rld's credulity, it is
safe to aver, in the face of dignity still greater, that testimonials more
fallacious have seldom mocked the cause of learning. They did not read his
book.

34. Notwithstanding the author's change in his professions, the work is now
essentially the same as it was at first; except that its errors and
contradictions have been greatly multiplied, by the addition of new matter
inconsistent with the old. He evidently cares not what doctrines he
teaches, or whose; but, as various theories are noised abroad, seizes upon
different opinions, and mixes them together, that his books may contain
something to suit all parties. "_A System of Philosophical Grammar_,"
though but an idle speculation, even in his own account, and doubly absurd
in him, as being flatly contradictory to his main text, has been thought
worthy of insertion. And what his title-page denominates "_A New System of
Punctuation_," though mostly in the very words of Murray, was next invented
to supply a deficiency which he at length discovered. To admit these, and
some other additions, the "comprehensive system-of grammar" was gradually
extended from 144 small duodecimo pages, to 228 of the ordinary size. And,
in this compass, it was finally stereotyped in 1829; so that the
ninety-four editions published since, have nothing new for history.

35. But the publication of an other work designed for schools, "_An Essay
an Elocution_" shows the progress of the author's mind. Nothing can be more
radically opposite, than are some of the elementary doctrines which this
gentleman is now teaching; nothing, more strangely inconsistent, than are
some of his declarations and professions. For instance: "A consonant is a
letter that cannot be perfectly sounded without the help of a
vowel."--_Kirkham's Gram._, p. 19. Again: "A consonant is not only capable
of being perfectly sounded without the help of a vowel, but, moreover, of
forming, like a vowel, a separate syllable."--_Kirkham's Elocution_, p. 32.
Take a second example. He makes "ADJECTIVE PRONOUNS" a _prominent division_
and _leading title_, in treating of the pronouns proper; defines the term
in a manner peculiar to himself; prefers and uses it in all his parsing;
and yet, by the third sentence of the story, the learner is conducted to
this just conclusion: "Hence, such a thing as an _adjective-pronoun_ cannot
exist."--_Grammar_, p. 105. Once more. Upon his own rules, or such as he
had borrowed, he com