written by himself, but by others whom he hired. Possibly,
the anonymous helper may here have penned, not his employer's feeling, but
a line of his own experience. But I choose to ascribe the passage to the
professed author, and to hold him answerable for the inconsistency. Willing
to illustrate by the best and fairest examples these fruitful means of
grammatical fame, I am glad of his present success, which, through this
record, shall become yet more famous. It is the only thing which makes him
worthy of the notice here taken of him. But I cannot sympathize with his
complaint, because he never sought any but "the poorest reward;" and more
than all he sought, he found. In his last "Address to Teachers," he says,
"He may doubtless be permitted emphatically to say with Prospero, '_Your
breath has filled my sails_.'"--_Elocution_, p. 18. If this boasting has
any truth in it, he ought to be satisfied. But it is written, "He that
loveth silver, shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth
abundance, with increase." Let him remember this.[15] He now announces
three or four other works as forthcoming shortly. What these will achieve,
the world will see. But I must confine myself to the Grammar.

37. In this volume, scarcely any thing is found where it might be expected.
"The author," as he tells us in his preface, "has not followed the common
'artificial and unnatural arrangement adopted by most of his predecessors;'
_yet he_ has endeavoured to pursue a more judicious one, namely, '_the
order of the understanding_.'"--_Grammar_, p. 12. But if this is the order
of his understanding, he is greatly to be pitied. A book more confused in
its plan, more wanting in method, more imperfect in distinctness of parts,
more deficient in symmetry, or more difficult of reference, shall not
easily be found in stereotype. Let the reader try to follow us here. Bating
twelve pages at the beginning, occupied by the title, recommendations,
advertisement, contents, preface, hints to teachers, and advice to
lecturers; and fifty-four at the end, embracing syntax, orthography,
orthoepy, provincialisms, prosody, punctuation, versification, rhetoric,
figures of speech, and a Key, all in the sequence here given; the work
consists of fourteen chapters of grammar, absurdly called "Familiar
Lectures." The first treats of sundries, under half a dozen titles, but
chiefly of Orthography; and the last is three pages and a half, of the most
common remar