The Grammar of English Grammars

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.
After about fifteen years devoted chiefly to grammatical studies and exercises,
during most of which time I had been alternately instructing youth in four
different languages, thinking it practicable to effect some improvement upon the
manuals which explain our own, I prepared and published, for the use of schools,
a duodecimo volume of about three hundred pages; which, upon the presumption
that its principles were conformable to the best usage, and well established
thereby, I entitled, “The Institutes of English Grammar.” Of this work, which, it
is believed, has been gradually gaining in reputation and demand ever since its
first publication, there is no occasion to say more here, than that it was the result
of diligent study, and that it is, essentially, the nucleus, or the groundwork, of the
present volume.
With much additional labour, the principles contained in the Institutes of English
Grammar, have here been not only reaffirmed and rewritten, but occasionally
improved in expression, or amplified in their details. New topics, new
definitions, new rules, have also been added; and all parts of the subject have
been illustrated by a multiplicity of new examples and exercises, which it has
required a long time to amass and arrange. To the main doctrines, also, are here
subjoined many new observations and criticisms, which are the results of no
inconsiderable reading and reflection.

The Grammar of English Grammars

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