tion_, p. 62. "From a labyrinth without
a clew, in which the _most enlightened scholars_ of Europe have mazed
themselves and misguided others, the author ventures to turn
aside."--_Cardell's Gram._, 12mo, p. 15. Again: "The _nations_ of
_unlettered men_ so adapted their language to philosophic truth, that all
physical and intellectual research can find no essential rule to reject or
change."--_Ibid._, p. 91. I have shown that "the nations of unlettered men"
are among that portion of the earth's population, upon whose language the
genius of grammar has never yet condescended to look down! That people who
make no pretensions to learning, can furnish better models or instructions
than "the most enlightened scholars," is an opinion which ought not to be
disturbed by argument.

11. I regret to say, that even Dr. Webster, with all his obligations and
pretensions to literature, has well-nigh taken ground with Neef and
Cardell, as above cited; and has not forborne to throw contempt, even on
grammar as such, and on men of letters indiscriminately, by supposing the
true principles of every language to be best observed and kept by the
illiterate. What marvel then, that all his multifarious grammars of the
English language are despised? Having suggested that the learned must
follow the practice of the populace, because they cannot control it, he
adds: "Men of letters may revolt at this suggestion, but if they will
attend to the history of our language, they will find the fact to be as
here stated. It is commonly supposed that the tendency of this practice of
unlettered men is _to corrupt the language_. But the fact is directly the
reverse. I am prepared to prove, were it consistent with the nature of this
work, that nineteen-twentieths of _all the corruptions_ of our language,
for five hundred years past, have been introduced by _authors_--men who
have made alterations in particular idioms _which they did not understand_.
The same remark is applicable to the _orthography_ and _pronunciation_. The
tendency of unlettered men is to _uniformity_--to _analogy_; and so strong
is this disposition, that the common people have actually converted some of
our irregular verbs into regular ones. It is to unlettered people that we
owe the disuse of _holpen, bounden, sitten_, and the use of the regular
participles, _swelled, helped, worked_, in place of the ancient ones. This
popular tendency is not to be contemned and disregarded, as some of the