or adjectives; 4. Verbs, with their participles; 5. Modifiers or adverbs; 6. Prepositions; 7. Connectives or conjunctions." In his Philosophical and Practical Grammar, published in 1807, a book which professes to teach "the only legitimate principles, and established usages," of the language, a twofold division of words is adopted; first, into two general classes, primary and secondary; then into "seven species or parts of speech," the first two belonging to the former class, the other five to the latter; thus: "1. Names or nouns; 2. Verbs; 3. Substitutes; 4. Attributes; 5. Modifiers; 6. Prepositions; 7. Connectives." In his "Improved Grammar of the English Language," published in 1831, the same scheme is retained, but the usual names are preferred.

18. How many different schemes of classification this author invented, I know not; but he might well have saved himself the trouble of inventing any; for, so far as appears, none of his last three grammars ever came to a second edition. In the sixth edition of his "Plain and Comprehensive Grammar, grounded on the true principles and idioms of the language," a work which his last grammatical preface affirms to have been originally fashioned "on the model of Lowth's," the parts of speech are reckoned “ six; nouns, articles, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, and abbreviations or particles." This work, which he says was extensively used in the schools of this country," and continued to be in demand, he voluntarily suppressed; because, after a profitable experiment of four and twenty years, he found it so far from being grounded on "true principles," that the whole scheme then appeared to him incorrigibly bad. And, judging from this sixth edition, printed in 1800, the only one which I have seen, I cannot but concur with him in the opinion. More than one half of the volume is a loose Appendix composed chiefly of notes taken from Lowth and Priestley; and there is a great want of method in what was meant for the body of the work. I imagine his several editions must have been different grammars with the same title; for such things are of no uncommon occurrence, and I cannot otherwise account for the assertion that this book was compiled "on the model of Lowth's, and on the same principles as [those on which] Murray has constructed his.”—Advertisement in Webster's Quarto Dict., 1st Ed.

19. In a treatise on grammar, a bad scheme is necessarily attended with inconveniences for which no merit in the execution can possibly compensate. The first thing, therefore, which a skillful teacher will notice in a work of this kind, is the arrangement. If he find any difficulty in discovering, at sight, what it is, he will be sure it is bad; for a lucid order is what he has a right to expect from him who pretends to improve upon all the English grammarians. Dr. Webster is not the only reader of the EPEA PTEROENTA, who has been thereby prompted to meddle with the common scheme of grammar; nor is he the only one who has attempted to simplify the subject by reducing the parts of speech to six. John Dalton of Manchester, in 1801, in a small grammar which he dedicated to Horne Tooke, made them six, but not the same six. He would have them to be, nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. This writer, like Brightland, Tooke, Fisher, and some others, insists on it that the articles are adjectives. Priestley, too, throwing them out of his classification, and leaving the learner to go almost through his book in ignorance of their rank, at length assigns them to the same class, in one of his notes. And so has Dr. Webster fixed them in his late valuable, but not faultless, dictionaries. But David Booth, an etymologist perhaps equally learned, in his "Introduction to an Analytical Dictionary of the English Language," declares them to be of the same species as the pronouns; from which he thinks it strange that they were ever separated! See Booth's Introd., p. 21.

20. Now, what can be more idle, than for teachers to reject the common classification of words, and puzzle the heads of school-boys with speculations like these?

It is easy to admit all that etymology can show to be true, and still justify the old arrangement of the elements of grammar. And if we depart from the common scheme, where shall we stop? Some have taught that the parts of speech are only five; as did the latter stoics, whose classes, according to Priscian and Harris, were these articles, nouns appellative, nouns proper, verbs, and conjunctions. Others have made them four; as did Aristotle and the elder stoics, and, more recently, Milnes, Brightland, Harris, Ware, Fisher, and the author of a work on Universal Grammar, entitled Enclytica. Yet, in naming the four, each of these contrives to differ from all the rest! With Aristotle, they are, "nouns, verbs, articles, and conjunctions;" with Milnes, "nouns, adnouns, verbs, and particles;" with Brightland, "names, qualities, affirmations, and particles;" with Harris, "substantives, attributives, definitives, and connectives;" with Ware, "the name, the word, the assistant, the connective;" with Fisher, "names, qualities, verbs, and particles;" with the author of Enclytica, "names, verbs, modes, and connectives." But why make the classes so numerous as four? Many of the ancients, Greeks, Hebrews, and Arabians, according to Quintilian, made them three; and these three, according to Vossius, were nouns, verbs, and particles. "Veteres Arabes, Hebræi, et Græci, tres, non amplius, classes faciebant; 1. Nomen, 2. Verbum, 3. Particula seu Dictio."-Voss. de Anal., Lib. i, Cap. 1.

21. Nor is this number, three, quite destitute of modern supporters; though most of these come at it in an other way. D. St. Quentin, in his Rudiments of General Grammar, published in 1812, divides words into the "three general classes" last mentioned; viz., 1. Nouns, 2. Verbs, 3. Particles."-P. 5. Booth, who published the second edition of his etymological work in 1814, examining severally the ten parts of speech, and finding what he supposed to be the true origin of all the words in some of the classes, was led to throw one into an other, till he had destroyed seven of them. Then, resolving that each word ought to be classed according to the meaning which its etymology fixes upon it, he refers the number of classes to nature, thus: "If, then, each [word] has a meaning, and is capable of raising an idea in the mind, that idea must have its prototype in nature. It must either denote an exertion, and is therefore a verb; or a quality, and is, in that case, an adjective; or it must express an assemblage of qualities, such as is observed to belong to some individual object, and is, on this supposition, the name of such object, or a We have thus given an account of the different divisions of words, and have found that the whole may be classed under the three heads of Names, Qualities, and Actions; or Nouns, Adjectives, and Verbs."- Introd. to Analyt. Dict., p. 22.

noun.

*

*

*

22. This notion of the parts of speech, as the reader will presently see, found an advocate also in the author of the popular little story of Jack Halyard. It appears in his Philosophic Grammar published in Philadelphia in 1827. Whether the writer borrowed it from Booth, or was led into it by the light of "nature," I am unable to say he does not appear to have derived it from the ancients. Now, if either he or the lexicographer has discovered in "nature" a prototype for this scheme of grammar, the discovery is only to be proved, and the schemes of all other grammarians, ancient or modern, must give place to it. For the reader will observe that this triad of parts is not that which is mentioned by Vossius and Quintilian. But authority may be found for reducing the number of the parts of speech yet lower. Plato, according to Harris, and the first inquirers into language, according to Horne Tooke, made them two; nouns and verbs which Crombie, Dalton, M'Culloch, and some others, say, are the only parts essentially necessary for the communication of our thoughts. Those who know nothing about grammar, regard all words as of one class. To them, a word is simply a word; and under what other name it may come, is no concern of theirs.

23. Towards this point, tends every attempt to simplify grammar by suppressing any of the ten parts of speech. Nothing is gained by it; and it is a departure from the best authority. We see by what steps this kind of reasoning may descend; and we have an admirable illustration of it in the several grammatical works of

William S. Cardell. I shall mention them in the order in which they appeared; and the reader may judge whether the author does not ultimately arrive at the conclusion to which the foregoing series is conducted. This writer, in his Essay on Language, reckons seven parts of speech; in his New-York Grammar, six; in his Hartford Grammar, three principal, with three others subordinate; in his Philadelphia Grammar, three only-nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Here he alleges, "The unerring plan of nature has established three classes of perceptions, and consequently three parts of speech."-P. 171. He says this, as if he meant to abide by it. But, on his twenty-third page, we are told, "Every adjective is either a noun or a participle." Now, by his own showing, there are no participles: he makes them all adjectives, in each of his schemes. It follows, therefore, that all his adjectives, including what others call participles, are nouns. And this reduces his three parts of speech to two, in spite of "the unerring plan of nature!" But even this number is more than he well believed in; for, on the twenty-first page of the book, he affirms, that, "All other terms are but derivative forms and new applications of nouns." So simple a thing is this method of grammar! But Neef, in his zeal for reformation, carries the anticlimax fairly off the brink; and declares, "In the grammar which shall be the work of my pupils, there shall be found no nouns, no pronouns, no articles, no participles, no verbs, no prepositions, no conjunctions, no adverbs, no interjections, no gerunds, not even one single supine. Unmercifully shall they bo banished from it."-Neef's Method of Education, p. 60.

24. When Cardell's system appeared, several respectable men, convinced by “his powerful demonstrations," admitted that he had made " many things in the established doctrines of the expounders of language appear sufficiently ridiculous;"* and willingly lent him the influence of their names, trusting that his admirable scheme of English grammar, in which their ignorance saw nothing but new truth, would be speedily "perfected and generally embraced." Being invited by the author to a discussion of his principles, I opposed them in his presence, both privately and publicly; defending against him, not unsuccessfully, those doctrines which time and custom have sanctioned. And, what is remarkable, that candid opposition which Cardell himself had treated with respect, and parried in vain, was afterwards, by some of his converts, impeached of all unfairness, and even accused of wanting common sense. "No one," says Niebuhr, "ever overthrew a literary idol, without provoking the anger of its worshipers."-Philological Museum, Vol. i, p. 489. The certificates given in commendation of this "set of opinions," though they had no extensive effect on the public, showed full well that the signers knew little of the history of grammar; and it is the continual repetition of such things, that induces me now to dwell upon its history, for the information of those who are so liable to be deceived by exploded errors republished as novelties. A eulogist says of Cardell, "He had adopted a set of opinions, which, to most of his readers, appeared entirely new." A reviewer proved, that all his pretended novelties are to be found in certain grammars now forgotten, or seldom read. The former replies, Then he [Cardell,] is right-and the man is no less stupid than abusive, who finds fault; for here is proof that the former “had highly respectable authority for almost every thing he has advanced!"-See The Friend, Vol. ii, pp. 105 and 116, from which all the quotations in this paragraph, except one, are taken.

25. The reader may now be curious to know what these doctrines were. They were summed up by the reviewer, thus: "Our author pretends to have drawn principally from his own resources, in making up his books; and many may have supposed there is more novelty in them than there really is. For instance: 1. He classes the articles with adjectives; and so did Brightland, Tooke, Fisher, Dalton, and Webster. 2. He calls the participles, adjectives; and so did Brightland and Tooke. 3. He make the pronouns, either nouns or adjectives; and so did Adam, Dalton, and others. 4. He distributes the conjunctions among the other parts of speech; and so did Tooke. 5. He rejects the interjections; and so did Valla, Sanctius, and Tooke. 6. He makes the possessive case an adjective; and so did

The Friend, 1829, Vol. ii, p. 117.

+ The Friend, Vol. ii, p. 105,