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ADAPTED TO THE

L

DIFFERENT CLASSES OF LEARNERS.

WITH

AN APPENDIX,

Containing

RULES AND OBSERVATIONS,

FOR ASSISTING the morE ADVANCED STUDENTS to

WRITE WITH PERSPICUITY AND ACCURACY.

" They who are learning to compose and arrange their sentences
with accuracy and order, are learning, at the same time, to think
with accuracy and order."

BLAIR.

Br LINDLEY MURRAY,

FROM THE SIXTEENTH ENGLISH EDITION, IMPROVED
BY THE AUTHOR.

NEW-YORK:

PRINTED AND SOLD BY COLLINS AND PERKINS,
NO. 189, PEARL-STREET.

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CAUTION, BY THE AMERICAN PUBLISHERS.

AS the correfpondents of LINDLEY MURRAY, and publishers of his various works, COLLINS & PERKINS think it neceffary to apprife the public, that feveral editions of the Grammar have been printed in different parts of the United States, with alterations of the original text, for which copy rights have been claimed by the parties concerned, to fecure to themfelves an emolument arifing from an exclufive fale. One edition of the Abridged Grammar, has been published by a teacher, at Boston, fortened, because it was conceived by him to have been before too long. Another has been published by a teacher at Philadelphia, fomewhat enlarged, becaufe be confidered it before too fort. A third has been published at Worcester, by a teacher, who, thinking it to be neither too fhort nor too long, has introduced a "New Syftem of Punctuation" only. A fourth has been published at Hartford, alfo enlarged, but with totally different motives from the edition of Philadelphia. It alfo diffents from that printed at Worcester, even fpecifying in its title page, that it contains " Murray's Treatife on Punctuation at large." Although altered with fuch contradictory views, each claims a preference, each claims a copy right, and each claims a profit. The publisher of one of the altered editions (that at Philadelphia) announces, that "the manifeft fuperiority of his, over every other American edition of Murray's Abridgment, must enfure to it a decided preference wherever it can be obtained."!!

It will amufe many to be made acquainted with the ingenious expedients used by fome of the authors of thefe mutilated editions to give them importance. The editor of the Philadelphia edition, though perhaps the leaft valuable of the whole, in recommendation of his performance, addreffes the public thus:

"The very rapil fale of the former edition of this book, and its extenfive circulation throughout the continent, now induce me to publifh a fecond."

This" former edition," it is neceffary to remark, confifted of one thousand copies, which aided by a series of newspaper advertisements, were pushed off in eighteen months, that period having elapfed between the appearance of the firft and the fecond edition. Of the REAL Murray's Abridgment, or that made by LINDLEY MURRAY himself, there have been fold, during the fame period, in the cities of New-York and Philadelphia alone, not lefs than twenty thoufand. The prefent advertisers have themselves published eight thousand, and it is not pretended that their editions have been circulated "THROUGHOUT THE CONTINENT." Not a copy has probably ever reached Cape Horne, Baffin's Bay, nor Nootka Sound, throughout" all which places, it fhould feem that the production of the fingular Grammarian of Philadelphia has had an "extenfive circulation" !!

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