; and, regarding the compiler's confession of his indebtedness to
others, but as a mark of "his exemplary diffidence of his own merits,"
adds, (in very bad English,) "Perhaps there never was an author whose
success and fame were more _unexpected by himself than Lindley
Murray_."--_The Friend_, Vol. iii, p. 33.

17. In a New-York edition of Murray's Grammar, printed in 1812, there was
inserted a "Caution to the Public," by Collins & Co., his American
correspondents and publishers, in which are set forth the unparalleled
success and merit of the work, "as it came _in purity_ from the pen of the
author;" with an earnest remonstrance against the several _revised
editions_ which had appeared at Boston, Philadelphia, and other places, and
against the unwarrantable liberties taken by American teachers, in altering
the work, under pretence of improving it. In this article it is stated,
"that _the whole_ of these mutilated editions _have been seen_ and examined
by Lindley Murray himself, and that they, have met with _his decided
disapprobation_. Every rational mind," continue these gentlemen, "will
agree with him, that, 'the _rights of living authors_, and the _interests
of science and literature_, demand the abolition of this _ungenerous
practice_.'" (See this also in _Murray's Key_, 12mo, N. Y., 1811, p. iii.)
Here, then, we have the feeling and opinion of Murray himself, upon this
tender point of right. Here we see the tables turned, and other men judging
it "scarcely necessary to apologize for the use which _they have made_ of
their predecessors' labours."

18. It is really remarkable to find an author and his admirers so much at
variance, as are Murray and his commenders, in relation to his grammatical
authorship; and yet, under what circumstances could men have stronger
desires to avoid apparent contradiction? They, on the one side, claim for
him the highest degree of merit as a grammarian; and continue to applaud
his works as if nothing more could be desired in the study of English
grammar--a branch of learning which some of them are willing emphatically
to call "_his_ science." He, on the contrary, to avert the charge of
plagiarism, disclaims almost every thing in which any degree of literary
merit consists; supposes it impossible to write an English grammar the
greater part of which is not a "compilation;" acknowledges that originality
belongs to but a small part of his own; trusts that such a general
acknowledgement wi