ments thus, and comments _truly_, because he had either
written them badly or made an ill choice: "But some of these rules are
foolish, trifling, and unimportant."--_Elocution_, p. 97. Again: "Rules 10
and 11, rest on a sandy foundation. They appear not to be based on the
principles of the language."--_Grammar_, p. 59. These are but specimens of
his own frequent testimony against himself! Nor shall he find refuge in the
impudent falsehood, that the things which I quote as his, are not his
own.[14] These contradictory texts, and scores of others which might be
added to them, are as rightfully his own, as any doctrine he has ever yet
inculcated. But, upon the credulity of ignorance, his high-sounding
certificates and unbounded boasting can impose any thing. They overrule all
in favour of cue of the worst grammars extant;--of which he says, "it is
now studied by more than one hundred thousand children and youth; and is
more extensively used than _all other English grammars_ published in the
United States."--_Elocution_, p. 347. The booksellers say, he receives from
his publishers _ten cents a copy_, on this work, and that he reports the
sale of _sixty thousand copies per annum_. Such has of late been his public
boast. I have once had the story from his own lips, and of course
congratulated him, though I dislike the book. Six thousand dollars a year,
on this most miserable modification of Lindley Murray's Grammar! Be it
so--or double, if he and the public please. Murray had so little
originality in his work, or so little selfishness in his design, that he
would not take any thing; and his may ultimately prove the better bargain.

36. A man may boast and bless himself as he pleases, his fortune, surely,
can never be worthy of an other's envy, so long as he finds it inadequate
to his own great merits, and unworthy of his own poor gratitude. As a
grammarian, Kirkham claims to be second only to Lindley Murray; and says,
"Since the days of Lowth, no other work on grammar, Murray's only excepted,
has been so favourably received by the _publick_ as his own. As a proof of
this, he would mention, that within the last six years it has passed
through _fifty_ editions."--_Preface to Elocution_, p. 12. And, at the same
time, and in the same preface, he complains, that, "Of all the labours done
under the sun, the labours _of the pen_ meet with the poorest
reward."--_Ibid._, p. 5. This too clearly favours the report, that his
books were not