PART IV.

THE COMMON SYSTEM OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR

EXAMINED.

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66

ENGLISH grammar (it is said) grammar (it is said) is the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety." What then is the standard of propriety? Usage (Dr. Crombie says) is in this case law; usus Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus et norma loquendi. If it were now the practice to say I loves' instead of I love,' the former phraseology would rest on the same firm ground on which the latter now stands: and I love' would be as much a violation of the rules of grammar, or, which is the same thing, of established usage, as I loves' is at present.'

I thank the Doctor for this candid admission: if the doctrine be not worthy a philosopher the confession is worthy an honest writer. But if usage merely. be the standard of right language, why all this noise about grammar? Why attempt to reason concerning the matter? Why bring a large assortment of grammatical doctrines, rules and technical terms from Greek and Latin into the English language? Why publish an expensive book on the subject; for sure the usual violations of usage might be put into a six

penny piece to be roted off by the grammatical disciple? And what is far more important, said grammatical disciple might learn in a very few days or weeks to say after usage instead of wasting his time and ruining his understanding with unintelligible terms and absurd doctrines. This indeed is in every view of it a more serious affair than either pedagogues or parents are generally aware.

Considering Dr. Crombie as a philosophic scholar, I did not expect that he would back absurd positions in philology with silly school-boy quotations from Horace. This, it must be confessed, is a short way of ending the controversy, and by virtue of a Latin quotation we may become critics in language without the trouble of studying it." Moreover it is according to reputable usage, and it has a show of learning to put old Latin patches on English composition; or to conceal learned mysteries and absurdities in classic vacua; but a philosopher should despise pedantry, affectation and quackery. Dr. Crombie's great forerunner on Philosophic Necessity did not pollute his compositions with classic crudities; but remarked, as justly as wittily concerning these favourite morsels that their coming so often up again proves them never to have been well digested.

It will go down to posterity that I considered Dr. Crombie's Grammar the most philosophic in the English language; but what will posterity think of English grammarians, when they find the same Dr.

Crombie writing in the following manner: Usage is law;" "the usage which gives law to language must be present, national and reputable;" then admitting that there is no uniform, standard usage; and last of all giving canons to supply the want of unquestionable authority? It were unreasonable to argue these points; but there is one remark which the author seems to have considered argument which must therefore be reasoned with. "The philosopher does not determine (says Dr. Crombie) by what laws the physical and moral world should be governed ; but by the careful observation and accurate comparison of the various phenomena presented to his view, he deduces and ascertains the general principles by which the system is regulated. The province of the grammarian seems precisely similar. He is a mere digester and compiler, explaining what are the modes of speech not dictating what they should be.'

It is humiliating to think how little true reasoning there is in the world; and it is with regret I remark that the above quotation is one of the most specious specimens of reasoning in Dr. Crombie's grammar. "The philosopher does not determine by what laws the physical and moral world should be governed;" but why? Because he cannot determine. He can neither make nor mend the laws of the world, not to mention that he can never fully comprehend them. But could he suggest a new and improved code of laws even for the government of the world-could he clearly prove wherein the old laws are wrong, cor

rupted or perverted, and what they ought to be, it would be right to do so. But though men can neither make nor alter the laws of the physical and moral government of the world, they can make modes of speech and are constantly changing their modes of speech either for better or worse. It would be just as reasonable to say that those who treat of jurisprudence, political economy, &c. are mere digesters and compilers, explaining what laws, institutions, customs, &c. are, not determining what they ought to be as to make the same assertion concerning the grammarian. Had Dr. Crombie forgot that through the greater part of his book he had been trying to determine not only what modes of expression are but what they ought to be? Had he forgot that he had spoken of those "who have dispensed the laws of grammar in our language?" Or rather, conscious of the unreasonableness of the grammar he had written, did he intend this story about the digester and compiler as a saving clause for all the contradictory evidence he had given respecting present usage? No wonder that the patch or plaster from Horace was thought necessary on this part of the author's subject. The reader has always a right to presume that there is something unsound under a Latin patch in English composition; or that it has been stuck on by vanity and affectation, merely for show, like the black beauty spots which folly sometimes puts on fashionable faces.

THE SYNTAX OF PRONOUNS CONSIDERED.

The whole of arbitrary grammar may be considered as centring in what are called pronoun and verb, and therefore it is sufficient to consider these; for such rules as the following are too silly to merit particular notice : "The article a or an is joined to nouns of the singular number only; or nouns denoting a plurality of things in one aggregate." It would be just as important to remark, that the numeral one is joined to nouns of the singular number only, for an or a is merely a contraction of one or ane: the supposed excellence of the article, as spelt differently from the numeral, is wholly visionary; unnecessary varieties of spelling and pronunciation are not excellencies, but faults. As if it were on purpose to outrage sense and significancy, the grammarians have called an or a the indefinite article; which is just as absurd as as it would be to call one an indefinite numeral. The following rules are so abstrusely significant and important, that I am not qualified to judge of their merits : "Substantives signifying the same thing agree in case." “ One substantive governs another, signifying a different thing in the genitive case," &c. &c. It is only such great grammarians as Lindley Murray, that have capacity to comprehend and explain such wonderful rules; for I will not insult the