Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England (Topics in English Linguistics)

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Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England

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Topics in English Linguistics 59

Editors

Bernd Kortmann Elizabeth Closs Traugott

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England

edited by

Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.

앝 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines 앪 of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grammars, grammarians, and grammar-writing in eighteenthcentury England / edited by Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. p. cm. ⫺ (Topics in English linguistics ; 59) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-3-11-019627-6 (hardcover : acid-free paper) 1. English language ⫺ Grammar ⫺ History. 2. Grammarians ⫺ Great Britain ⫺ Biography. 3. English language ⫺ Textbooks ⫺ History ⫺ 18th century. 4. English language ⫺ History. I. TiekenBoon van Ostade, Ingrid. PE1108.G73 2008 428.2⫺dc22 2008019269

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

ISBN 978-3-11-019627-6 ISSN 1434-3452 ” Copyright 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, 10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin. Typesetting: OLD-Media OHG, Neckarsteinach. Printed in Germany.

Acknowledgements

The present volume originates in the first workshop called “Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar Writing” organised by the research project The Codifiers and the English Language: Tracing the Norms of Standard English (Leiden, 9 December 2005). The project, of which I am the director, is a so-called VICI-project, which runs at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics from 2005 until 2010 and which is financed by NWO (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek).1 During the workshop, the participants not only discovered shared interests and common themes, but also identified specific gaps in what was otherwise felt to be an extremely focused research topic. To this end, a number of additional scholars were invited to contribute their expertise to the present volume, which has therefore developed into much more than merely the proceedings of a workshop. As the editor of this collection, I am grateful for the comments received from the workshop participants, and in particular for additional contributions made by Victorina González-Díaz, Jane Hodson and Nuria Yañez-Bouza. I should also like to acknowledge the editorial support received from Marjolein Meindersma and Patricia Chaudron, the Codifiers project’s research assistants, who helped getting the book ready for publication. I should, moreover, like to express my thanks to the TiEL series editors for their warm response upon receiving the first draft of this book, to Richard Watts for suggesting Mouton de Gruyter as a publisher to begin with, and to Mouton’s skilful editorial staff. Working with the authors in the present volume has shown that we, too, form a veritable community of practice in the sense defined by Richard Watts in his paper below: we clearly and profitably display mutual engagement, are engaged in a joint enterprise and constantly draw upon a shared repertoire. I hope that, even after the publication of this collection, we will continue to do so. Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade Leiden

1 Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . List of abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

v ix

Grammars, grammarians and grammar writing: An introduction Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

Part 1.

Background

Background: Introduction Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17

The eighteenth-century grammarians as language experts Don Chapman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

Grammar writers in eighteenth-century Britain: A community of practice or a discourse community? Richard J. Watts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

Eighteenth-century grammars and book catalogues Anita Auer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57

Part 2.

Reception and the market for grammars

Reception and the market for grammars: Introduction Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

Bellum Grammaticale (1712) – A battle of books and a battle for the market Astrid Buschmann-Göbels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81

The 1760s: Grammars, grammarians and the booksellers Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

101

Mid-century grammars and their reception in the Monthly Review and the Critical Review Carol Percy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

125

viii Part 3.

Table of contents

The grammarians

The grammarians: Introduction Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

145

Ann Fischer’s A New Grammar, or was it Daniel Fisher’s work? María Rodríguez-Gil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

149

Joseph Priestley’s two Rudiments of English Grammar: 1761 and 1768 Jane Hodson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

177

Eighteenth-century teacher-grammarians and the education of “proper” women Karen Cajka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

191

“Borrowing a few passages”: Lady Ellenor Fenn and her use of sources Karlijn Navest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

223

Part 4.

The grammars

The grammars: Introduction Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

247

Preposition stranding in the eighteenth century: Something to talk about Nuria Yañez-Bouza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

251

Foolish, foolisher, foolishest: Eighteenth-century English grammars and the comparison of adjectives and adverbs Randy Cliffort Bax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

279

On normative grammarians and the double marking of degree Victorina González-Díaz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

289

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

311 349

List of abbreviations

BL BNC Bodl. Libr. CofP DC ECCO EModE LME LModE ME ModE MS ODNB OE OED PDE

British Library British National Corpus Bodleian Library Community of Practice Discourse Community Eighteenth Century Collections Online Early Modern English Late Middle English Late Modern English Middle English Modern English Manuscript Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Old English Oxford English Dictionary Present-Day English

Grammars, grammarians and grammar writing: An introduction Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade

In The Shape of English, Roger Lass writes that a “successful standard must be widely comprehensible, socially highly valued, and ‘codified’ to some extent; that is, if as is usual, control of the standard is a key to social advancement, a mark of having arrived (or being there already), there must be some authoritative consensus, preferably in written form, on what it consists of” (Lass 1987: 65). It is the codification process of the English language that we are concerned with in the present volume, and particularly with how this process took shape in the course of the eighteenth century in the context of the writing and production of the grammars that were part of it. From a linguistic perspective codification may be defined as the laying down of the “laws” of the language, i.e. the rules of usage and the definitions and pronunciation of the items in the lexicon, in grammars and dictionaries for the benefit of the common user (cf. Nevalainen and Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006: 283). Codification is described by Milroy and Milroy (1985: 27) as one of the final stages in the standardisation process of a language, coming after the “elaboration of function” stage, when English took over the role of Latin as the language of learning, and before the “prescription” stage, when normative rules of language came to be imposed on the general user. This volume focusses on grammars only; for a good survey of the development of dictionaries and dictionary writing during the Late Modern English period, see Beal (2004: 35–65). The codification of English grammar as such set off well before the eighteenth century, as according to Alston (1965), which is to this date still the standard source of reference for the history of grammar production in England, the first grammar of English, “William Bullokarz pamphlet for grammar”, was published in 1586. At first, the production of grammars of English took off rather hesitantly, as the graph in Figure 1 on page 2 illustrates, but in the course of the seventeenth century there is a clear increase in publication, which becomes particularly evident when reprints of earlier grammars are included into the account as well. The first grammar ever to be reprinted, though no more than once, was Gil’s Lognomia Anglica (1619, 1621). The most popular grammars of the period were John Wallis’s Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (Oxford, 1653),

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which was reprinted five times before the end of the seventeenth century and twice even as late as 1765,1 Ben Jonson’s English Grammar (London, 1640), which was reprinted four times at regular intervals down to 1746, and Joshua Poole’s The English Accidence (London, 1646) with three reprints down to 1670. Other grammars that were reprinted were Butler (Oxford, 1633; reprinted 1634), Cooper (London, 1685; reprinted 1685), Miège (London 1688; reprinted 1689[?] and 1691) and Aickin (London, 1693; reprinted 1693).2 Butler, Jonson, Cooper, Miège and Aickin were already reprinted in the year that they first came out or in the year after that, which suggests an immediate interest in these grammars among the audience for which they were written. As far as the two rather late reprints of Wallis’s grammar are concernced, both in 1765,3 it is interesting to note that, accoding to Kemp (1972), Robert Lowth (1710–1787), author of one of the most authoritative grammars of the eighteenth century, had been consulted about reprinting it:4 “Lowth replied that in his opinion ‘the reprinting of this grammar would be for the benefit of Natives as well as of Foreigners’. However, when asked to write a preface to it he refused, without giving any reason” (Kemp 1972: 72). 10 8 6 reprints

4

new titles

2 0 15801589

16001609

16201629

16401649

16601669

16801689

17001709

17201729

Figure 1. Number of English grammars (new titles + reprints) published before 1740 (based on Alston 1965).

1 According to Alston (1965: 8), one of them was published by Andrew Millar and the other by “Io. [Ia.?] Dodslei” with “Casp. Moseri”. 2 For the full bibliographical details of the majority of the grammars listed here and in the course of this introduction I would like to refer to Alston (1965). 3 The interest in Wallis in the eighteenth century may have been inspired by the fact that large parts of his grammar were incorporated into the one by Greenwood (1711) and into the grammar prefixed to Johnson’s Dictionary (1755). See BuschmannGöbels (this volume) and Sledd and Kolb (1955: 17–18). 4 I am grateful to Carol Percy for pointing out to me this link between Wallis and Lowth.

Grammars, grammarians and grammar writing: An introduction

3

This suggests that Lowth was evidently considered an expert on grammar at the time, but it is perhaps not the case that he refused to write a preface to the reprint of Wallis’s grammar, for the anonymous preface to the 1765 reprint published by Millar contains a direct reference to Lowth’s grammar as the only grammar mentioned aside from the one by Wallis itself, while it also praises its author and describes in detail his status as a member of the Church and his authority as a scholar: “Quod si pleniorem ejus indolem pernoscere cupiat, consulat libellum, cui titulus A Short Introduction to English Grammar, with Critical Notes, a viro ornatissimo Roberto Lowth, Canonico Dunelmensi, nuper editum, qui studiorum suorum complexu res fere dissociabiles conjunxit, aususque veteris poeseos orientalis fontes recludere, patrii sermonis rudimenta exquirere dignatus est” (Wallis, 1765 [1653]: vii).5 Lowth’s own grammar had been published anonymously (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a), so it is interesting that here the authorship is made explicit. Millar had been one of the publishers of Lowth’s grammar, along with the brothers Robert and James Dodsley. Figure 1 demonstrates that the slow increase in the production of grammars during the seventeenth century steadily continued into the next, showing a temporary peak during the second decade of that century. During the second half of the eighteenth century the writing of grammars of English was progressing even more strongly, as appears from Figure 2 (see page 4), which provides data down to the end of the nineteenth century, this time for new titles only. (For a breakdown of these data into those for the eighteenth and for the nineteenth century as well as the effect of taking into account the reprints produced during the eighteenth century, see Figures 1−3 in my own paper below.) As I have noted elsewhere (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000b: 877), compared to the entire period preceding (1586–1750) the rate of grammar production increased from one to four during the subsequent fifty years only. This remarkable development is frequently commented upon by modern scholars (see e.g. Sundby et al. 1991: 14, Fitzmaurice 1998: 326, Lundskær-Nielsen 2000: 2, Beal 2004: 90), but was also noticed at the time, as Percy shows below in her analysis of the reception of the grammars from this period in the popular press. To a considerable extent 5 For this quotation, as well as for the quotations from all other grammars discussed here, I made use of Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). The Latin may be translated as follows: “If anyone wishes to study its [i.e. of the English language] fuller genius, let him consult the little book with the title A Short Introduction to English Grammar, with Critical Notes, recently published by a most dignified man called Robert Lowth, canon of Durham, who has combined within his studies complex and well-nigh disparate subjects, and who after having had the audacity to disclose the fountains of the ancient oriental poetry, took it upon himself to investigate the rudiments of his mother tongue” (with thanks to Chris Heesakkers).

4


120 100 80 60 grammars

40 20 0

1700- 1720- 1740- 1760- 1780- 1801- 1821- 1841- 1861- 18811709 1729 1749 1769 1789 1810 1830 1850 1870 1890

Figure 2. Number of English grammars published between 1700 and 1900 (based on Alston 1965 and Michael 1991).

this increase seems due to the fact that it finally became clear, after the death of Queen Anne in 1714, that England would never have an Academy, despite recurrent pleas for one by men of letters such as Dryden in the early 1660s,6 Defoe in 1697, Addison in 1711 and Swift in 1712. One of the functions of such an academy would have been to publish an authoritative grammar of English, alongside a dictionary, as had been done previously by the Italian and French academies and would be done similarly by the Spanish Academy which would be founded in 1713. When various individuals decided that they themselves could attempt to deal with what was commonly acknowledged to be an important desideratum, calls for the need of an Academy finally dwindled. Beal (2004: 91–92) refers to an attempt made by the poet David Mallett (1701/2?–1765) in 1747 to try and interest Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773) in a revival of the project, by which time it was already too late: since the death of Queen Anne, thirteen new grammars had appeared in London alone, i.e. Jones (1724), Entick (1728), Duncan (1731), Dyche (1732), anon. (1733), Loughton (1734), Stirling (1735), anon. (1736), Greenwood (1737), Lowe (1737), Turner (1739), Newbery (1745) and Kirkby (1746), along with five outside of London, i.e. Wild (Nottingham, 1719), Barker (York, 1733?), Collyer (Nottingham, 1735), Saxon (Reading, 1737) and Corbet (Glasgow, 1743). Pleas for an English academy fell silent, and in 1761 Joseph Priestley openly declared himself against such an institution (Hodson 2006: 76; see also Chapman as well as Hodson, this volume): 6

According to Emerson (1921–1923: 46–47) Dryden was the first to do so in public (see also Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1990a).


5

As to a publick Academy, invested with authority to ascertain the use of words, which is a project that some persons are very sanguine in their expectations from, I think it not only unsuitable to the genius of a free nation, but in itself ill calculated to reform and fix a language. We need make no doubt but that the best forms of speech will, in time, establish themselves by their own superior excellence (1761: vii).

By 1770 Robert Baker must therefore have been an exception, when he wrote in the dedication to the King of his Reflections on the English Language as follows: My first Proposal is that your Majesty would at some leisure Hour take it into Consideration whether it might not be proper to establish in London an Academy of the Nature of that of the Belles Lettres at Paris, and of several in Italy. This seems to be a Thing extremely wanted among us. Our Language, as has been often observed, is manly and expressive; but our Writers abound with Incorrectnesses and Barbarisms: for which such an Establishment might in a great measure be a Cure (1770: i–ii; emphasis added).

This same point was, however, already being made by popular and influential grammarians such as Lowth, who had noted in his own preface to A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) that “the English Language as it is spoken by the politest part of the nation, and as it stands in the writings of our most approved authors, oftentimes offends against every part of Grammar” (1762: iii; emphasis added). By this time it had come to be felt that the problem could – should – be solved by learners themselves, not through imposition from above such as in the form of an English Academy. Interestingly, Baker prided himself on not having had access even to Johnson’s Dictionary (1755) – which had a grammar prefixed to it – until a few days before he wrote his preface, when, he noted, “observing it inserted in the Catalogue of a Circulating Library where I subscribe, I sent for it” (1770: v). Unlike some of his contemporaries, therefore, Baker was no expert on grammar, something which he seems to have regarded as an asset rather than a disadvantage. His Reflections was, moreover, not a grammar, but a “non-systematic collection of rules on diverse aspects of the English lexicon and syntax, as gleaned from spoken and written sources” (Vorlat 2001: 391), and it is among the first in line of comparable popular modern publications as John Simon’s Paradigms Lost: Reflections on Literacy and its Decline (1980). Strikingly, Simon also introduces himself as being unqualified in the subject he is writing about (1980: x–xiii), and he deals with many of the same issues as Baker did, such as the question of whether it should be different to or different than (Baker 1770: 7–8; Simon 1980: 206) and the improper use of apostrophes (Baker 1770: 25–26; Simon 1980: 42). Figure 2 also shows that the true rise in grammar production set off in the 1760s (see my own contribution to this volume), and that this continued stead-

6


ily, though with a somewhat unexpected peak in the 1790s,7 during the rest of the century, culminating in what Michael has referred to as “more than enough English grammars” and a “hyperactive production of English grammars” for the nineteenth century (see Michael 1991 and 1997, as well as Dekeyser 1975: 9 and Görlach 1998). The nineteenth century has been described as the period in the history of the English language when prescriptivism was at its height (e.g. Mugglestone 2006: 279), and this is born out by the large numbers of grammars that were produced. By this time, the English language was thus firmly entrenched in the final stage of its standardisation process as described in Milroy and Milroy (1985: 27), i.e. the prescription stage, though according to Dekeyser (1975: 266) “the trend looses momentum in the course of the period”. The question is whether the beginning of this stage can be identified. That it lies in the eighteenth century is beyond doubt, and that it was gaining momentum during the second half of that century is also clear, for instance from the fact that more “practical grammars” of English were published during that period than ever before. With two such grammars having come out during the early decades of the century, i.e. Greenwood (London, 1711) and Loughton (London, 1734), the number increased to eight in the 1760s and 70s alone: Gough (Dublin, 1760), Fisher (London, 1762b), Burn (Glasgow, 1766), Ward (York, 1767), Hodgson (London, 1770), Crocker (Sherborne, 1772), Carter (Leeds, 1773) and Smetham (London, 1774).8 According to Fitzmaurice (1998) the second half of the eighteenth century is characterised by a “pursuit of politeness”, by people aiming to rise in society. Consequently, socially ambitious people were confronted with different norms of language to which they had to adapt if they wished to be successful in their aspirations. They were thus in need of specific linguistic guidelines, of “self-help” guides as Watts (2002: 157) refers to them, to assist them in the process, and the bookseller Robert Dodsley (1704–1764) catered for this need by commissioning and publishing Johnson’s Dictionary (1755), as well as by accepting Lowth’s grammar for publication. This grammar had originally been conceived by Lowth as a grammar for his own son, but it was adapted to the needs of the 7 In contrast to the columns before and after, the figure for this particular decade includes all new grammars published between 1790 and 1800; this goes some way towards explaining why it is much higher but not entirely so, as with the year 1800 excluded the figure would have amnounted to 59, and without the data for 1790 to 61, both of them being still considerably higher than the number of grammars produced previously or afterwards. 8 These figures are based on a search of ECCO, the search terms being “practical” and “grammar”. It is striking that no hits were produced for practical English grammars labelled as such that were published after 1774.


7

public at large as it became a publishers’ project (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a, 2003). Grammars such as Lowth’s were therefore normative in nature, and it is for this reason that Lowth pointed out in the preface to the first edition that he focused on “practice” as he called it, rather than on the system of the language (Lowth 1762: vi; see also Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006a). Readers interested in the latter subject he referred to Harris’s Hermes (1751): “Those, who would enter more deeply into this Subject, will find it fully and accurately handled, with the greatest acuteness of investigation, perspicuity of explication, and elegance of method, in a Treatise intitled Hermes, by James Harris Esq; the most beautiful and perfect example of Analysis that has been exhibited since the days of Aristotle” (Lowth 1762: xiv−xv). Modern scholars such as Aitchison (1981 and later editions) frequently but mistakenly blame Lowth for the approach he took, which is due to the fact that they fail to place the grammar in the context in which it was written (Pullum 1974). The precise point of transition from codification to prescription in the approach taken by the grammarians is impossible to identify. One important clue, however, is the amount of attention paid in a particular grammar to syntax. With English grammar writing being so firmly entrenched in the Latin tradition until well into the eighteenth century – though also, of course, to an important extent down to the present day – it was, according to Michael (1970: 198), “difficult for English to develop a grammar of its own”. And one of the main differences between Latin and English was that Latin was rich in morphology (or “etymology” as it was then called; see Michael 1970: 185) and poor in syntax, while for English the opposite applied (see Michael 1970: 466–468). Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), though following Wallis who has been hailed as being the first to break away from the Latin model for English grammar (Subbiondo 1992), still wrote his grammar along traditional lines, and he was criticised by Lowth – who does not, however, identify Johnson by name – for having neglected English syntax: “The last English Grammar that hath been presented to the public, and by the Person best qualified to have given us a perfect one, comprises the whole Syntax in ten lines” (Lowth 1762: v). Lowth does better himself, and his Syntax, or “Sentences” as the section is called, takes up approximately one-third of the entire grammar. But he was by no means the first to do so, for Michael (1970: 468) notes that before 1740, some sixty per cent of the grammarians had paid attention to syntax, with this figure steadily rising to 85 per cent for the grammars published between 1770 and 1800. The increase in attention paid to English syntax has to do with the greater interest in actual usage as a guiding principle in codifying the language. Johnson’s change of direction between the writing of his Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language (1747) and the dictionary itself is a case in point

8


(McDermott 2005). Another example is that of Priestley, who according to Hodson (this volume) still “expressed restrained confidence about the reasonably ‘fixed’ nature of the English language” when he published his grammar in 1761 but had undergone a shift of opinion when he revised his grammar seven years later. Earlier grammarians who showed an interest in usage were Kirkby (1746) and Martin (1748); the former had, however, plagiarised Fisher’s grammar ([1745]) for large parts of his section on syntax (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1992). Though the first edition of Fisher’s New Grammar has not come down to us, this suggests that this author, who was the first woman to write a grammar of English (Rodíguez-Gil 2002), belongs to this same group of early grammarians who were overtly interested in actual usage. The 1740s thus appear to have been an important period in this respect – though without showing a significant increase in grammar production as yet. Though according to Vorlat (1979: 137) the first prescriptive grammarian was Cooper (1685), it seems to me that the years between 1745 and 1770 is the period when prescriptivism first begins to play a major role in the approach taken by grammarians – as well as others writing on the English language, such as Johnson and Baker – as a result of their explicit interest in actual usage. Stages in a particular historical process of development are rarely discrete, and this is also true for the two final stages in the standardisation process of the English language. A good illustration of this is the case of Priestley, who, as is shown by Hodson in her contribution to the present volume, came to realise when he decided to revise his grammar that much about the fundamental principles of English grammar was still undecided. Lowth is usually branded as an icon of prescriptivism (McArthur 1992, s.v. “Lowth”), but with him, too, we see both a lengthy section on syntax and a struggle to come to terms with fundamental aspects of grammar (see Auer and Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2007). Interest in usage, and particularly incorrect usage, was also apparent in the popular press, as Percy shows in her contribution below. Already during the 1750s, she notes, grammatical shibboleths are discussed in the Monthly Review and the Critical Review, which is well before they appear in the grammars. It appears from his correspondence that Lowth at least read the Monthly Review, so it would be interesting to speculate that this may have been where he adopted his critical footnotes from, in which he condemned grammatical errors committed by well-known – if dead – writers (Percy 1997a; Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006b). The interest in usage leads to the birth of the new category of grammatical text already referred to above as exemplified by Baker (1770). Its moderate popularity is evident from the fact that it was reprinted in 1779. The work is the direct ancestor of books like Fowler’s Modern English Usage (1926) and Gowers’s Plain Words (1948).


9

After the 1770s pedagogical aspects increasingly come to play a role in the grammarians’ approach to grammar, and we see an increased output of grammars specifically aimed at young learners. An important forerunner in this respect was John Ash, whose grammar of 1760 was as popular as Lowth’s. Each of them in effect catered for a different audience, Lowth’s for more scholarly inclined readers and Ash for the young beginner. Both grammars were extremely influential on grammarians coming after them, even if the extent of their influence correlates with their respective audiences (cf. Navest, this volume). Starting with the publication of Ellin Devis’s grammar in 1775 we also see the rise of a new category of grammarian during this period, i.e. that of female “teacher-grammarians” as Cajka (this volume) calls them. These women stand out from their male colleagues in that they were not educated along similar traditional lines, which for most male grammarians comprised a thorough grounding in Latin, nor did they emerge from the clergy. With an important forerunner in Ann Fisher (1719–1778), they showed an interest in developing a native terminology for grammar (see the contributions below by Cajka, Rodríguez-Gil and Navest). With Lowth and Ash, Fisher’s grammar was the most popular eighteenth-century grammar. Figure 3, which renders the editions and reprints listed in Alston (1965) supplemented by those in Rodríguez-Gil (2002a), shows that the popularity of her grammar lasted well beyond her own lifetime.9 10 8 6 4

editions/reprints

2 0 17401749

17601769

17801789

18001809

Figure 3. Editions and reprints of Fisher ([1745]), based on Alston (1965) and Rodríguez-Gil (2002a).

Fisher left her trace on later grammarians primarily through her innovation of adding exercises of bad English to her grammar. In her paper below, Rodrí9 The figures include what is referred to as “Fisher’s Grammar Improved” (see Alston 1965: 29) and its later editions and reprints.

10


guez-Gil calls this one of the grammar’s “most important contributions … to the English grammatical tradition”, and she quotes Michael (1987) saying that this innovation was adopted in some eighty texts published during th seond half of the eighteenth century. Fisher was also referred to, according to RodríguezGil, by later grammarians such as Hodgson (London, 1770) and Fogg (Stockport, 1792−1796). Her influence is also evident from the plagiarism of Kirkby (London, 1746), though this grammar was never reprinted. Rodríguez-Gil (this volume) reports on the critical reception of Fisher’s grammar by William Ward “in the Newcastle and York Newspapers”, and Percy (this volume) comments on the fact that the grammar was not reviewed in the Monthly Review or the Critical Review, unlike for instance Ash or Lowth, whose grammars were reproduced in equally large numbers of reprints. For all that, according to Beal (2004: 98), “an abridged version of Ann Fisher’s A New Grammar (1754)”, i.e. the fourth edition, was included in Thomas Spence’s Grand Repository of the English Language (1775). As this pronouncing ditionary was published in Newcastle and as Kirkby appears to have originated either from Cumberland or Yorkshire (see ODNB, s.v. “John Kirkby”), this goes to show that Fisher’s grammar did not go unnoticed, certainly not locally. The eighteenth century was thus a crucial period in the history of English grammar writing. On the one hand it shows an important increase in the output of grammars of English, which can be related to the need for the codification of the language in the absence of an Academy that would have taken this in hand, as well as to the increased social mobility, particularly during the second half of the century, and the concomitant need for grammars to provide linguistic guidance in this. The latter aspect relates to what Lass, in the quotation cited at the beginning of this introduction, refers to as the need for codification being “control of the standard [as] a key to social advancement”. Here, however, as I have argued above, we no longer have to do with codification proper but with the next stage in the standardisation process, i.e. prescription. Prescription necessarily arises out of codification when, due to social advancement, there is a need for linguistic guidelines to bring this social advancement about. During the eighteenth century there was a period of at least twenty-five years when the two stages in the standardisation process were in operation simultaneously; it is of course only in retrospect that we can identify these stages as being more or less discrete. On the other hand, there were during the eighteenth century a number of significant developments in the nature of grammars produced. There is the emergence of “practical” grammars, while pedagogical notions begin to play a role as well. Different types of audiences begin to be taken into account, not always suc-


11

cessfully so, as the case of Lowth’s grammar illustrates best: though originally intended for his son Tom, the final product came to be more of a scholarly text. Other grammarians, such as Fisher, Ash and the female grammarians coming after Ash, were more successful in this than Lowth (see Navest, this volume). Children became a specific target audience for grammarians, as did their mothers, as is shown by Navest below, who had to introduce them to the early stages of English grammar without having had such opportunities themselves. Previously, in the early years of the eighteenth century, attempts were made to distinguish between different readers of the same book by providing information for the more advanced reader in footnotes (see Buschmann-Göbels, this volume); the same approach is found in Priestley’s grammar according to Hodson (this volume). Towards the end of the century, Murray (1795) had a similar aim in mind, but his way of catering for different audiences was by providing more highly graded material in smaller print, with the sections in larger print being intended for beginners (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1996: 89–90). That audience becomes a factor to be reckoned with in the course of the eighteenth century is also clear from the analysis presented by Bax in his contribution below, who shows that changes in the formulation of grammatical rules can be explained by the attempt on the part of the grammarians to take different audiences into account. Watts in his paper in the present volume discusses the question of whether the eighteenth-century grammarians formed a discourse community or a community of practice. He resolves the question in favour of the discourse community, because while being engaged in a common enterprise, developing a shared repertoire and displaying a common engagement in the effort of grammar writing (characteristics normally associated with a community of practice), they operated irrespective of time and place and without even knowing each other personally. The “bellum grammaticale” fought out in the years 1710 to 1712, however, when an anonymous pamphlet exposed the shortcomings of what its author saw in two other grammars published simultaneously with his own (BuschmannGöbels, this volume), is rather more indicative of the existence of a community of practice, as also in the case of the rivalry between Priestley and Lowth (see my own contribution), though it is interesting to realise that this rivalry may have been experienced more keenly by Priestley than by Lowth. But all this does not entail that the grammarians reached “authoritative consensus”, another requirement referred to by Lass above for a standardisation process to be successful. A good example of this may be found in the appendix provided by Leonard (1929), which shows the extent to which eighteenth-grammarians were divided on the correctness of particular items of usage. The debate took place in public, and not only in the grammars of the period as Percy (this volume) shows, and it continues down to the present day (cf. Mittins et al. 1970 and Ilson 1985), when

12


the divide between usage experts and language experts, the beginnings of which Chapman (this volume) locates at the end of the eighteenth century, is absolute and final. But whether or not the grammarians ever reached authoritivate consensus, the normative grammars nevertheless came to function in the eyes of the general public as texts carrying authority on what was considered to be correct usage. This was what they had been written for to begin with. A detailed analysis of what exactly was going on at the time has shown that the production of grammars in the eighteenth century was more than merely the result of a variety of initiatives on the part of indvidual grammar writers. I have argued elsewhere that, like Johnson’s dictionary, Lowth’s grammar was in effect a publishers’ project (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a). It is due to Robert Dodsley, with his keen eye for what would sell well, that his grammar was published in the first place, and also, as I try to demonstrate in my paper below, that it was a success. What was going on in the 1760s was a veritable battle for the market, in the process of which publishers drew upon the kind of marketing devices that are still applied today. The same has been shown to be the case for the early decades of the century by Buschmann-Goebels in her analysis of the war of grammars that was waged during the years 1710−1712. The earliest small peak in grammar production in the graph in Figure 2 can almost entirely be explained by this event. The third peak in the graph, for the 1790s, has a different reason. If we look at the place of publication for these grammars, it can be seen that by this time London is no longer the centre of grammar production. 80 60 40

London gram m ars

20 0 1710-1720

Table 3.

1760-1770

1790-1800

Percentage of grammars published in London; raw figures: 5 (1710–1720), 22 (1760–1730) and 67 (1790–1800) (based on Alston 1965).

Table 3 shows a steady decrease of London as the place of publication for English grammars in the course of the eighteenth century, which is in inverse proportion to the number of grammars that were actually published. Two things


13

were going on that account for this development: grammars were increasingly published in the provinces, in reply to a growing demand for teaching material there as well. The places of publication include Bath, Birmingham, Brentford, Bristol, Bury St Edmunds, Chichester, Great Yarmouth, Gosport, Ipswich, Mansfield, Marlborough, Newcastle – already an important centre of grammar production since the publication of Fisher’s grammar in 1745 – Norwich, Sheffield, Stockport, Sunderland, Walsall, Worcester and York, which shows an interesting spread of grammars published in England outside London. This topic is dealt with by Auer in the present volume, who looks at booksellers’ catalogues as well as at library holdings throughout England with a view to trying to determine which were the most read and thus potentially the most influential grammars of the period. But the information in Alston shows that eleven grammars, or 16% of the total output for the 1790s, were published in America. This new development seems to have started in 1775, when Lowth’s grammar was reissued in Philadelphia, very likely without the consent of the author or his publishers. The publication of grammars of English in America and their impact on usage has been dealt with elsewhere by González-Díaz (2006). But the 1790s show another important development: ten of the grammars listed for this decade by Alston (1965), or 15% of the entire output, were written by women. The real figure, however, may well have been higher, for I have argued elsewhere (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000c) that among the large number of anonymous publications, eleven in all, or those that provide only initials on the title-page (four) there may well have been women, as it was still not usual for women to publish under their own name. This was also true for Ellenor Fenn (1744–1813), whose grammars (London, 1798a, 1798b, 1798c, 1799) were all published anonymously (see Navest’s paper on this subject), while the other women who published grammars in the 1790s, Mrs M. C. Edwards (Brentford, 1796), Jane Gardiner (York, 1799), Blanch Mercy (London, 1799) and Mrs Eves (Birmingham, 1800) all put their names on the title-page of their grammars. These women and their work are all dealt with in the paper by Cajka, along with Ellin Devis (1775) and Mrs Taylor (1791). As already noted above, the first female grammarian in England was Ann Fisher ([1745]), who likewise published anonymously, and the question of her authorship is solved definitively by Rodríguez-Gil in her contribution to this volume. One important tool in writing most if not all of the papers presented in this volume has been the database Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). While previously only Alston’s collection English Linguistics 1500–1800 (Alston 1974), published in paper as well as on microfiche, was available for those looking for a representative collection of eighteenth-century grammars, now these grammars are available, fully searchable, in electronic format. The gram-

14


mars can, moreover, be accessed in more than just their first editions, as was the case when we only had the Alston collection at our disposal, but in substantial numbers of reprints and later editions. To give an example, of Lowth’s grammar nineteen different versions can be consulted, out of the forty-four items mentioned in Alston (1965) down to 1800. Priestley fares even better, with seven out of nine versions of the grammar included in ECCO. This allows us to analyse the grammars in a way and on a scale that was previously unthinkable. Not only is it possible to provide a detailed account of the differences between the prefaces to the first and the second editions of Priestley’s grammar, showing, as Hodson does below, that there are significant differences of approach between the two grammars as well as in Priestley’s views on grammar over the years; it is also possible to analyse the development of linguistic prescriptions over the years, such as those against preposition stranding and the use of the double comparative forms worser and lesser in minute and highly illuminating detail. In this respect, the papers by Yañez-Bouza and González-Díaz below herald the beginning of a new era in the analysis of eighteenth-century grammar writing. Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar Writing deals with all three aspects alike, the grammars, their nature and their production process, the grammarians, the men as well as women behind the works they produced, how they operated on the market and how they responded to each other, as well as the way in which grammatical rules evolved over the years. And all is provided with the backdrop of a changing audience, consisting of men and women, adults as well as children, many of them socially mobile, living in London and in the provinces, people who bought grammars from booksellers or at auctions or who lent them from public libraries, and with many of their owners leaving these book in their wills for posterity to analyse.

Part 1. Background

Background: Introduction Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade

In 1770, Robert Baker wrote in the preface to his Reflections on the English Language: It will undoubted be thought strange, when I declare that I have never yet seen the folio Edition of Mr. Johnson’s Dictionary: but knowing Nobody that has it, I have never been able to borrow it, and I have myself no Books; at least, not many more than what a Church-going old Woman may by [sic] supposed to have of devotional Ones upon her Mantle-piece; for, having always had a narrow Income, it has not been in my Power to make a Collection, without straitening myself. Nor did I ever see even the Abridgement1 of this Dictionary till a few Days ago, when, observing it inserted in the Catalogue of a Circulating Library where I subscribe, I sent for it (Baker 1770: iv–v).

With almost naive openheartedness, this passage shows us an author interested in the English language, particularly, as appears from the contents of his book, in vocabulary and syntax (Vorlat 2001: 391). At the same time, however, Baker portrays himself literally as an outsider to the subject he is writinge about, i.e. the English language. The social network of which he formed part, he says, contained nobody interested enough in the English language to have acquired a copy of Johnson’s Dictionary (1755) – or indeed wealthy enough to be able to afford it – and he thus openly advocates himself as a non-expert on his subject. But primarily the passage illustrates the importance of the institution known as the Circulating Library, a new phenomenon in the eighteenth century, as Auer describes in her paper below, and the extent to which such libraries served as an important social mechanism by which people like Baker were able to gain access to important publications which they could not afford to buy themselves. Such libraries, as Auer shows, also contained the mainstream grammars of the period, thus enabling its members to educate themselves even if they were unable to buy the books. Auer, in her paper, not only analysed library catalogues but also wills of important people such as Dr Johnson. In theory this would allow us to ascertain which books, including grammars and dictionaries, influenced Johnson’s work; 1 The Dictionary itself came out in 1755, and the abridgement a year later in 1756 (Reddick 1990: 7).

18


in actual practice, however, the will tells us little more than that he possessed 36 grammars during his lifetime, quite a striking number. Auer speculates that Lowth’s grammar may have been one of them, and this would be confirmed by the fact that there is mutual influence between the two (Nagashima 1968). With Lowth’s will we fare much better, as it comprises a detailed list of the items of his private library (Tieken-Boon van Ostade in prep.: Chapter 2). The list does indeed contain a copy of Johnson’s Dictionary, but no grammars apart from Lowth’s own. We do know, from his correspondence with Robert Dodsley, the publisher of the grammar, that Lowth ordered a number of books on grammar in June 1758, when he had just begun his work on the grammar, i.e. John Ward’s Four Essays upon the Engish Language (1758) and Anselm Bayly’s Introduction to Languages (1758) (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a: 25). Though this shows that Lowth was well-informed with respect to recent publications in the field, we should perhaps conclude that, by modern standards at least, Johnson was to have been the better scholar of the two as far as research into English grammar is concerned. It is striking that the grammar prefixed to his dictionary was not rated very highly (see also my own contribution in Part 2 below). Chapman, however, in his paper in this section, shows that both were considered experts in their field, though for very different reasons. Their expertise was not determined by any previous writings on language but by other considerations. They were therefore no linguists in the modern sense of the word (see also Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006a), nor were grammarians considered to be such as yet. Chapman argues that they were usage experts first and foremost, though towards the end of the eighteenth century some of the grammarians can be considered actual language experts, linguists in other words, as well. From the 1760s on we first see the rise of specialist studies on the English language, White (1761) being one of them, and I’ve argued elsewhere that he was among the first writers on grammar, possibly even the first, who worked with a corpus and thus adopted an empirical approach to grammar (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006b: 545). White wrote on the English verb, and so did Pickbourn (1789) nearly thirty years later; Auer shows that both were advertised in contemporary book catalogues. A search of ECCO revealed that Lindley Murray referred to Pickbourn (but not to White) in the fifth edition of his grammar (1799: 63), which suggests that he had done his homework, too; though this would also qualify him as an expert in his field, he may only have been inspired to do so by the accusation of plagiarism made against him in the Critical Review of October 1797 (Jones 1996; Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1996).2 2 According to Vorlat (1959: 108), Murray revealed his sources in a revised edition of his grammar, and she refers to the 1810 edition to illustrate this. A search of ECCO,

Background: Introduction

19

Though both men shared the same publisher, Robert Dodsley, and regularly visited him in his bookshop, Lowth and Johnson do not appear to have been acquainted with each other (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006b: 550). They thus belonged to different social networks, which only touched in Dodsley. Watts in his paper in this section shows that a better concept to describe and understand what was going on at the time is the discourse community. This concept does not presuppose the need for its members to know each other in person in order to strive after a common goal, in this case the codification of the English language, nor that they were in physical or even temporal proximity of each other. Baker’s aims, however, were different from the grammarians, and by still advocating the institution of an English Academy in order to regulate usage he demonstrates that he did not share the same starting point. Thus, unlike the grammarians that will be dealt with in Part 3 of this book, he was neither engaged in a common enterprise with them, nor did he have a common repertoire, nor, significantly of all, did he produce a grammar. His Reflections on the English Language was a usage guide, a new text type that would be taken up by a discourse community that was quite different from that of the eighteenthcentury grammarians.

however, allows us to see that Murray did not wait that long to clear himself from the charge, for the list of sources can already be found in the fourth edition of the grammar, which came out in 1798, the year immediately following the accusation in the Critical Review (see also Mugglestone 1996: 146).

The eighteenth-century grammarians as language experts Don Chapman

1.

Introduction

The divide between prescriptivism and linguistics is well-known and longstanding. Generally speaking, linguists deplore the seeming naivety of prescriptivism, and prescriptivists deplore the seeming permissiveness of linguistics. Both linguists and prescriptivists claim to be experts: linguists claim to be experts on how language works, and prescriptivists claim to be experts on how language ought to be used. But few claim to be experts in both. Most prescriptivists do not hold advanced degrees in linguistics, publish language research in professional journals, or belong to professional linguistics societies, while most linguists pay little attention to prescriptivism. This divide presents a curious situation in which those who know how language works do not care much about the one issue that most non-experts care about (i.e. usage), and those who care about usage do not know much about how language works. How long has this divide been in place? Linguists generally trace the rise of prescriptivism to the eighteenth-century grammarians (see also the introduction to this volume). So was the divide between language experts and usage experts present in the grammarians’ day too? Or could those same grammarians, the forerunners of today’s usage experts, also have been the prototypes of today’s language experts, the linguists? In other words, were the eighteenthcentury grammarians language experts? The simplest answer to this question is that the eighteenth-century grammarians were not language experts, simply because experts, as they have come to be considered nowadays, did not exist for practically any field. Today we live in an expert society. We trust experts in medicine, law, highway construction, and most other aspects of life. We hardly think about the qualifications of the experts – we take it for granted that mechanics, dentists, architects and physical therapists know their craft. Yet for that confidence to exist, considerable machinery must be in place. Experts are educated and trained, tested and certified. They produce and share knowledge within professional associations (cf. Haskell 1984: ix–xviii; MacDonald 1995: 157–174).

22

Don Chapman

These institutions and practices that support an expert society today were only budding in the eighteenth century; they would have to wait until the nineteenth century to flourish. Specialised linguistic departments and curricula at universities and professional linguistic journals and societies all came about in the nineteenth century and later (Amsterdamska 1987: 63–89). The idea of a language expert, like today’s linguists, simply does not apply to eighteenthcentury society, as Mugglestone (2003) notes: Many of those who wrote treatises and tracts on “proper” pronunciation were merely ordinary speakers who recorded their own attitudes and evaluations in ways which, as we have seen, are far removed from the comments of professional linguists today. Indeed the day of the professional linguist had yet to dawn, and untrained observers were the norm. Schoolmasters, actors, vicars, and a whole range of ordinary individuals all ventured to write on accent over this time (2003: 77).

Indeed, the writers on grammar and correctness in the eighteenth century look amateurish from our vantage point today. Those writing grammars resemble the “schoolmasters, actors, vicars” writing on accent. See for instance Leonard (1929), who writes: But the eighteenth-century grammarians and rhetoricians were mainly clergymen, retired gentlemen, and amateur philosophers like the elder Shandy, with an immense distaste for Locke’s dangerous and subversive doctrines. Though more or less conversant with classical texts, they had little or no conception of the history and relations of the classical or other languages, and of course no equipment for carrying on linguistic research or even for making valid observations of contemporary usage. One or two like Dr. Johnson and Horne Tooke made forays of some brilliance and did useful work, but none consolidated any position (Leonard 1929: 13–14).

Raven (1992: 153) similarly complains that the … battle for the middle-class bookshelf and classroom was a highly commercial one, however. It was fought at a furious tempo, and often, it seems, with little regard to any dignity for the subject. Many contributors were little more than hack compilers or writer-booksellers with a quick appreciation of market potential … Some primers and grammars were written by popular novelists and moralists.

So in a word, the eighteenth-century grammarians were not language experts, at least not the way we think of them today. Grammars were written not by linguists, but by clergymen, schoolmasters, booksellers and other seemingly self-appointed grammarians. But that is an indictment of amateurishness only from today’s perspective. Since there were no professional linguists available to write those grammars, we have to examine instead the qualifications of the grammarians with respect to the standards of the day. With respect to eighteenth-century society and the budding institutions of professionalisa-

The eighteenth-century grammarians as language experts

23

tion, would clergymen, schoolmasters and booksellers have been experts in language? Within the rudimentary mechanisms that did exist for validating expertise, how did the eighteenth-century grammarians rate? That is the topic of this paper, which will be examined under two broad categories: explicit credentials and implicit claims to linguistic knowledge. The grammarians that have been examined in this paper are those listed in the appendix of Sundby et al. (1991). As a matter of convenience, I will refer to them by the catch-all term “eighteenth-century grammarians”.1

2.

Explicit credentials

Explicit credentials, such as they existed, for writing a grammar include such things as education, university degrees, occupation, publications and membership of professional societies. 2.1.

Pre-university education

Education came in two main stages in the eighteenth century: preparation for university and university education itself. The preparation for university study varied in quality from school to school. Grammar schools held the highest position, and among the most prestigious schools were Westminster and Winchester, which taught John Locke (1632–1704) and Robert Lowth (1709–1787) respectively. The main task of grammar schools was to teach schoolboys Latin and some Greek. Various other academies, private schools, petty schools, charity schools and ad hoc arrangements would also prepare boys for university. The language expertise of those who were sufficiently educated to enroll in a university would largely have been their reasonably good command of Latin and perhaps Greek (Lawson and Silver 1973: 181–209). 2.2.

University degree

By the eighteenth century, the university degree had become a credential of sorts for the learned professions. On more than one occasion, Samuel Johnson 1

With the exception of Samuel Johnson’s preface to his dictionary (1755), all grammars consulted and quoted in this study come from the Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). Citations to Johnson are from the critical edition by Kolb and DeMaria (2005).

24

Don Chapman

(1709–1784) had difficulty securing employment as a schoolmaster for lack of a university degree (Lane 1975: 51–52, 80–81). Eighteenth-century grammarians who had degrees were certain to list them on the title-pages of their grammars. Johnson lists no degree on his Compleat Introduction to the Art of Writing Letters published in 1743, but shortly before publication of his dictionary, his friends prodded the University of Oxford to grant him a Master of Arts degree, so that the “A. M.” could appear on the dictionary’s title-page (Reddick 1990: 77–78). Similarly, Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) held no degree either, since he was educated at a dissenting academy (Oxford and Cambridge were the only English universities authorised to confer degrees). Accordingly, no degree is mentioned in his grammar, but in 1764 he received an LLD degree from the University of Edinburgh and in 1766 he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of London, after which he usually styled himself as “Joseph Priestley LLD FSR” (Schofield 1997: 143). But eighteenth-century degrees did not mean the same thing as they do today. To begin with, they were not specialised degrees. There would have been no department curriculum, no certification of specialised knowledge. Instead the university curriculum mostly emphasised grammar, rhetoric, logic, moral philosophy and (at Cambridge) mathematics (Sutherland and Mitchell 1986: 472; Searby 1997: 154–163). A degree holder would have studied a fair amount of language, especially Latin and Greek and perhaps Hebrew, but he would not have been trained in the analysis of language that characterises linguistics today. Besides being less specialised, the eighteenth-century university curriculum was less rigorous. Certainly some talented students learned much at Oxford and Cambridge, but for most students, the universities required no more than the passing of a perfunctory exam after sufficient residence. There were no required courses, and there was no required attendance at lectures. Talented students could pass an honours exam and thereby became eligible to be selected as a fellow at their college, but for the rest, the exams were not rigorous (Searby 1997: 158, Sutherland and Mitchell 1986: 470–81; Garland 1980: 3; Lawson and Silver 1973: 209–212). The quality of the education varied widely from student to student and from college to college, so the university degree from Oxford and Cambridge did not necessarily mean that the holder was intelligent or even knowledgeable, beyond having a proficiency of Latin, maybe Greek and perhaps Hebrew. The one sure thing that an Oxford or Cambridge degree meant in the eighteenth century was that the holder had been in Oxford or Cambridge for three or four years. A degree from a Scottish university, on the other hand, was more meaningful. A curriculum of required courses was in place, students paid class fees, and professors were paid by the number of students who attended their lectures.


25

This fee-paying arrangement stimulated the students to attend and the professors to provide worthwhile (or at least interesting) instruction. The Scottish universities emphasised philosophy as the core of the arts degree, which also required a knowledge of Latin, Greek and logic (Sher 1985: 28–30; Chitnis 1976: 124–187).

2.3.

Position at a university

Fellowships were usually a more reliable measurement of a person’s ability, as they were awarded to the students who performed best on the honours exams. A fellowship did not mean, however, that the fellow engaged in anything like specialised research. For the most part, fellows spent some time teaching as tutors, but otherwise pursued whatever learning and leisure they wished (Lawson and Silver 1973: 213–217). So a fellowship at a university meant that the fellow was intelligent and generally knowledgeable, but not that he necessarily had specialised knowledge in any particular subject. Similarly, a chair or professorship was nominally given on the basis of talent, though connections certainly helped. The chairs were given in specific areas, like law, medicine and poetry; thus, Lowth held a chair in poetry at Oxford from 1741–1750 (Hepworth 1978: 32–34). To a degree the chairs indicate broad knowledge of a specialised topic. But much like the fellowship, the chair was often a sinecure, and apparently it was not always awarded to qualified holders (Lawson and Silver 1973: 212–213). And again, there was no sense of a researcher-teacher, as today. Someone holding a chair probably had sound knowledge of a topic, but we cannot be sure how deep or specialised the chair’s knowledge would have been.

2.4. Occupation The typical occupation of grammar writers was that of schoolmaster or clergyman. Michael (1970: 4) notes that of the 222 known authors of grammars that he studied, 140 were known to have been teachers. That was not as amateurish as it may look to us today; these two occupations were the main learned professions for university graduates. Still, the language expertise of schoolmasters is hard to gauge, as the quality of the schoolmaster varied from school to school. Obviously the schoolmaster would be entrusted with instructing schoolboys in Latin, but apparently the schoolmaster was not always held in high regard, as one of them, Daniel Fenning (1714/15–1767), hinted in the preface to his post-

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humously published grammar: “When I had the honour of being employed as a School-master – for notwithstanding the sneers of ignorant Coxcombs, if the honour of any profession is to be measured by its utility and its importance to Society, there is no employment more honourable than that of a School-master” (Fenning 1771: iii). As with much else at this time, schoolmasters could range in ability and qualifications from school to school, from the schoolmasters of the “great” schools (e.g. Eton, Winchester, Westminster) to enterprising villagers who knew how to read, but had not been to university. For the most part, the pay was meager, and most schoolmasters looked for additional ways to make a living, such as holding pluralities of curacies (Lawson and Silver 1973: 189–190).

2.5. Learned societies Professional societies, like the Linguistic Society of America or the Philological Society, have become a staple of academic disciplines today, but in the eighteenth century such specialised societies had yet to appear. Instead, general learned societies, like the Royal Society of London and the Edinburgh Philosophical Society, were getting their start. Membership was selective and favoured the upper class. Most of the business of the Royal Society was science, not language, though such language pioneers as John Wilkins (1614–1672) and George Hickes (1642–1715) were fellows (McClellan 1985; Hepworth 1978: 43). Membership in these societies tells us little about the language expertise of the fellows, but it does suggest general abilities.

2.6.

Publications

Like professional societies, specialised professional journals would largely come after the eighteenth century. The Transactions of the Royal Society had been established in 1665, but it mainly contained publications about science (Kronick 1962: 119). Priestley was able to publish journal articles about theology and science, but not language (Schofield 1997: 281–282), since the first journal devoted solely to philology would not begin publication until 1844 (Amsterdamska 1987: 86). But even though peer-review mechanisms were not in existence yet, several grammarians achieved notoriety from their publications, most notably Samuel Johnson, Robert Lowth, Joseph Priestley and James Harris (1709–1780), who are most often mentioned as authorities in eighteenthcentury grammars. Without peer review, it is difficult to tell whether their notoriety came from the quality of their work or from the success of their sales, but


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at least some grammarians were more highly regarded or at least more famous than others because of their publications.

3. Credentials of famous grammarians The credentials discussed in § 2 would not appear especially robust for establishing expertise, but it would be useful to see how well they apply to those eighteenth-century grammarians who have been highly regarded, either in their own day or ours. Lowth looks like a language expert par excellence, when measured by explicit credentials of his day. Before he wrote his grammar, he had been educated at Winchester, one of the finest grammar schools in the country, and then New College at Oxford, where he received BA and MA degrees. He was selected as a fellow of his college, and not long afterwards, as a chair of poetry at Oxford. Later Oxford awarded him with a doctorate in divinity. His publications on Hebrew poetry were highly regarded. He was also a deacon and archdeacon. After he wrote his grammar, he became consecutively Bishop of St Davids and Oxford in 1766, and Bishop of London in 1777, one of the most important episcopal sees in England. In 1765 he was selected as a member of the Royal Society (Hepworth 1978: 15–46). He is sometimes characterised in linguistics textbooks as primarily a bishop, and thus authoritarian, but as Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2006b: 542–543) points out, the bishopric came after his grammar. Besides, the bishopric was just one of his many credentials. Johnson, on the other hand, looks considerably less like an expert, according to these credentials. He attended grammar school at Lichfield, respectable, though provincial, but then spent only little over a year at Oxford (Pembroke College), leaving without a degree. He worked briefly as an usher (assistant school teacher) and tried to start his own school, but both ventures were shortlived failures. In the end, he supported himself by writing. His writings made him a leading figure, and in 1755, just before the publication of his dictionary, Oxford conferred an MA on him, so that he could style himself properly on the dictionary title-page. Later, in 1765, the University of Dublin created him a Doctor of Laws, hence the “Dr. Johnson” (Lane 1975). Today Johnson remains one of the most respected figures of his age, and his dictionary is still highly regarded, but by the explicit credentials, he hardly looks like a language expert.2 2 According to Reddick (1990: 16–17), the main qualifications Johnson had for writing a dictionary were his learning, ability and “encyclopedic temperament” for excelling at large projects and his need of another such large project.

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Priestley is a grammarian whose reputation was relatively strong in his own day and has increased since. His credentials look good, though less typical, since he came from a family of non-comformists. He attended Batley grammar school and a small school kept by John Kirkby (c. 1705–1754), where he learned Latin, Greek and the rudiments of Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac and Arabic. Because he was non-conformist, he could not attend Oxford or Cambridge, and expenses kept him from attending a Scottish university. Instead he attended Daventry academy, one of the leading dissenting academies, and at the time a plausible rival to the English universities. After his studies, he was a dissenting minister, a tutor at another dissenting academy, a master of his own school and a tutor to a gentleman’s sons. He was later granted an LLD degree from the University of Edinburgh, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He published widely in science, theology, history and language (Schofield 1997). It might be useful to contrast these three men with a grammarian who was never as famous, either in his own time or today, namely, Daniel Fenning. Fenning wrote a spelling guide, a dictionary and a grammar. We know nothing of his education, except that he probably did not attend either Oxford or Cambridge and certainly did not graduate if he had attended. He was a schoolmaster at Bures, Suffolk, in a school that mainly focused on the three Rs. Later he seems to have given up schoolmastering and became associated with the Royal-Exchange Assurance Company in London. He published several textbooks on arithmetic and on the English language; his most successful one was The Universal Spelling Book; Or, a New and Easy Guide to the English Language (Austin 2000). Compared with Fenning, Lowth and Priestley have stronger credentials, but perhaps Johnson does not. The strongest credential Johnson has is his publications, which is also the strongest credential for Fenning. This comparison suggests that the credentials tell us a little about the expertise of grammarians but not enough. The credentials confirm the reputation of Lowth and probably Priestley, but miss wildly with Johnson. They were simply not as uniform as they are today. In the absence of a more uniform system of credentials, the work of the grammarians becomes more important for evaluating their expertise.

4. Fitting into the intellectual trends of the times In some degree, linguistic history has already passed its verdict on which grammarians produced the most valuable works: Johnson, Priestley and Harris all get high marks, while Lowth has been relegated to serve as a foil to those grammarians’ (and our) brilliance. But this ranking of writers is based


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on our own views of what language expertise should be – a view that has been developed over more than two hundred years of subsequent research into language. To ascertain whether grammarians would have been expert with respect to their own times, we ought to look at how they and their work fit in with the intellectual trends of the times. So another way to assess the expertise of the grammarians is to examine their engagement with language study of their day (cf. Auer, this volume). We can expect experts to have been engaged with a scholarly discourse community (cf. Watts, this volume), even though external mechanisms, like journals and associations, had not developed fully. Those who are engaged in a careful analysis of their subject (in this case the English language) and who critically evaluate what others have written about the topic can be considered more expert than those who simply accept received wisdom. Those who deal with theoretical issues, who critically evaluate foundations, assumptions and first principles, who are self-reflective about their own knowledge and metalanguage are more expert than those who simply transmit knowledge. In effect, expert knowledge will be more than knowledge received from grammar school. A thorough analysis of the eighteenth-century grammars would be the best way to gauge the theoretical leanings of the grammarians, but that goes beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, we can get a useful look at the theoretical disposition and engagement of the grammarians by examining the basis of their grammars that they enunciate in their prefaces. In short, what knowledge do they claim for writing a grammar?

4.1.

Universal grammar

One of the leading theoretical issues of language in the eighteenth century was universal grammar or philosophical grammar or reasoned grammar (see also Buschmann-Göbels, this volume). The foundation of this notion is that all language has a universal basis. This idea was worked out in varying degrees of sophistication. More sophisticated analysis relied more on semantics and logic in looking for a universal basis: in this view, humans have a roughly universal nature, so languages must be similar and must express universal concepts. Less sophisticated attempts simply tried to map concepts from Latin grammar (e. g. gender, number and case) onto vernaculars, under the assumption that the universals for all grammars were similar to Latin (Robins 1979: 123–128; Michael 1970: 492–493). A few of the eighteenth-century English grammarians explicitly mention universal grammar or philosophical justification for their grammars. Charles

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Coote (1760–1835), for example, writes “A proper acquaintance with grammar, particularly with that branch which is denominated universal grammar, cannot but be of great service in investigating the philosophy of the human mind, and the nature and limits of our understanding” (Coote 1788: ii). He even offers an introduction to universal grammar, inserted before his grammar of English. In this introduction, Coote shows his indebtedness to both Locke and Harris, and in his preface, he shows himself closely engaged with language thought. Such involvement with the discourse community would suggest relatively strong expertise (cf. Watts, this volume). Other grammarians who show such involvement include Michael Maittaire (1668–1747) and James Elphinston (1721–1809). (On Maittaire’s grammar, which was published in 1712, see further Buschmann-Göbels this volume.)

4.2.

Analogy or the patterns and structure of English

Some grammarians show their commitment to analysing the structure of English afresh. While such a commitment does not show the same degree of engagement with theoretical thought as the discussions of universal or philosophical grammar, it still shows more theoretical awareness than those approaches that simply impose Latin grammatical categories on English. Ann Fisher (1719–1778), for example, states that “It was … after much Assiduity in studying the English Language independently, that I first attempted to constitute a System of syntactical Rules peculiar to the Genius of the Language, with Exercises of bad English” (Fisher 1770: iii) (cf. Rodríguez-Gil 2002a; Rodríguez-Gil, this volume). And Elphinston describes the process of using Latin grammar to describe English as loading “it with the chains of the Latin, with rules as uncouth as the terms that conveyed them, and absolutely incompatible with the native analogy” (Elphinston 1765: ix). An acknowledgement of the differences between Latin and English became increasingly common in the latter part of the eighteenth century, but its utterance is not always borne out by the grammarians’ actual practice. Usually the grammars are fairly conservative and stay close to the traditional, Latin-based analysis of English. At the same time, it is not hard to find instances in which the grammarians recognise the inadequacy of Latin descriptions of English (Michael 1970: 492–518). The grammarians committed to such description mark themselves as somewhat more engaged with theoretical thought on language, and therefore somewhat more expert, than those who simply accept traditional descriptions from Latin.


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4.3. Appeal to usage Several grammarians recognise the importance of usage, either generally or that of the best writers. John Fell (1735–1797) provides a typical acknowledgment of the value of usage: “From [a grammarian’s] opinions and precepts an appeal may always be made to the tribunal of use, as to the supreme authority and also resort: for all language is merely arbitrary” (Fell 1784: xiii). To present-day linguists, such reliance looks closer to our view, and thus we are more likely to consider it a sign of linguistic sophistication, but the doctrine of usage is well-known from classical times, and even when grammarians repeat it, they seldom show real commitment to it (Leonard 1929: 137–165). The grammarians who mention usage seldom discuss how to ascertain this usage. A few, who elaborate the doctrine, like George Campbell (1719–1796) and Priestley, can be said to exhibit some expertise; those who simply mention the authority of usage show much less engagement or expertise in language.

4.4.

Pedagogy

It is not unusual to find claims from grammarians for their expertise in teaching. In the preface to the sixth edition of her Accurate New Spelling Dictionary (1788), Ann Fisher wrote: “To know any science is one thing, − to communicate it to the conception of others, is quite another; requiring the additional knowledge of the human mind, which too few school authors are endowed with, not distinguishing what is proper to be inculcated, from what is impracticable” (Fisher 1788: iv). Such claims by themselves have only the most tenuous connection to language expertise. When they are accompanied by deeper discussions of language, we can be more confident that the grammarian was interested in both language and teaching, as was the case with Fisher. For those grammarians who dwell primarily on teaching, we may well question their expertise in language, as opposed to pedagogy.

4.5.

Received wisdom

Finally there are those who claim expertise to write a grammar because they know what has already been written in other grammars. This is not the same as being engaged in a scholarly discourse community; Coote could rely on Harris and Locke, but still show his own engagement with language questions. In contrast, many grammarians, especially in the last two decades of the eight-

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eenth century, see themselves primarily as teachers, simply distilling what has already been published in grammars. Examples are Fenning, but also Lindley Murray (1745–1826): But Dr. Lowth, who seems to have undertaken his Grammar chiefly with a view to explain the rules of Syntax, has, partly in his text, but still more in his notes, treated this subject in so clear and comprehensive a manner, as to leave little to be done by succeeding Grammarians (Fenning 1771: iv). When the number and variety of English grammars already published, and the ability with which some of them are written, are considered, little can be expected from a new compilation, besides a careful selection of the most useful matter (Murray 1795: 2).

Such comments suggest that the writers are not experts of the language, but instead of the grammatical tradition. The object of expertise has moved from language to teaching grammar. It is this emphasis on the grammatical tradition that points to the split we now have between the language experts and usage experts, as will be discussed in § 6 below.

5. Engagement of famous grammarians Again, it is worthwhile to see what the prefaces say about the expertise of the grammarians with strong reputations. Lowth shows a rather high degree of engagement with linguistic ideas of his time. He addresses universal grammar explicitly when he argues that one must first see universal principles applied to a particular language to understand them: Universal Grammar cannot be taught abstractedly: it must be done with reference to some language already known … When [the learner] has a competent knowledge of the main principles, the common terms, the general rules, the whole subject and business of Grammar, exemplified in his own Language; he then will apply himself with great advantage to any foreign language, whether ancient or modern. To enter at once upon the Science of Grammar, and the Study of a foreign Language, is to encounter two difficulties together (Lowth 1762: xi–xii).

Lowth’s conception of universal grammar appears to consist largely of the application of Latin grammar to all languages, but still he frames his argument within intellectual trends of his day. Similarly, Lowth acknowledges the possibility of using logic in writing a grammar, but explains that his grammar puts a greater emphasis on simplicity: “In the Definitions therefore easiness and perspicuity have been sometimes preferred to logical exactness” (Lowth 1762: xiii–xiv). He shows his awareness of Harris, when he refers readers who want


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a deeper treatment of grammar to Hermes, which he calls the “most beautiful and perfect example of Analysis that has been exhibited since the days of Aristotle” (Lowth 1762: xiv–xv). Lowth also acknowledges the differences between English and Latin, as he explains that nouns have only one case and no gender, while verbs have no more than six or seven inflections (Lowth 1762: iv). Like most grammarians in his day, he is aware of actual usage but distrusts it as an authority for correctness: “Much practice in the polite world, and a general acquaintance with the best authors, are good helps, but alone will hardly be sufficient” (Lowth 1762: vii). In many ways and to a degree greater than found in most other eighteenth-century grammars, Lowth’s preface reveals a scholar aware of the discussions of language current in his day.3 In light of such awareness, Lowth’s current reputation as an authoritarian, simple-minded icon of prescriptivism seems unfair (see also Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006b and Yañez-Bouza, this volume). Lowth is frequently mentioned in introductory textbooks, almost as a scapegoat for all the sins that linguists attribute to the benighted prescriptivist tradition. While his remarks that the language of “our most approved authors, often offends against every part of Grammar” (1762: iv) may be harder for modern linguists to swallow than Priestley’s confidence in “all governing custom” (1761: vii), the differences between those two grammarians are not as great as has been adduced in the selfjustifying morality tales of modern linguistics: Lowth is not as prescriptive nor Priestley as descriptive as they have been made out to be (Hodson 2006, see also Hodson, this volume). There are many grammarians with less ability than Lowth who would be better suited to play the foil to our views on correctness. Johnson’s engagement with language thought is everywhere evident in the preface to his dictionary. He speaks of general grammar (1755: 74) and Locke’s notions of words as signs (1755: 79). Johnson recognised that English has its own character, as he speaks of the “genius of our tongue” (1755: 78), verb-particle constructions (1755: 87) and the “Teutonick character” of English (1755: 95). In many places he notes the importance of actual usage (1755: 77, 107–108). Johnson also notes his use of the work of Franciscus Junius (1591–1677) and Stephen Skinner (1623–1667), and criticises several of Junius’s fanciful etymologies (1755: 81–82). Johnson’s insight into language is readily apparent. Priestley’s reputation, already solid in his own day, has understandably risen in our time, since his style and ideas look more like our own. He employs the plain, direct style that we have become accustomed to, as exemplified in his opening lines that self-referentially state Priestley’s purpose and scope: “The 3

Hepworth (1978: 43) further notes that Lowth’s grammar contributed to the primitive movement that favoured native languages over classical languages.

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following performance is intended to exhibit, A View of the genuine and established principles of the English Language; adapted to the use of schools. For this purpose, care hath been taken to omit nothing that properly falls within the province of the Grammarian, as distinct from that of the Lexicographer” (Priestley 1761: iii). Priestley’s views on the importance of actual usage and the futility of an academy that would regulate usage also look more like our own. In contrast to Lowth’s assertion that even the best writers have offended against grammar, Priestley notes that “good authors have adopted different forms of speech, and in a case that admits of no standard but that of custom, one authority may be of as much weight as another” (1761: vi). Similarly, he regards a language academy as “not only unsuitable to the genius of a free nation, but in itself ill calculated to reform and fix a language” (1761: vii). As Hodson (2006) points out, these utterances are not as representative of Priestley’s thought as they would seem, but it is easy to see why today’s linguists would recognise a familiarity in them. Priestley’s preface to his grammar reveals an acquaintance with language ideas and a willingness to examine language afresh. Priestley mentions ideas about the origin of language and universal grammar, though to dismiss them as extraneous to his purposes (1761: iv); he later wrote a separate treatise on universal grammar (1762). He is aware of the differences between Latin and English and is committed to examining English on its own terms (1761: viii, x). And as noted, Priestley shows a stronger-than-usual commitment to actual usage of the language as an authority (Priestley 1761: vi-vii).4 Again, it is useful to compare these three with a less famous grammarian. Fenning appears as a competent, workaday grammarian in his prefaces. He shows himself aware of the writings of others, as he mentions Johnson, Priestley, Lowth and Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782). He briefly acknowledges a difference between English and Latin (Fenning 1756: ix) and mentions the “genius of our tongue” (Fenning 1761: viii). In all things, however, he is much more interested in teaching. The authorities he cites are other grammarians and he mentions them because of their classroom texts. He spends much more time giving suggestions for teaching than analysing language. He explicitly acknowledges that little is to be added to our knowledge of grammar except for how to teach it better (Fenning 1771: iv). He appears intelligent enough, but he does not show the same degree of involvement with language questions as Johnson, Lowth and Priestley.

4

Tieken-Boon van Ostade (1992: 168) notes that Priestley might well have acquired this commitment to actual usage from his teacher John Kirkby (see § 3 above).


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The comparison among these grammarians shows that some like Lowth, Priestley and especially Johnson could be deeply involved with language questions. If part of being an expert is participating in the sharing and creation of knowledge within a discipline, some of the grammarians can reasonably be called experts, at least with respect to the discipline as it existed in their day. Others, like Fenning and Murray, were familiar with their subject, but not particularly inquisitive about it. They seem more content to accept at face value the writings of others, and thus have less reason to be called experts. When we take the two evaluative approaches together – external credentials and implicit claims to knowledge – we see that the most famous grammarians actually come out well as experts, or at least as more expert than others in their day. We may not be able to speak of them as experts in our sense of the word, but for their own day, we may well be justified in calling some of the eighteenth-century grammarians language experts.

6.

Conclusion

The eighteenth-century grammarians are frequently disparaged as the fountainhead of the prescriptive tradition. For present-day linguists, most eighteenth-century views on language change and correctness look antiquated and naive, yet those ideas remain preserved in today’s prescriptivist tradition. It is that preservation, more than anything, that very likely leads to the opprobrium among linguists for eighteenth-century grammarians; otherwise, linguists would probably regard the early stages of their discipline similar to how experts in other disciplines regard their early stages: with a slight, perhaps even fond, curiosity. Of course we have seen advances in our understanding of language over the last three hundred years, but so has every other discipline. So the problem is not that the early grammarians had naive ideas; the real problem is that those ideas have remained current in our prescriptivist tradition. That is probably why the early grammarians are scoffed in today’s linguistics textbooks. But there is no reason to see the grammarians as the source solely of the prescriptive tradition. Some were inquisitive about language, investigated and published on language, and tried to answer the questions of their day about language, such as the structure of vernacular grammar or universals that all languages share. Such grammarians might just as readily be seen as precursors to today’s linguists. The real split between linguists and prescriptivists did not begin with the writing of grammars. Instead it began when grammar writers became complacent in their views on language and became satisfied with merely passing on the received wisdom of the earlier grammarians. This happened

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largely at the end of the eighteenth century, as textbook writers consolidated and distilled the writings in the earlier grammars. In this pedagogical tradition, none looms larger than Lindley Murray, whose grammars “all but cornered the market during the first quarter of the nineteenth century” (Finegan 1980: 46). If we need an eighteenth-century icon for prescriptivism, a better choice than Lowth would be Murray, who stands more clearly at the head of the pedagogical and prescriptivist tradition. After all, Lowth was still engaged in language questions of his day; he could be considered an eighteenth-century language expert. Murray, on the other hand, with his pedestrian interest in grammar, not language, makes a more fitting forerunner of today’s usage expert. At the same time that some grammarians began emphasizing the transmission of knowledge more than investigation, other students of language were becoming more professional. New chairs in language study, new journals, new associations all came to Europe. Those who were more inquisitive found a place and profession in this discourse community and became the language experts of the nineteenth century (Amsterdamska 1987). The two events – professionalisation of language study and uncritical transmission of grammar – began at roughly the same time, and that is what has produced the split between language experts and usage experts. So were the eighteenth-century grammarians language experts? To a degree yes. At least some of them were with respect to their time. So not only were they the precursors of today’s usage experts, some of them can be seen to be precursors of today’s language experts. In their day, both enterprises were the same. It was at the end of the eighteenth century that we find the divide.

Grammar writers in eighteenth-century Britain: A community of practice or a discourse community? Richard J. Watts

1. A theory of sociolinguistics In the spirit of the present volume this contribution represents a reassessment of the motivations and ideologies of grammarians in the activity of grammar writing in eighteenth-century Britain. That activity occupied such a prominent place in the unprecedented concern with language and schooling in the latter half of the eighteenth century that it has become a matter of socio-historical importance in our present-day reconstruction of those ideologies. As such, an appropriate way to tackle such a reassessment is to use the methods of sociolinguistics. The problem is which sort of sociolinguistics? Since sociolinguistic research began in earnest in the 1960s scholars have been peculiarly unwilling to consider the issue of whether or not there could ever be a “theory of sociolinguistics”. Most practitioners have contented themselves with affirming that they are linguists whose central concern is with the social significance of language in speech communities. Some have considered it impossible or even undesirable to attempt to develop such a theory. I believe this to be a failure to appreciate that not all theories need be rationalistessentialist and predictive. In the spirit of the Greek concept of theoria, which simply means “observation”, “view”, “perspective”, “contemplation”, there are different ways of developing theories, and one of those alternatives will be elucidated here. I will start from the observation that all language is uniquely human and that being human is uniquely and inextricably tied up with acquiring language and using it as a medium of social communication. We cannot avoid language, since it is an inescapable aspect of our human environment from birth on. Some would even argue that we react to language in the womb. In addition, being human is a uniquely social condition. The way to “look at” language, the way to theorise about language, is thus to do so from a social interactionist, social constructivist point of view. Since each of us is perceptually at the centre of her/his own universe, each of us constructs her/his own model of the social world. Most of this construction is in fact co-construction since it necessarily involves social interaction with other individuals.

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Scannell (1998) has this to say about what it means to “be-in-language”: “Human being is being-in-language, which is another way of saying that language worlds. The world in which we dwell includes language. Our world languages. It speaks and we speak it” (1998: 263). This is a far cry from a rationalist-essentialist view of language, but it is, I contend, the only way to develop a theory of sociolinguistics. The theory must ultimately include a socio-cognitive model of language itself. This is a postmodernist understanding of the significance of language in human interaction. It does not set itself the goal of predicting human behaviour, although there is no reason to believe that it would not be quite as effective as a rationalist model in doing so. But it does consider in detail how appropriate forms of social behaviour have developed through time, and it can therefore be considered, like the theory of grammaticalisation in explaining language variation and change, to have a historical basis. Central to the world-building in which we all participate is the notion of social practice, i.e. activities in which we participate on the basis of a sense of the social appropriateness of those activities. Each of us develops a sense of social appropriateness during the course of our lives, and most of the time we are quite unaware of this process. Bourdieu (1990) refers to this sense of social appropriateness as the habitus, and in my own work on linguistic politeness over the years I have used the notion of “politic behaviour” (Watts 1992, 2003). Since social practices prototypically occur in instances of socio-communicative interaction, they are community-based and are characterised by a social history, i.e. we all have a history of social practices, mostly involving the use of language, which characterises our modes of social behaviour. Social practices are best considered as emerging in instances of socio-communicative verbal interaction. One of the most central notions in any postmodernist sociolinguistic understanding of language and society is that of the “community of practice”, which I shall introduce in more detail in §§ 3 and 4. Members of a community of practice, whether peripheral or central, negotiate meanings through the social practices they continually produce and reproduce, and negotiating meanings also entails negotiating social identities. As we shall see, a large part of carrying out social practices in a community of practice (CofP) consists in constructing what Wenger (1998) calls reifications. Language itself is a reification, discourses are reifications, texts are reifications, and thus, by definition, grammars − the topic of the present volume − are reifications. If we accept this interpretation, we then need to ask in which emergent practices and in which CofPs those grammars are produced, reproduced and transformed. On the other hand, reifications are structured discursively over time, and they have a tendency to overcome the limitations of time, space and possibly

Grammar writers in eighteenth-century Britain

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also social stratification. For this reason I shall also introduce a second related term in § 3, “discourse community”, and evaluate its effectiveness in making socio-historical sense of the grammars of the eighteenth century alongside that of communities of practice. Before tackling this issue, however, I shall take the unusual step in the following section of relating a brief personal anecdote, which will, I hope, locate the reader in real time as well as in historical time.

2. A brief anecdote I received my education from age 11 to age 18 at a renowned grammar school in Essex just to the east of the urban sprawl of Greater London. The school had been founded in the first decade of the eighteenth century as an endowed school for boys, and it was swallowed up, alas, some time at the end of the 1960s by that hungry educational beast “comprehensive education”. There were five Houses in the school, three of them named after eighteenth-century writers and one after a renowned eighteenth-century general: Addison (1672–1719), Shaftesbury (1671–1713), Priestley (1733–1804) and Marlborough (1706–1758). The fifth house was given the name of Brooks, one of the school’s first benefactors. Amongst other state-controlled grammar schools in the country, the school had an excellent record in supplying Oxford and Cambridge with students, coming a close second in my final year to Manchester Grammar. In the Lower Sixth Form we were drilled by an elderly, begowned English teacher in the elements of good vs. bad style − which effectively meant good, grammatical English as against bad, ungrammatical English. For week after week we wrote down in compendious notebooks what he dictated to us. I passed my O-Level English Language exam at the end of the year but not brilliantly, after which I gave up English in favour of studying for A-Level German, French, Latin and Russian. Consequently, I threw away my notebook as quickly as possible. This is a shame because it constituted one reification of a CofP of which I was a member and which might now serve a useful purpose in reconstructing the practices of rote grammar learning at grammar schools in the 1950s. The notebook contained many of the “rules” our teacher had us take down, e.g. the old chestnut about not splitting infinitives, the complaint about “dangling prepositions” (or what we would be more disposed to refer to in modern linguistic terminology as preposition stranding; see Yañez-Bouza, this volume), the sensible prohibition on subjectless participial clauses implying a missing first person subject followed by a main clause with a third or second person

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subject (e.g. I carefully opened the door. Having entered the room, she stood before me with a gun pointed in my direction), and many more. Some years later, after my first university degree, I decided to exchange modern languages for life as a teacher of English. My second teaching practice for the Certificate of Education was at one of the last surviving boys grammar schools in the country, and the teacher I was about to relieve could have been a carbon-copy of my former English master. He sat ominously, and also begowned, at the front of the class calling on pupil after pupil to parse the sentences of a text. When he introduced me as the new student teacher, I could sense the communally anticipated delight in escaping from the drudgery of parsing to the freedom of terrorising a greenhorn. Needless to say, I never went into teaching English at a state school in Britain! The English masters in this brief two-part anecdote were among the last of a breed of English teachers who were soon to disappear from public education in Britain in the late 1960s, but they represented a tradition of teaching English grammar and style which stretched back into the early eighteenth century, i.e. the tradition of prescriptive grammar and classical written style. The very fact that the tradition had lasted for a good two hundred years is testimony to its solid institutionalisation within the British education system. It indicates that prescriptive grammar was always intimately tied up with the teaching of English in the schools. Indeed, if we take a look at the plethora of English grammars printed and reprinted, some of them many times, between the early 1730s and the end of the eighteenth century, we quickly discover that several of them were written by schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. The titles of many of those grammars bear testimony to their intended audiences, for example: – The General Principles of Grammar; Especially Adapted to the English Tongue. With a Method of Parsing and Examination. For the Use of Schools (Collyer 1735) – The English Schollar’s Assistant: Or, the Rudiments of the English Tongue (Saxon 1737) – English Grammar, Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners (Murray 1795). The effects of these grammars on linguistic practice during the latter half of the eighteenth century and beyond have been dealt with only sporadically (e.g. Tibbets 1966; Bodine 1975; MacKay 1980) and over the past few years there has been a resurgence of interest in the topic (e.g. Arnovick 1999; Auer and González-Díaz 2005), although opinions are still very much divided as to what effects they might have had on the learners. Research on this issue is hampered by the empirical difficulty of linking the instruction received at school with the


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later linguistic practices of those who received that instruction. As Auer and González-Díaz (2005) show convincingly with respect to the use of the present subjunctive, the effect, if it existed at all, appears to represent a mere “blip” in the historical development of Standard English that is discernible in the early part of the nineteenth century. In addition, it is only indirectly that we can infer possible effects on oral linguistic production. The focus of the present contribution is the degree to which we can conceive of the prescriptive grammar writers of the last seventy years of the eighteenth century as constituting either a community of practice or a discourse community. Of the two terms I will show that the latter is more appropriate to refer to the discourse practices of the two English masters than the former.

3.

Discourse communities and communities of practice

The term discourse community was first coined by Nystrand (1982) and was further developed by Swales (1990) and Porter (1992). Swales (1990: 25) lists the following six characteristics defining a discourse community: 1. it has “a broadly agreed set of common public goals” 2. it has “mechanisms of intercommunication between its members” 3. it “uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback” 4. it uses and “hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims” 5. it “has acquired some specific lexicon” 6. it has “a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise”. In Watts (1999a) I suggested that the grammar writers of the first half of the eighteenth century constituted what I also called a “discourse community” (cf. the evidence for this point of view presented in the present volume by Buschmann-Göbels’s discussion of the Greenwood and Brightland/Gildon grammars). Modifying Swales’s definition somewhat, I defined a discourse community as “a set of individuals who can be interpreted as constituting a community on the basis of the ways in which their oral or written discourse practices reveal common interests, goals and beliefs, i.e. on the degree of institutionalisation that their discourse displays. The members of the community may or may not be conscious of sharing those discourse practices” (1999a: 43). In accordance with this definition I also suggested that “a discourse community might … be defined as an embryonic institution with its

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own historicity” (1999a: 43). As the brief anecdote in § 2 shows, the institution itself remained remarkably durable over a period of around two hundred years. If it can be demonstrated that the “interests, goals and beliefs” that the discourse practices reveal are indeed common, then the notion of “discourse community” can be set alongside the more flexible and more fluid notion of “community of practice”. The seminal work on CofPs is Wenger (1998), and it is to that work that I will now turn. Wenger (1998: 284n), acknowledging his debt to Benedict Anderson’s work on “imagined communities”, characterises a CofP as displaying mutual engagement, a joint enterprise and a shared repertoire (Wenger 1998: 73). The joint enterprise of a CofP is always negotiated by its members and is “the result of a collective process of negotiation that reflects the full complexity of mutual engagement”. It is also “defined by the participants in the very process of pursuing it” at the same time as creating “among the participants relations of mutual accountability that become an integral part of the practice” (Wenger 1998: 77−78). At this point, the question arises as to how grammarians separated by a time-span of roughly sixty years (i.e. from around 1740 to around 1800) and by large geographical distances (e.g. Fisher lived, worked and first had her grammar published in Newcastle while Bayly was based in London; see RodríguezGil 2002a and this volume) could reasonably be said to have had a “mutual engagement” in grammar writing. If we examine the grammars themselves, we find a remarkable degree of “shared repertoire” even to the extent of obvious mutual unacknowledged copying or plagiarism.1 Many illustrative examples of grammatical points are taken up by one writer from another and very similar textual sequences can be found in more than one grammar (see Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1990b). If we argue that the grammar writers in the latter half of the eighteenth century displayed a mutual engagement in a joint enterprise, do we not rather mean that they were familiar with one another’s texts and felt very little compunction in borrowing what they needed?

1 Plagiarism is a central topic in Navest, this volume, and it is also dealt with by Tieken-Boon van Ostade, likewise in this volume. See also the discussion of Kirkby’s plagiarism of Ann Fisher in Tieken-Boon van Ostade (1992). One of the most blatant examples of plagiarism I have discovered in the literature can be found in Guy Miège’s 1688 grammar, in which there are liberal, almost word-for-word borrowings from Richard Carew’s essay “The excellency of the English tongue” (1586). These are then taken over by Peyton in his Elements of the English Language in 1779. There is also, of course, the case of Lindley Murray’s plagiarism (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1996).


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The puzzle is partially resolved when we consider that Wenger also maintains that mutual engagement does not necessarily require “geographical proximity” (1998: 74). He suggests that geographical (and, by extension, temporal) proximity can help to establish mutual engagement, but he implies that it is not always necessary. The two schoolmasters in my brief anecdote in § 2 are testimony to the “shared repertoire” of practices in the institutionalised context of teaching English at an English grammar school, even though one lived and worked in the south of Essex and the other in the City of Leicester. To resolve the puzzle completely, however, we must look for a catalyst through which mutual engagement can still be achieved despite the fact that the members of the community may never have met one another.2 My hypothesis is that the catalyst is a complex set of factors which came together in the latter half of the eighteenth century, involving non-public-school education, schoolteachers, learners, publishers, booksellers, the middle-class craving for admission to the polite orders of society (cf. Fitzmaurice 1998), and, importantly, the laissez-faire attitude towards personal enrichment which characterised middle and upper-class Britain in the latter half of the eighteenth century. As Wenger states, “whatever it takes to make mutual engagement possible is an essential component of any practice” (1998: 74). However, in order to explain how “mutual engagement” can be sustained through time and across space, I shall argue that we need to retain the concept of “discourse community” (DC) in addition to that of the CofP. The two most significant processes in constructing and reproducing CofPs are participation and reification since the central essence of a CofP in Wenger’s interpretation of it is the term “practice”. Practice is, of course, always an emergent process in which we may be involved, but about which we can only reflect after the event. With respect to the grammars themselves, it is reification which is most interesting here. Wenger defines reification as “the process of giving form to our experience by producing objects that congeal this experience into ‘thingness’” (1998: 58). I shall maintain that it is precisely the grammars (and other publications dealing with language codification such as dictionaries, treatises on the nature of human language and courses on elocution) that con2 Fitzmaurice (2000) shows convincingly that one such catalyst around which characteristics of polite language and style congealed in the early eighteenth century was The Spectator and its two principal authors, Addison and Steele, but particularly Addison. The ways through which Addison and The Spectator became so influential, particularly as a source of “good” and “bad” grammar for the later grammar writers, can be traced through the circle of writers associated with Edward Wortley and, particularly, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

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geal the experience of this particular community into “thingness”. They are the reifications of the CofP or, as I hope to show, of the discourse community, and their shared repertoire of expressions, rules, examples, prohibitions and admonitions are a reflection of a form of joint enterprise.3 On the other hand, the grammars and dictionaries themselves represent a form of discourse which displays astounding structural and conceptual similarities across time, space and between authors, and it is for this reason that I shall suggest retaining the notion of “discourse community”. Before I consider the nature of the joint enterprise, however, I need to take issue with Wenger on one fundamental point. If we consider the central element in a CofP to be practice itself and if we consider practice to be emergent and immediate, then not only will we have to abandon the attempt to reconstruct the notion of CofP to explain the “discourse community” of prescriptive grammarians, but we will also have to restrict our notion of “community” to such emergent practices. Wenger gives the example of a large number of people tuning in to the same television programme and imagining their collective viewing as the instantiation of a collectivity, but he claims that “this kind of alignment derives only from the distribution of television sets and programs, not from the mutual relations involved in the negotiation of a shared practice” (1998: 181). However, if one of the features of a CofP is mutual engagement, then our television viewers, whether they imagine a wider collectivity or not, are engaging in the show. If we are now to imagine a CofP as involving mutual relations in addition to mutual engagement and emergent practice, then they cannot constitute a CofP, although they can still be considered to constitute a discourse community. Immediately after setting up this new constraint on a CofP, Wenger continues as follows: Imagination creates a kind of community. … The inhabitants of a city, people who are disabled, immigrants from a certain region, people born as twins, lovers of Celtic music – each of these groups shares something that creates a kind of community. Belonging to such a community can contribute to the identities of those involved, even if it does not involve the joint development of a shared practice (1998: 181–182).

The kind of community Wenger is envisaging here is a discourse community. We may agree that any or all of these imagined communities lack the joint development of a shared practice, although this would be exceptionally difficult 3 A nice illustration of how grammars themselves became reified is given by TiekenBoon van Ostade (2000a), who describes how Lowth, after deciding to write his own grammar, promptly started ordering grammars from his bookseller.


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to prove. But that is not the point. In the case of the grammar writers there certainly was a kind of joint enterprise, and my brief anecdote in § 2 represents a tiny piece of evidence that, even after two hundred years, that joint enterprise tended to generate shared practices, not in the sense of mutual, regular, faceto-face engagement, but certainly in the sense of a shared commitment to the discursive practices.

4.

What was the joint enterprise?

Let us return to Wenger’s definition of reification: “the process of giving form to our experience by producing objects that congeal this experience into ‘thingness’” (1998: 58). What was the experience which was congealed into the thingness of school grammars and teaching methods? Who were the people who constructed membership in an imagined community, part of the practices of which were precisely those grammars and those methods? Research carried out by the historian Paul Langford on the connections between “politeness” and commerce in England from 1727 to 1783 shows convincingly that the “experience” concerned the elusive concept of “politeness”, which was seen by the upwardly mobile middle classes of society to be a “property” of the class above them, i.e. the gentry, to whom they aspired to belong.4 The trajectory of this joint enterprise can be interpreted as constitutive of the practices developed to achieve this social status. Langford calls the joint enterprise a “revolution”, which he describes as follows: Nothing unified the middling orders so much as their passion for aping the manners and morals of the gentry more strictly defined, as soon as they possessed the material means to do so. This was a revolution by conjunction rather than confrontation, but it was a revolution none the less, transforming the pattern of social relations, and subtly reshaping the role of that governing class which was the object of imitation. The aspirants sought incorporation in the class above them, not collaboration with those below them … (1989: 63).

4 This is well illustrated by Mrs Friendly, a character in Mrs Eves’s The Grammatical Play-Thing, or, Winter Evening’s Recreation, for Young Ladies from Four to Twelve Years Old, who makes the following comment to a pupil: “Yes, my dear, there are even greater grammatical blunders made than these, and the only reason that you speak better is, that you associate with people who are well educated” (1800: x). Association with people higher up the social ladder, i.e. with well-educated people, prevents one from committing grammatical “blunders”.

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I have written at length in a number of publications on how the “ambiguous term” “politeness”, as Langford calls it (1989: 71), was understood (Watts 1999b, 2002, 2003; see also Fitzmaurice 2000), and I shall not go into further details here. Suffice it to say at this point that Langford takes “politeness” to refer to “the possession of those goods which marked off the moderately wealthy from the poor”. He also suggests that it might be defined as “that je ne sais quoi which distinguished the innate gentleman’s understanding of what made for civilized conduct” (1989: 71). Langford’s use of the degree adverb “moderately” above indicates that the middle classes may have been under no illusions about the degree of wealth which they might acquire. For this reason, many of the expensive material trappings of the gentry were clearly out of their reach. However, one part of the je ne sais quoi, namely language, was definitely within their reach − or so they imagined − and could be acquired through education and training. The first half of the eighteenth century focused on the codification of written rather than oral language, and it was therefore inevitable that the standardisation process should rapidly crystallise into an elitist social discourse. McIntosh (1998) and Watts (1999b, 2002 and 2003) use the term “gentrification” to refer to those changes in language which had become social class distinctions by the middle of the century. By way of illustration, consider the case of the Irish actor Thomas Sheridan. In the late 1750s and early 1760s Sheridan took it upon himself to teach the upwardly mobile “middling orders” of Langford’s social scale the “correct” (i.e. polite) way to pronounce English by offering a series of public lectures on elocution and other related matters to large audiences in Oxford, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Dublin and other cities across the country.5 The idea of training people in the “proper” pronunciation of English through reading aloud was a 5 Sheridan maintained that his purpose was to put an end to class barriers by teaching speakers to adhere to a “classless” standardised form of oral English. If this social aim was meant seriously, it is certainly interpretable as praiseworthy. However, many of the statements made in the printed version of his lectures (Sheridan 1762) indicate a far less noble attitude. Dialect speakers were characterised as follows: “All other dialects, are sure marks, either of a provincial, rustic, pedantic, or mechanic education; and therefore have some degree of disgrace annexed to them” (1762: 30). A little later, he has nothing but ridicule to show for those who drop their aitches: “If any one were to pronounce the following sentence, Hail ye high ministers of Heav’n! how happy are we in hearing these your heavenly tydings! without an aspirate thus – Ail ye igh ministers of eaven! ow appy are we in earing these your eavenly tydings! who does not see that the whole expression of triumph and exultation would be lost?” (1762: 36). Such statements are frequently met with


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novelty at the time (although it became standard procedure in the elementary schools of the nineteenth century), and it was ridiculed by more well-known pundits of Standard English such as Samuel Johnson. Here is the advertisement for a series of lectures held by Sheridan at Oxford in 1759: Oxford, May 16, 1759 Mr. Sheridan’s General Course of Lectures on Elocution, and the English Language (so far only as relates to Elocution) will commence on Wednesday next the 23d Instant; will be continued on the succeeding Friday and Wednesday, and conclude on Friday the first Day of June: To begin each Morning precisely at the Hour of Ten. Price to each Subscriber one Guinea. Such Gentlemen as purpose to attend this Course, are requested to send their Names to Mr. Fletcher, Bookseller in the Turl. N. B. As Mr. Sheridan’s Illness when he was last at Oxford, prevented his going through the Course in the Time proposed, by which Means many of the Subscribers were absent during Part of the Course, and Others heard it in such a Manner as could not be satisfactory, Notice is hereby given, That all Subscribers to the former, shall be entitled to their Admission, during this Course, by Virtue of their first Subscription. The Lecture will be delivered at the Music Room as before (as quoted in Mugglestone 1995: 21).

From this we gather that Sheridan had already held the course of lectures advertised here at some earlier point in time but had been unable to complete it due to illness. The advertisement was probably not as successful as Sheridan had hoped, presumably because the sum of one guinea was a considerable price to pay in the mid-eighteenth century. So two days after the planned beginning of the course a second advertisement appeared: OXFORD, May 25, 1759 MR. Sheridan Takes this Method of acquainting such Gentlemen as are desirous of improving themselves in the manner of reading the Liturgy, that he will be ready to give his Assistance in that Way, by entering into a Practical Course for the Purpose, as soon a sufficient Number shall offer themselves.---------All who want farther Information on this Head, may know in what Way, and upon what Terms the Design is to be executed, by applying to Mr. Sheridan at Mr. Kemp’s in the High-Street, any Time before Thursday the 31st Instant. Such as should chuse private and separate Instruction, may also know upon what Terms it is to be obtained. in the Course of Lectures on Elocution, and they certainly do not lend credibility to his declared intention to put an end to class barriers.

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Richard J. Watts And as Mr. Sheridan has heard that many young Gentlemen are inclined to form themselves into small Classes, in order to practise together the Art of reading aloud and reciting under his Inspection, He likewise gives Notice, that upon Application to him, he will inform such Gentlemen how far, and in what Way he can be of Service to them during his Stay at Oxford (as quoted in Mugglestone 1995: 20).

I have been unable to locate Kemp’s in High Street, Oxford in 1759, but I take Kemp to have been a bookseller, since the previous advertisement had suggested to prospective clients that more information could be obtained from the bookseller James Fletcher in the Turl. Two things are important for my interpretation of the acquisition of polite language as constituting the joint venture within which the grammar writers produced the reifications of this CofP or discourse community: firstly, there was a large market among the upwardly mobile middle classes to learn “polite” language as one means of breaking through the class barrier, and secondly, there were people like Sheridan who were prepared to offer help − at a price, it should be noted! If one hundred “gentlemen” had attended his course of lectures at one guinea a head, Sheridan would have made £105. With similar audiences across the country, he could have earned at least £500, a not inconspicuous sum in the middle of the eighteenth century. In addition, at his lectures Sheridan invited his audiences to sign a subscription list if they wished to buy the version of the lectures published by the printer and publisher William Strahan, a friend of Dr. Johnson’s, in London. The over two hundred subscribers to the book, a list of whom was given at the front of the first edition of the Course of Lectures on Elocution (1762), provide a good indication of the class of people who came to his lectures (viz. overwhelmingly middle class) and was probably more than enough to finance the print run. If we turn our attention to the grammar writers, we are all well acquainted with Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s (2000a) careful work in tracing the beginnings of Robert Lowth’s grammar. Even though, in a more recent article (TiekenBoon van Ostade 2003), she admits that Lowth’s A Short Introduction to English Grammar was not after all a publishers’ project from the beginning, but that it was originally written for his son Thomas, this still does not alter the fact that the publisher Robert Dodsley was interested enough to encourage Lowth to continue with the grammar. Nor does it explain the fact that the grammar, when it finally appeared, was not pitched at small children but rather at young adults. Dodsley clearly had his commercial priorities right when we consider that Lowth’s grammar went into well over 30 reprints (including revised editions during Lowth’s lifetime) (see Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume). As with Sheridan’s lectures, Lowth’s grammar was a commercial success, but it was also a sincere attempt on the part of the author at furthering the joint project of allowing the “middling orders of society” access to “polite language”.


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This same combination of commercial interests with the teaching of “polite” English to the “middling orders” is evident in the history of Ann Fisher’s grammar, which bore the title A New Grammar.6 Fisher’s husband, Thomas Slack, was a printer in Newcastle, and her grammar went into 31 editions according to Alston (1965) (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000c; Rodríguez-Gil 2002a). The market here was obviously more local than Dodsley’s, but it was enough to sustain continued reprints and editions up to the end of the eighteenth century. Fisher first published her grammar in London in 1753, though it still bore the imprint for “the Author” on the title-page (see also Auer, this volume), and she reprinted it nearly ten years later with the new title A Practical New Grammar (1762b).7 We also know that Ann Fisher was a schoolmistress, a fact which confirms a significant link between the commercial project of making a profit out of the publication of English language teaching materials and the pedagogical project of teaching the standard (or “polite”) language to Langford’s (1989) “middling orders” of society (for more details on the publication history of Ann Fisher’s grammar, see Rodríguez-Gil, this volume). Several grammars published between around 1740 and 1800 were reprinted at least once and the majority of these were not only reprinted but were revised and published as new editions.8 Some of them had quite remarkable publishing runs. Publishing a grammar of English that could be used in the schools was obviously a good commercial proposition and with the more successful grammars could turn out to be a relatively lucrative business. Although this kind of grammar writing proceeded throughout the nineteenth century (Michael 1991), it had by then become a naturalised form of discourse and was enormously influential when English became part of the curriculum of compulsory state education at the elementary level in 1872 (Scotland) and then in 1880 (England and Wales).

6 Evidence of these commercial interests is provided by Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2000a), where we learn that the publisher Dodsley not only commissioned Lowth’s grammar but also Samuel Johnson’s famous dictionary. Work by both RodríguezGil (2002a) and Tieken-Boon van Ostade (this volume) also reveals the commercial interests lying behind Fisher’s attempt to break into the London market. 7 For the present paper I made use of Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) to gain access to the grammars of the period and their reprints. 8 On the other hand, Alston lists 112 titles that were never reprinted.

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The grammar writers: Community of Practice or discourse community?

I now turn my attention to the question of whether grammar writers can be said to have constituted a CofP or whether it is not more appropriate to use a term such as discourse community to characterise them, as I have in my own work. We have seen that the grammar writers of the period seem to share the same joint enterprise, which was to be commercially successful by providing a means through which the “middling classes” could acquire the most salient outward trappings of the gentry, viz. “polite language”. Langford’s “revolution” (1989: 63) is oriented towards social movement in an upward direction in which “aspirants sought incorporation in the class above them [i.e. the gentry], not collaboration with those below them”. The discourse on politeness established itself as a powerful ideological discourse in the first half of the century (Watts 1999b, 2002, 2003; see also McIntosh 1998) and was closely linked to the ideology of the standard language as it developed during the rest of the century. It is the intertwining of these two discourses which is reproduced in the discourse of grammar writers, dictionary writers, teachers of English grammar, elocutionists and theorists on the nature of language in general such as Lord Monboddo and James Harris. On the other hand, the fact that they seem to have shared the same joint enterprise should not blind us to a number of other important facts. Most of the grammar writers were clearly in competition with one another for a share of the market, as is shown by Tieken-Boon van Ostade in her contribution to this volume. We have seen that this led to frequent textual “borrowings” from one another. There was certainly no sense in which the grammar writers can be said to have belonged to a community of practice. This would assume that they regularly indulged in emergent social practice with one another. There was, however, a certain amount of communication in writing amongst some of them, and many of them were aware of each other’s work.9 Individual grammar writers certainly formed embryonic CofPs with their publishers (e.g. Lowth with Dodsley and Johnson with Dodsley) and others may have indulged in an exchange of critical commentary on their work with fellow scholars. We can thus conclude that grammar writers had a common enterprise, which did not prevent them from being in competition with one another, but they did not share 9 Compare the references to Lowth’s grammar in the second edition of Priestley’s grammar (1768), discussed by Hodson below, as well as in Lady Ellenor Fenn’s work, and to assessments of the other grammars by writers such as Fenn and Ash (see Navest, this volume).


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an enterprise. Since they were indeed “a set of individuals” whose “written discourse practices reveal common interests, goals and beliefs” (Watts 1999a: 43), they constituted a discourse community. Their work displayed a significant “degree of institutionalisation” even though they need not always have realised that they were members of that community. Many of the statements made in the prefaces to the grammars are interchangeable, the grammatical terminology is strikingly similar (even though certain grammar writers make the overt attempt to throw off the shackles of Latin grammar), the examples are frequently similar from grammar to grammar, and we have clear cases of what we would condemn today as downright plagiarism. However, there was no real mutual engagement, which Wenger (1998: 137) takes as being a prerequisite of a CofP and which he later extends to include the construction of mutual relations. The major characteristic of practice, linguistic or otherwise, is that it is emergent and reproduces previous practice or transforms it. It is also constitutive of individual identities within the community. Participants involved in the typical practices of a CofP must know what those typical practices are likely to be. They must have developed a habitus, part of which will be the politic behaviour which is expected of a member and the use of reifications created by and/or for the use of the CofP. In the case of the grammar writers who were also teachers, like those discussed in Cajka below, we can certainly assume that they mutually engaged in the practices of the CofP of the classroom. As we have seen, most grammar writers will also have mutually engaged with publishers and booksellers, but mutual engagement with fellow grammar writers will hardly ever have taken place unless, of course, other grammar writers belonged to the individual’s social network. From this point of view, then, the notion of the CofP will only be useful in investigating into the forms of social interaction which took place in the classroom or with the publisher/printer. In the former case, we have almost no data to go on, at least not that I know of, which might give us an idea of what teachers actually did in the classroom. Didactic instructions on how to manage classroom teaching might also contain further clues. Judicious use of the kinds of advertisement announcing public lectures such as those discussed above in connection with Thomas Sheridan, advertisements for the opening of new schools, or advertisements for the sale of new grammars or new reprints or editions of grammars already in use might also help us to form an impression of possible practices in the institution of the school. (See also Auer, this volume.) Correspondence between teachers on didactic issues in the classroom would also help. In the latter case, the only evidence we would have to go on at the moment is in the form of correspondence between the grammar writer and the publisher/printer, and some actual information of this kind may be found in

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the correspondence between Lowth and the publishers of his grammar, Robert Dodsley and his successor and brother James (cf. Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a and 2001). We can conclude that the relationships between grammarians are not interpretable as being constitutive of a CofP, although they might be considered, in Wenger’s terms, as representing an imagined community. Wenger suggests that “[b]elonging to such a community can contribute to the identities of those involved, even if it does not involve the joint development of a shared practice” (1998: 182). This analysis fits the concept of a discourse community that I have defined above. A discourse community implies a community of common interests, goals and beliefs rather than a community of individuals. Those common interests, goals and beliefs are revealed by oral and written discourse practices (in our case, of course, written rather than oral), which will construct and reproduce the discourse. Those practices can be observed firsthand in the grammars, and detailed comparisons can be made between the different kinds of linguistic instantiations across grammars. The work is labour-intensive but rewarding (cf. Watts 1999b) and promises to allow us to provide a more substantial description of the dominant discourse than has hitherto been the case. If the discourse is a dominant one, it may, in Fairclough’s (1998) terms, become naturalised, and will then need to be transformed in order to be adapted to new social, socio-economic and socio-historical constellations. This is the primary characteristic of a hegemonic discourse. The very fact that so many grammars were produced in the second half of the eighteenth century is an indication of the degree to which the discourse of “polite”/standard language had become naturalised and dominant. Whatever we might think of Thomas Sheridan’s advertisements, they were not only the product of his business acumen but also, and more importantly, of his absolute belief in that discourse. In the same way, the grammar writers were totally sincere in their belief that “polite” language could be taught regardless of whether or not their prescriptions had any effect on the later progress of Standard English. We can conclude from this analysis that grammar writers and other “language experts” in the second half of the eighteenth century formed part of a discourse community rather than a CofP, although the reifications of that form of community, e.g. the grammars themselves, were in use in any number of local pedagogical CofPs, some of which may have had grammar writers as their members.


6.

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Conclusion and a brief epilogue

I started this paper with a desideratum for a theory of sociolinguistics which would take into consideration the two central pillars of the human condition, human language and the social fact of being human. I argued that a non-rationalist, non-essentialist theory of language based on a social approach to how we acquire cognition (which includes knowledge of language) is more appropriate to an investigation of human language than an approach which assumes the prior existence in an individual’s mind of a Universal Grammar. It is more appropriate in investigating all the instantiations of language as individual languages and language varieties, and it is more appropriate in accounting for how language is the central means through which we, as social beings, construct our versions of reality. The various forms of construction grammar, language typology, processes of grammaticalisation, models of communication and cognition, and prototype theory all lend themselves to a view of language as variable and changing, and are all grounded in the inductive methodology of investigating the data of social interaction. What, you may ask, is the relevance of this approach to language for the study of grammars, grammarians and grammar writing in late eighteenth-century Britain? The study of those grammars must be embedded within the socio-historical framework of that period, and a large part of what constitutes that framework is how language was used in socio-historically situated forms of social interaction. Constructing worlds, or forms of social reality, during that period and in that place is carried out discursively in social interaction of various kinds, and it is important to understand what ideologies of language and society were produced and reproduced through that social interaction. Close study of the relations between social structure (particularly the singularly British concept of “social class”) and attitudes towards various forms of language from the perspective of sociolinguistics (Fitzmaurice 2000; Milroy and Milroy 1995; Watts 1999a and b, 2002), social history (Langford 1989) and cultural studies (McIntosh 1998) has revealed the presence of at least the following four interdependent ideologies which are at the heart of the discursive practices of grammar writers in Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century: 1. 2. 3. 4.

the ideology of the standard language the ideology of politeness the ideology of educated language the ideology of commercial success and social improvement.

These ideologies may be discursively reproduced and transformed through two different, but related types of community, communities of practice and

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discourse communities, each focusing on common discursive practices and reifications. Identities can be constructed through either type of community, but the discourse community transcends the need for emergent social practice in time and place, which characterises the practices of the CofP. For this reason we can say that the grammarians had a common, but not a shared enterprise, that they developed a common but not a shared repertoire of discursive moves, and that they were commonly engaged rather than mutually engaged in grammar writing. There is no doubt in my mind that there were CofPs in which the reproduction of those ideologies was carried out, although it is much more difficult in this case to find concrete evidence to support this claim. I allowed myself the indulgence of a brief personal anecdote in § 2, and in the form of a brief epilogue I will close this contribution by mentioning various transformations in the Standard English discourse until I reach the two elderly English masters in my original anecdote who epitomised the demise of that discourse in the late 1960s. The “polite language” discourse, which by the 1820s had become the “standard language” discourse, was challenged in the 1830s and early 1840s by the Chartist movement. As Crowley (2003) shows, one of the responses to that challenge was to transform the discourse by focusing attention on the nationalistic significance of establishing a long pedigree for the English language. English, by which, of course, is meant Standard English, became the “standard” around which all true Englishmen should rally. The practical outcome of the “history of the language” discourse was the New (later Oxford) English Dictionary, and the texts used to trace back the English language as far as the tenth century were transformed into the canon of English literature, thereby creating the subdiscipline of English Literature. Both language and literary culture were exported to the colonies in the age of Imperialism in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but the learning of Standard English was transformed into the handmaid of the new focal point in that dominant discourse, the inculcation of British culture (note the subtle shift from English to British here) through the teaching of the literary canon. In the twentieth century the dominant status of British culture was challenged on a European level in the First World War, in the aftermath of which the British Council was set up to promote British culture and the teaching of Standard English in areas of the world which were considered to be of economic and political significance to Britain − which, curiously enough, excluded Europe. The aftermath of the Second World War left Britain struggling with an antiquated industrial system, labour relations equal to or in excess of the struggles of the age of Chartism, a huge war deficit, and an Empire which was on the point of disintegrating. Throughout this period the discourse of “polite”/standard language had persisted stubbornly, but its efficacy in the face of the chal-


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lenges of the post-World War II era had declined to the point of insignificance. The prescriptive grammar rules that we had to transcribe from dictation in 1958 and the parsing exercises I observed during my teaching practice in 1966 were the last throes of a dying discourse. As student teachers, we had already imbibed the principles of teaching language for the purposes of communication. The principle of personal creative expression was more important than that of grammatical accuracy. I have turned the wheel full circle and traced out the disintegration of a dominant discourse from the late 1960s on. However, we should make no mistake about one fact: the two schoolmasters were as convinced of the importance of their “mission” as Thomas Sheridan, Ann Fisher or Robert Lowth had been. Their repertoire was shared with the grammar writers of the late eighteenth century, not in the sense that we could say they were members of the same community of practice, but certainly in that they can be considered to be members of a singular discourse community. In conclusion, and as a post-script to my argument, it is interesting to note that the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s tried to reintroduce “grammar teaching” to English schools. Thatcher and the Conservative government were assured of support from the media, but, at the end of the day, they could not persuade the lobby of teachers, educationalists and linguists to lend their support. The dominant discourse had been superseded by a rather different ideological discourse based on the notion that language itself, rather than a language, is the main medium of communication and creativity. We may decide that this discourse could lead to things like inaccuracy of expression, semi-lingualism, and a lack of the grammatical structures of the English language, but the fact remains that it has taken over from the dominant discourse at the end of the eighteenth century. The Thatcher government failed to reinstate grammar teaching as a dominant educational discourse, and looking back on the “polite language” / standard language discourse, we can now trace out its history in a fairly fine-grained way. It is the history of a discourse community rather than a community of practice, although many of those who were active in the discourse of grammar writers were also teachers. The kind of data that we need to investigate more closely are the grammars themselves, by which I mean that a close and careful reading of all those texts still needs to be carried out in order to delineate the discursive strategies common to the discourse community. But we also need to gain access to texts which might testify to the teaching methods applied in “English” lessons, e.g. notebooks, commentaries, curricula and the like, as well as to correspondence with the publishers of grammars, sales ledgers of the publishers, and advertising material. An intensive study of the novels of the period in search of pas-

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sages in which teaching practices are described might also be a useful way of gaining insights into the practices of such communities of practice. In addition, one could envisage some “oral history” research being carried out on those who, like myself, were subjected to prescriptive grammar teaching in the 1950s.10 By analysing this kind of material we might gain valuable insights into the practices of the communities in which a large number of grammarians must have actively participated. We might also be able to reconstruct possible reactions of those who were taught grammar in this way. If we had access to this kind of data, we would be better placed to separate out the discourse communities in which grammarians functioned from the linguistic practices they reproduced in emergent social interaction in communities of practice.

10

Thanks here to Jane Hodson for making this very interesting suggestion.

Eighteenth-century grammars and book catalogues1 Anita Auer

1.

Introduction

In 1743 Samuel Johnson made the following comment in his introduction to the Catalogus Bibliothecae Harleianae, which was published by the bookseller Thomas Osborne (?1704–1767) in 1743: “By the Means of Catalogues only can it be known, what has been written on every Part of Learning, and the Hazard avoided of encountering Difficulties which have already been cleared, discussing Questions which have already been decided and digging in Mines of Literature which former Ages have exhausted” (Johnson’s comment in Osborne 1743: 3). Similarly, the antiquarian Richard Gough (1735–1809) wrote in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1788 that “[i]f the circulation of books be a mark of a learned age, no method has been thought of better adapted to that purpose, than by making what are commonly called sale catalogues of them” (Gough 1788 as quoted in Myers 1982: 126). The comments by Johnson and Gough suggest that catalogues were seen as records of published works in the eighteenth century. Nowadays the question arises whether these printed records of book collections still serve as a valuable source, or as Walters (1982: 106) puts it, “we are assailed by doubts as to whether we are dealing with a matter of small importance – this infrequently catalogued or discarded material, so often thrown into the dusty corners of libraries; or is it a major topic? – the essential raw material of the history of book collecting and thus of the intellectual history of Western Europe?”. The evaluation of the importance of these catalogues as a source for historiographical research will be one aim of this paper. More specifically, however, I intend to discuss critically whether the dissemination of eighteenth-century grammars can be investigated by means of examining book catalogues. The spread of grammars in the eighteenth century, as recorded in book catalogues, should ideally provide an indication of how popular, and thus potentially how influential, these grammatical works were at the time. 1 This paper was written in the context of the NWO financed research project The Codifiers and the English Language: Tracing the Norms of Standard English. I would like to thank all the people who attended the workshop Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar Writing for their useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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The popularity and influence of Lowth’s and Murray’s grammars in the Late Modern English period has almost been accepted as a truism, which is repeated over and over in secondary literature (see also Beal’s comments on this topic 2004: 89–90). As other important grammarians might have been overlooked, I decided to apply hitherto untested methods to establish the effectiveness of eighteenth-century grammars. Bergmann (1982: 272–274), who is concerned with the role of German grammarians in the standardisation process of written German, suggests four factors that are conducive to assessing the influence of specific individual grammars and grammarians on language usage. These factors, which are in my view also applicable to the English situation, are (a) the dissemination of works [Wirkung durch Verbreitung], (b) the prestige of the author [Wirkung durch Ansehen], (c) the grammarian’s influence on other writers [Wirkung durch Schriftsteller] and (d) the effectiveness of use in schools [Wirkung durch die Schule]. Another factor that may be added to Bergmann’s list is the discussion of the grammars in book reviews (see Percy, this volume).2 In order to investigate the effect that prescriptive grammars had on actual language use, it is crucial to determine how important and influential individual grammarians were at the time. In other words, the rules on specific linguistic features provided in popular and widely-distributed grammars are more likely to have been applied by people to their own language and may thus be reflected in the actual use of these linguistic features (Auer in prep.). As for the factors suggested by Bergmann, in this paper I will concentrate on factor (a), the dissemination of works, and in particular one aspect of it. While Alston’s bibliography (1965) is a unique source of information on the publication history of eighteenth-century grammars (see for instance Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume), I will try to find out about the dissemination of grammars by going through book catalogues which are accessible in the database Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). For this study I compiled a corpus of book catalogues printed in Great Britain and Ireland. I use the term “book catalogue” as the catalogues in ECCO can be grouped into three types, i.e. catalogues printed for/by booksellers in order to record the books in stock and their annual sales,3 book catalogues which were printed for auctions, and catalogues that recorded the book purchase or the book holdings of libraries. These three types of book catalogues will be discussed separately in this paper and put into the context of the history of the published book. Before I begin to analyse book catalogues and their records of grammar books, it is essential to point out which definition of the term “grammar book” 2

Thanks to Carol Percy for informing me about her project, which consists of collecting comments from book reviews (www.chass.utoronto.ca/reviews/). 3 I am grateful to Sylvia Adamson for suggesting that sale catalogues might be a valuable source for my research.

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was adopted for this study. Alston (1965) has become the established reference to determine the popularity of normative grammars (see for example TiekenBoon van Ostade 2000b for Ann Fisher and this volume for Robert Lowth and Austin 2000 for Daniel Fenning). So that Alston’s records of grammar editions and reprints are comparable to this study, I am going to adopt his definition of “grammar book”, which is as follows:4 This volume is devoted exclusively to English grammars written in English by Englishmen, Americans, and in one or two cases foreigners, as well as a very few grammars written in Latin by native speakers. … Thus, the following sorts of books are specifically excluded here: (1) spelling-books containing abstracts of grammar; (2) miscellaneous works, epistolary manuals, &c., containing brief grammars; (3) dictionaries containing grammars; (4) polyglot grammars; (5) grammars of English written in foreign languages, as well as grammars written in Latin by foreigners and published abroad. (Alston 1965: xiv)

Two works that will be included in this investigation are specialist studies on the English verb written by White (1761) and Pickbourn (1789). The grammars listed by Alston contain certain keywords in their titles, which makes it possible to browse the book catalogues in ECCO by means of full-text searches. The keywords I used in order to retrieve the grammar books are grammar, grammatical, English, language, accidence, rudiments, lessons and friend.5 To exemplify a “book catalogue” and its records of available grammar books, I will survey The London Catalogue of Books in All Languages, Arts and Sciences, that Have Been Printed in Great Britain, since the Year M.DCC. Properly Classed under the Several Branches of Literature: and Alphabetically Disposed under Each Head. With their Sizes and Prices. Carefully Compiled and Corrected, with Innumerable Additions, published in 1773 by the Londonbased bookseller William Bent (1747–1823). This catalogue may be considered a modern book trade bibliography rather than an average sale catalogue. It lists an extensive range of new books, new editions (the selection of books being partly based on announcements in public papers and book reviews) with upto-date prices and book sizes. Bent classed the books in the catalogue according to different subject areas. This subdivision is particularly interesting with 4

Note that Alston’s definition of grammar books is rather restricted since dictionaries, e.g. Johnson’s Dictionary (1755), and letter writing manuals, which often have grammars attached, were widely read and most likely had an influence on actual language use. 5 The Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, is a religious movement that was founded by the English dissenter George Fox around 1660. Lindley Murray is the best-known Quaker grammarian.

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respect to grammar books, as it sheds light on the categorisation of grammars (not from the author’s but from the bookseller’s point of view); in other words, we can find out whether and which grammars were aimed at use in school, or for people who work in trade (see Table 1). The grammars recorded by Bent in his catalogue are grammars that were available and probably had prestige in 1773. The keyword searches produced the following results (Table 1).6 Table 1. Grammar titles in William Bent’s London Catalogue of Books (1773) (the date of the first publication has been added in square brackets; see Alston 1965). Grammar book Additional information b) Miscellanies Elphinston’s Principles of the English Language – [1765] 2 Vols, 12mo, 8s Greenwood’s Essays on the English Language – [1711] 12mo, 3s Ward’s Essay on Grammar – [1765] 4to, sewed, 13s Ward’s Essay on the English Language – [?] 12mo, 3s h) School Books Ash’s Introduction to Lowth’s Grammar – [1763] 1s Buchanan’s British Grammar – [1762] 3s Buchanan’s English Scholar – [1753] 8vo, 6s Eton Books [Subdivision according to Bent] Farmborough’s Grammar – [?] 2s Fisher’s English Grammar – [[1745] 1750] 1s 6d Greenwood’s Grammar – [1711 or 1737] 12mo, 1s 6d Kirkby’s New English Grammar – [1746] 2s Loughton’s English Grammar – [1734] 1s 6d Lowth’s English Grammar – [1762] 12mo, 1s 6d Martin’s Introduction to the English Language – [1754] 12mo, 2s 6d Phillip’s English Grammar – [?] 2s Priestley’s English Grammar – [1761] 12mo, 1s 6d White’s English Verbs and Grammatical Essays – [1761] 8vo, 3s 6d i) Books of general Use in Trade, English Dictionaries and Grammars, &c. Brightland’s English Grammar – [1711] 12mo, 3s British Grammar, by Buchanan – [1762] 12mo, 3s Farnborough’s English Grammar – [?] 12mo, 2s Hodgson’s English Grammar – [1770] 12mo, 2s Lowthe’s (Dr.) English Grammar – [1762] 12mo, 3s Priestley’s English Grammar – [1761] largest size, 12mo, 3s Ward’s English Grammar – [?] 12mo, 3s 6d Wiseman’s English Grammar – [1764] 12mo, 3s 6d 6

In this paper the grammar titles, authors’ names, and publication dates listed in the tables are copied as printed in the original catalogues, which means that mistakes in spelling or title changes are not transcription errors.


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The catalogue gives a clear insight into which grammars were considered suitable for teaching and for general use. Note that Ash’s grammar as well as those by Buchanan are listed in the general school book section, whereas a whole range of grammars, of which particularly Fisher’s, Lowth’s and Priestley’s grammars stand out, are listed in the Eton school book section. The titles of the grammars by Ash and Buchanan state that the books were written for use in schools (Buchanan) or for instruction of children (Ash). As for other grammars, information on the target audience is either provided on the title-page or in the preface. It is noteworthy that Bent’s list also contains lesser-known grammars that were never reprinted such as Kirkby (1746) and Martin (1754) (Alston 1965). At the same time, the listing shows that Greenwood’s grammars, be it the 1711 or the 1737 grammar, were still popular in the 1770s, having been reprinted twice in the 1760s, once in 1770 and again in 1780 (Alston 1965). Booksellers’ records do not always allow us to identify specific grammars. In most cases only the author, the term “English grammar”, the book size, or the price is mentioned, but what is notably lacking in Bent’s catalogue is the exact title of the grammars as well as their publication dates. The titles of the grammars are in some instances relevant, as their author either wrote several grammars with different titles or because the titles changed in later editions. The additional lack of date of publication makes it even more difficult to identify the specific grammar edition and/or author listed. To exemplify the problem, the above list contains Ward’s Essay on Grammar, Ward’s Essay on the English Language and Ward’s English Grammar. According to Alston (1965), there were three Wards who wrote grammars in the eighteenth century, i.e. a certain H. Ward, John Ward (1678/9–1758) and William Ward (1708/9–1772). H. Ward can be dismissed, as his grammar was first published in 1777, which is after the publication of Bent’s catalogue. John Ward’s Four Essays upon the English Language came out in 1758. William Ward had two grammars published, one of which is called An Essay on Grammar, as it may be Applied to the English Language (first published in 1765 with at least three more editions in the years 1778, 1779 and 1788), and the other one being A Practical Grammar of the English Language (first published in 1766 with two more editions in 1767 and 1771). It may therefore be assumed that Ward’s Essay on Grammar is the grammar written by William Ward and that Bent lists the first edition. William Ward was supposedly also the author of Ward’s English Grammar but in this case all three editions must have been for sale by 1773. It seems impossible to identify the author of Ward’s Essay on the English Language as either John Ward or William Ward, as their titles partly coincide with the one in Bent’s list. An investigation of the book sizes of the different grammar editions reveals that William Ward’s English Grammar was in fact the first edition of the

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grammar, which was printed on duodecimo paper. The second and third editions appeared in octavo size. As for Ward’s Essay on the English Language, the author must also have been William Ward as John Ward’s grammar was only published in octavo size and Bent lists a duodecimo edition. It can thus be concluded that the author of all three grammars listed was William Ward. The works Bent refers to as Farmborough’s Grammar and Farnborough’s English Grammar also present a problem, as an English grammar by Farmborough or Farnborough is neither recorded in Alston (1965) or Michael (1970), nor in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) or ECCO. We may thus have stumbled across a grammar book of which no copies have survived and this would also explain the scarcity of records.

2.

The book trade in the eighteenth century

In the sixteenth century, the book trade had been centred in London. After the expiration of the Licensing Act in 1695 printing was no longer restricted to London, the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge, and York, and the book trade thus gradually moved into the provinces (Belanger 1982: 6). Nevertheless, the most important London booksellers tried to retain their control over copyright and distribution, which were essential elements of the publishing business. Feather (1985: 4) notes that “few shares in London copyrights did find their way into the country trade. Most copyrights held by the country booksellers had country origins”. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, however, more country shareholding had been achieved through copyright dealings.7 To find out who the printer, the copyright holder and the distributor of a book were, one needs to investigate the imprints of books. The fullest form that we can find according to Feather (1985) is “Printed by X, for Y, and sold by Z. Here X is the printer, Y is the owner of the copyright, and Z the distributor or wholesaler” (Feather 1985: 60). If the copyright holder and the distributor

7 From the author’s point of view it was very common to sell the copyright outright. An alternative arrangement was for the publisher to lease the copyright for a limited period of time, while a third option was for the author to have a book published on commission, i.e. “the use of trade facilities being paid for as a percentage on each copy handled”, which was usually financed by subscription (Gaskell 1972: 185). The advantage of subscription was to secure down-payments on the book as well as an already arranged purchase of the book before it was even published. This way the production and distribution costs were covered long before the final product was handed over to the readers (Brewer 1997: 164).


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were the same person, we usually find “Printed for Y. or: Printed for and sold by Y. or: Printed and sold by Y”. In 1710 the first Copyright Act came into effect, whose aim it was to prevent the printing, reprinting and publishing without the consent of the proprietors or authors of books. The 1710 Act only applied to England and Wales, which meant that it was legal for Scottish and Irish printers to reprint books as long as they did not import them into England or Wales. There is however “a good deal of evidence that many such books were imported, and that in the north of England they were widely sold in bookseller’s shops” (Feather 1985: 7 and Feather 1988: 77; see also Buschmann-Göbels, this volume, and Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume). An important basis for a successful and expanding book trade is an educated public. In the eighteenth century education can be seen as a growing industry, which is reflected in the increasing publication of dictionaries, spelling books, Bibles, Testaments, Common Prayer Books and so forth. Feather (1985: 34) illustrates this trend with the following example: “The London printer Charles Ackers printed thirty-three editions of Thomas Dyche’s A Guide to the English Tongue between 1733–1747, a total of some 265,000 copies, or nearly 18,000 copies a year, of which a mere handful is extant.” There was also a lot of vanity publishing in the eighteenth century, “much of it by clergymen in search of preferment” (Feather 1985: 110). One example with respect to grammars is The Concise English Grammar (1795) by the schoolmaster Benjamin Rhodes, who, however, according to Feather (1985: 110), “failed to achieve the desired immortality”. The imprint of the grammar states “Birmingham: Printed by J. Belcher, 1795”. We do not find any information about the distribution set-up of the grammar, which implies that only the printer and the author sold the work, and that the latter probably paid for the entire production of the book. How did publishers and booksellers go about advertising and distributing their products? In the eighteenth century four advertising media were commonly used, namely “lists of books in print; newspapers; catalogues; and prospectuses” (Feather 1985: 44). Catalogues were used in sales “by auction and by hand” (Gough 1788: 608 as quoted in Myers 1982: 126). In § 3 I will be concerned with catalogues that are associated with sales “by hand” and § 4 will be dedicated to auction catalogues.

3.

Sale catalogues and grammar books

Sale catalogues are an important source of information on the distribution of grammar books. In this section I will analyse one catalogue published in Lon-

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don, one catalogue from Leeds to illustrate the provincial book trade, and one from Dublin, where so-called ‘pirated’ editions of books were printed. The books offered for sale by the London bookseller Thomas Payne (1716/18–1799)8 were both newly published and second-hand books. As pointed out on the title-page of the catalogue, the collection of books contains several private libraries, which had been purchased by the bookseller upon the owners’ death. Table 2. Grammar titles in Payne’s book sale catalogue (1768). Grammar book Ward’s Essay on Grammar (1765) [1765] Mattaire’s English Grammar (1712) [1712] Greenwood’s English Grammar (1744) [1711 or 1737] Greenwood’s Essay towards an English Grammar (1722) [1711] Lowth’s English Grammar (1767) [1762] Loughton’s English Grammar (1755) [1734] Ward on the English Language (1758) [?]

Additional information 14s, new and neat 1s 1s 1s 2s 6d, fine paper, neat 1s 2s 6d, neat

Payne’s stock in 1768 contained seven grammars, which had been published between 1712 and 1767. Table 2 shows that the more recent editions were marked at a higher price, with additional comments like “new”, “neat” or “fine paper”. As Payne’s sale catalogues came out on an annual, sometimes even biannual basis, I also examined the 1769 catalogue (see Table 3) to see whether we find the same or different grammars listed to the 1768 catalogue. A comparison between both sale catalogues might shed some light on the actual sale of the grammars. Table 3. Payne’s book sale catalogue (1769). Grammar book Ward’s Essay on Grammar (1765) [1765] Maittaire’s English Grammar (1712) [1712] Bp. Lowth’s English Grammar (1763) [1762] Bp. Lowth’s English Grammar (1767) [1762] Loughton’s English Grammar (1755) [1734] Greenwood’s Practical English Grammar (1722) [1711] Greenwood’s Royal English Grammar (1744) [1711 or 1737] Priestley’s English Grammar (1768) [1761] Ward’s Essays on the English Language (1758) [?]

Additional information 12s, new and neat 1s 2s, fine paper, sewed 2s 6d, neat 1s 1s 1s 1s 2s 6d

8 According to the ODNB (s.v. “Thomas Payne”), Thomas Payne’s elder brother Olive allegedly started the practice of publishing regular catalogues that list his book stock.


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A comparison with Table 2 shows that the grammars and the information about them in the 1768 and the 1769 sale catalogues largely match. There are only two additions to the 1769 catalogue, namely Lowth’s English Grammar (1763) and Priestley’s English Grammar (1768). The price of Ward’s Essay on Grammar had been dropped from 14s to 12s and in the case of Greenwood’s grammatical works, the titles differ slightly from the ones printed in the 1768 catalogue. The similarities between the two sale catalogues suggest that the grammars listed originally had not been sold. Alternatively, Payne might have had several copies of the listed grammars in stock, which may explain the new advertisement in the 1769 catalogue. Then again, the fact that details like “neat”, “fine paper”, and “sewed” were added to the same titles in the catalogues may be an indication that the bookseller advertised unique copies. One piece of information that we might be able to draw from catalogue records is whether specific grammars were more likely to be circulated around London or in other parts of the country. To shed some light on this aspect, a sale catalogue by the Leeds bookseller John Binns from the year 1789, which listed 7,486 titles for sale (Raven 1992: 114), will be investigated. Table 4. Binns’s book sale catalogue (1789). Grammar book Ash’s Introduction to Grammar [1760] Fenning’s English Grammar [1771] English Accidence [?] Fisher’s English Grammar [[1745] 1750] Carter’s English Grammar [1773] Priestley’s largest English Grammar [1761] Lowth’s English Grammar [1762] Buchanan’s English Syntax [1767] Buchanan’s English Grammar [1762] Greenwood’s English Grammar [1711 or 1737] Harrison’s English Grammar [1777] Martin’s Introduction to English Grammar [1754] Smetham’s English Grammar [1774] Bell’s English Grammar [1769] Story’s English Grammar [1778] Fisher’s English Grammar [[1745] 1750] Carter’s English Grammar [1773] Lowth’s English Grammar [1762] Exercises of Bad English

Additional information 1s new, 1s 6d, 1788 new, 6d 6d and good as new, 1s good as new, 1s, 1773 new, 1s 3d, 1772 good as new, 1s, 1789 1767 1779 9d, 1753 new, 1s, 1788 1s3d, 1757 9d, 1769 9d, 1769 9d, 1781 1s 6d 1s 6d 1s 6d 1s

As shown in Table 4, Binns’s sale catalogue of 1789 lists a rather large and varied stock of English grammars. The catalogue also contains various copies

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of individual grammars. Binns was, moreover, involved in the publication of editions of Carter’s, Fisher’s and Lowth’s grammars (see also Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume). Carter’s grammar was never reprinted and the reprint of Fisher’s grammar from the year 1780, also published by Binns (Alston 1965), is not listed in the catalogue. Binns himself also wrote a grammar, called The Youth’s Guide, to the English Language and had it published in 1788 (though for this date, see Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume). He did, however, not sell the grammar himself but left this to John Milner in Halifax and G. Nicholson in Bradford amongst others (title-page). Binns’s grammar book records certainly suggest that grammars were popular items to be sold in Leeds. An analysis of sale catalogues from different English towns should thus shed light on the popularity or rather saleability of specific grammars. The sale catalogue from the bookseller and publisher Elizabeth Lynch (Skinner Row, Dublin) will be investigated next. As the 1710 Copyright Act did not apply to Scotland and Ireland, the reprinting of books there was legal as long as they were not imported into England or Wales. Such unauthorised copies are referred to as ‘pirated’ editions (Glaister 1996: 381). It is thus of interest to ascertain whether an Irish book catalogue holds reprints of English grammars and whether these were pirated copies or not. Table 5. Lynch’s book sale catalogue (1769). Grammar book Ward’s Essay on Grammar, as it is Applied to English Language (London, 1765) [1765] Brightland’s English Grammar (1714) [1711] Ward’s Four Essays on the English Language (Dublin, 1758) [1758]

Additional Information 13s 1s 4d 4s 4d, new

The catalogue records show that in the year 1769 the bookshop of Elizabeth Lynch had only three grammatical works in stock (see Table 5). As John Ward’s Four Essays upon the English Language had been published in London in 1758, the copy in Lynch’s catalogue, which bears the imprint “Dublin”, must have been a pirated edition. William Ward’s Essay on Grammar, however, seems to have been a copy of the regular first edition, published in London. The copy of Brightland’s English Grammar was very likely the third edition, which had been published in London.


4.

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Grammars and book auctions

The earliest book auction in England took place in 1676. It was the sale of the library of the deceased Dr. Seaman Lazarus by the auctioneer William Cooper (cf. Walters 1982: 107; 117). Walters claims that “auction catalogues … were the first great stimulus to book collecting and distribution” (1982: 108). The number of auction catalogues printed “was often as little as two hundred or five hundred” (Walters 1982: 109), similar to the print runs of contemporary grammars. As these catalogues were often discarded, much as we do now with theatre tickets and exhibition catalogues, only very few copies of these catalogues survive to the present day. The auction catalogues usually provide information on the name of the collector and his address, the auctioneer or bookseller, and the main subjects of the book owner that the library possessed. If we have a closer look at the title-page of Thomas Payne’s book auction catalogue (1731) in Figure 1 on page 68, we can see that the libraries of Thomas Brathwaite and his nephew with the same name were auctioned off in John’s Coffee-House from 21 June 1731 onwards “till all are sold”. The title-page also announces that the collection of books and manuscripts covers subjects like theology, architecture, history and anatomy. To examine the dissemination of grammars via book auctions, I investigated two sale catalogues, which recorded auction sales of Samuel Johnson’s library (1785) and the library of an unknown gentleman from the country (1797). As mentioned above, private libraries ought to shed some light on the intellectual background of the former library owner. An investigation of the library of Johnson should then hopefully inform us about possible influences on his grammar/dictionary writing. The library of Samuel Johnson, who had died on 13 December 1784, was auctioned by Christie’s on 16 February 1785 and the three following days (cf. Fleeman 1975: 11). Fleeman’s facsimile edition (1975) of the Johnson catalogue records that the library contained “6 Grammars” as well as “Thirty grammars”. The information conveyed in this particular sale catalogue is thus of a very poor standard, as we are not informed of which 36 grammars were sold. For all that, this case of minimal cataloguing does give us an idea of Johnson’s general reading interests; the library consisted of classical literature, sermons, as well as grammars and numerous copies of Johnson’s own dictionary. Johnson’s library held two religious works by Lowth, namely De Sacra Poesi Hebræorum (Oxford 1753; no. 191) and Isaiah (1776; no. 334).9 It may therefore also be assumed, given 9 This must be an error, as Lowth’s Isaiah was published only in 1778. According to the British Library Catalogue, a translation of Isaiah by W. Green was published in 1776. It thus appears to be another example of inaccurate cataloguing.

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Figure 1. The title-page of Thomas Payne’s book auction catalogue (1731) (ECCO; Gale Document Number CW124847916).

the popularity of the grammar, that one of the 36 grammars was Lowth’s. To find out whether Lowth influenced Johnson in revising his dictionary, I carried out a full-text search with the keyword “Lowth” in the fourth edition (CD-ROM) of Johnson’s Dictionary (1773), the result of which was ‘no occurrences’. An investigation of subsequent editions of Johnson’s dictionary in ECCO showed that Lowth is mentioned in the sixth edition of the dictionary, which was published in 1778 and had been corrected by the author (see Nagashima 1968 as referred to by Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1988). This shows that Johnson must have read and possibly owned Lowth’s grammar after all.


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The second auction catalogue I have analysed contains the sales list of the library of an unknown gentleman from the country (according to the title-page) to which the auctioneer, a Mr. King, added part of the stock of a country bookseller. The auction took place on 15 November 1797 and three days after that. The grammars sold at the auction are “A parcel of French and English grammars, etc.” as well as the 1763 edition of Lowth’s English grammar. With the exception of Lowth’s grammar, these auction sale records are almost as undercatalogued as those of Johnson’s library. The fact that Lowth’s grammar is singled out from the parcel of grammars implies that it was considered to be more prestigious than the other grammars held in the library. 5. Libraries and book catalogues 5.1.

Grammar holdings in circulating and subscription libraries

According to Raven (1996), there “was a library revolution in eighteenth-century England. Commercial circulating libraries, developed from the lending services of booksellers, were first established in the 1740s. The twenty circulating libraries operating in London by 1760 had increased to more than 200 nationwide by 1800” (1996: 175). Kaufman (1967: 10), who collected the names of what he refers to as rental libraries down to 1800, moreover notes that “we have been able to identify 112 enterprises in London and 268 in the provinces; these latter distributed among 119 locations in 37 counties”. In the year 1821 an anonymous correspondent in The Monthly Magazine claimed that at least 1,500 fiction-lending libraries were “supplying with books at least 100,000 individuals regularly and another 100,000 occasionally” (as quoted in Kaufman 1967: 10 and Raven 1996: 175). The increasing interest of the bourgeoisie in books and reading led to a greater demand in libraries, which were set up by booksellers in areas where so-called “low” literature, i.e. mostly novels, as well as poetry and belles-lettres, were marketable. Being thus often associated with “low” literature, circulating libraries were held in poor esteem (Langford 1992: 94).10 Most of the circulating libraries distributed catalogues so that their subscribers could place orders (cf. Raven 1996: 181), but only a few of these library catalogues, in particular from provincial circulating libraries, have survived 10

A clear-cut distinction between circulating libraries and subscription libraries is not always possible. Brewer (1997: 180) notes that “[s]ubscription libraries were founded throughout Britain’s commercial and industrial towns in the late eighteenth century, eloquently expressing the local pride of rapidly expanding communities”.

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(Feather 1985: 41). Table 6 below contains a chronological list of grammar book holdings of nine public commercial libraries. It is noteworthy that these subscription, circulating and public libraries did not uniformly serve the same clientele, which might also be reflected in the stock of the libraries. Table 6. Catalogues of library holdings (listed chronologically). Year

Library

[1758?] Lowndes’s Circulating Library; London 1778

Bell’s Circulating Library;11 London

1790

Bristol Library Society

1791

Fisher’s Circulating Library; Newcastle upon Tyne Manchester Circulating Library Minerva Literary Repository, Library and Printing Office [Lane’s Circulating Library]; London

1794 1795

1795 1796 1799

11

Grammar book holdings British Grammar White on the English Verb (1761) Ward’s four Essays on the English Language (1758) Bayley’s English Grammar [1772] Crocker’s English Grammar [1772] Wiseman’s English Grammar [1764] Lowth’s Introduction to the English Grammar, with Critical Notes (London, 1772, 12mo.) [1762] Priestley’s Rudiments of English Grammar (London, 1771, 12mo.) [1761] Lowth’s Introduction to English Grammar [1762] Buchanan’s Complete English Scholar [1753] Brightland’s English Grammar (3s) [1711] Elphinstone’s Compleat English Grammar (3s) [1765] Greenwood’s English Grammar (2s) [1737] Priestley’s English Grammar (3s) [1761] Steele’s (Sir Richard) English Grammar (3s) [1711] Lowth’s Introduction to English Grammar (3s) [1762] Carter’s Complete English Grammar, with a Treatise on Rhetoric (3s) [?] Grammar and Rhetoric, A Complete Treatise on (4s) [?] Martin’s (Benjamin) Introduction to the English Language (4s) [1754] English Grammar, Introduction to [Lowth?; 1762] English Grammar, (Kirkby) [1746] English Grammar, (Priestley) [1761] Pickbourn on the English verb [1789]

Palmer & Merrick’s Circulating Library; Oxford Norwich Public Library Earle’s New Catalogue; Farro’s British Grammar and Vocabulary [1754] London Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar [1762] Priestley’s, Dr. Rudiments of English Grammar [1761]

According to Brewer (1997: 177), John Bell’s circulating library had over 8,000 volumes in stock.


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ECCO contains several circulating library catalogues that do not list any grammars and are thus excluded from the above table.12 Lowndes’s catalogue, dated 1758 with a quotation mark in ECCO, lists White’s specialist work on the English verb (1761), which was published a few years after the alleged publication of the catalogue. This strongly suggests that the catalogue must have come out after 1761 rather than in 1758. As for the other grammars mentioned, the library held Ward’s Four Essays on the English Language (1758) and a British Grammar. According to the title, the latter grammar could have been authored by James Buchanan (grammar first published in 1762, other editions published in 1768, 1779 and 1784) or by Daniel Farro (grammar first published in 1754, two more editions published in the same year and possibly in 1776) (Alston 1965). If the catalogue were published before 1762, the author of the British Grammar would therefore certainly be Farro. What is striking about Bell’s circulating library holdings (1778) is that, even though a number of what we nowadays consider prestigious grammars had been published by that time, he lists only fairly unknown grammars, i.e. those by Bayl[e]y, Crocker and Wiseman. Of these three, only Bayly’s grammar was ever reprinted, though no more than once (Alston 1965). The best documented libraries in the eighteenth century were those that catered for the more learned part of society. A typical library popular with scholars and gentlemen was the Bristol Library Society, which was founded in 1773 (Langford 1992: 94). Famous subscribers to this society were for instance Coleridge and Southey (Kaufman 1967: 33). The records of the Bristol Library Society do indeed show that it was common to have more popular grammars in stock, i.e. Lowth as well as Priestley. William Lane’s circulating library,13 which is referred to as “Minerva Literary Repository, Library and PrintingOffice” in Table 6, is considered to have been “incomparably the largest commercial lending library then in existence” (Kaufman 1967: 15). It could thus serve as a prime indicator of significant trends at the time, and, interestingly, the information given in Table 6 shows that Lane held more grammars than any other circulating library. This reflects on the trend that school books and books of self-improvement were increasingly published and also bought and 12

13

These are Bathoe (1767, London), Bliss (1785, Oxford), Stamford Subscription Library (1787 and 1789), Yearsley (1793, Bristol), Macclesfield Subscription Library (1796 and 1800), and Ogilvy & Son (1797, London). William Lane (1745/6–1814) is considered a pioneer in establishing circulating libraries in the provinces; these libraries had before been confined to major cities and spa towns. It is also noteworthy that William Lane used the title Minerva Press for his business from 1790 onwards (ODNB, s.v. “William Lane”).

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borrowed at the time (cf. Kaufman 1967: 17). The grammar holdings of Norwich Public Library seem rather odd as the only grammatical work is in fact a specialist book on the English verb, namely Pickbourn (1789). Even though it is of interest to ascertain grammar book holdings in commercial public libraries, it would be of greater importance to find out information on the circulation of these grammars. After all, this would reflect on a possible influence from these grammars on actual usage. To my knowledge, the only information available on lending records of any of the above libraries is provided by Brewer (1997: 181), who presents a unique surviving record by which he was able to reconstruct the circulation of books held in the Bristol library between 1773 and 1784. These records indicate that readers were particularly interested in History (6,121 borrowings of 283 titles). The borrowing habits of books in other fields are as follows: Belles-lettres (3,318 borrowings of 238 titles), Miscellaneous (949 borrowings of 48 titles), Philosophy (844 borrowings of 59 titles), Natural history (816 borrowings of 71 titles), Theology (606 borrowings of 82 titles), Jurisprudence (447 borrowings of 53 titles), Mathematics (276 borrowings of 42 titles), and Medicine/anatomy (124 borrowings of 24 titles). Unfortunately, however, no details are available on grammars. The analysis presented here of seventeen public library catalogues with respect to their grammar holdings revealed that grammars are more likely to be found in stock in the later part of the eighteenth century, which reflects the increase in publication of these works. Furthermore, learned libraries are more likely to hold grammatical works. The two grammars which were recorded most frequently in library catalogues and thus held in the libraries were by Robert Lowth and Joseph Priestley.

5.2. Grammar book holdings in a university library To investigate grammar book holdings in an established university library, I decided to take a closer look at the Bodleian Library, which is the main research library of the University of Oxford. According to the Bodleian Library website, the Bodleian Library was opened in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley (1545–1613). In 1610 Bodley made an agreement with the Stationers’ Company14 in London that a copy of every book, which was registered with the company, would be 14

According to Gaskell (1972: 175), this company was “the most powerful and restrictive of all the European gilds from the sixteenth until the end of the seventeenth century, controlled entry to the trade; regulated wages and conditions of employment; protected its members’ copyrights; operated copyright monopolies


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put into the library. In contrast to the other (more commercial) libraries discussed, Bodleian Library catalogues were not circulated among its users. We are, however, able to find out about the library’s holdings by investigating book catalogues which record purchases for the Bodleian Library in the years from 1782 to 1800. Only two grammars (that do not correspond with Alston’s description of a grammar book) were purchased in eighteen years, namely Pryce’s Cornish Grammar (1790) in 1793 and Elstob’s Rudiments of the Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue (1715) in 1800. The question of when the Bodleian acquired any of the eighteenth-century grammars which it holds today (see the online catalogue) cannot be answered here as I do not have access to other purchase records of the library than the ones looked at. One might also want to consider that the Bodleian Library, as it caters for a highly educated layer of society, possibly did not see the need to purchase basic grammars of English. After all, there was a strong focus on classical languages at the traditional universities at the time. An explanation for the lack of grammar purchases by the Bodleian during the final decades of the eighteenth century might be given on the Bodleian Library website, which mentions that even though, according to the 1710 Copyright Act, the Bodleian was meant to receive a copy of every book that was registered with the Stationers’ Company, this right was recognised only after the Copyright Act of 1814 (cf. Bodleian Library website). The study of grammar book holdings in libraries, be it public commercial libraries or a university library, has revealed varied results. The Bodleian Library purchase catalogues contained no titles of the type of grammars under investigation. The records of circulating and subscription libraries and societies, on the other hand, did list several eighteenth-century grammars. These were, however, more likely to be held in libraries that catered for a more educated readership and/or ladies and gentlemen who aimed at educating themselves further.

6.

Conclusion

My study of only a sample of catalogues showed that already in the eighteenth century Lowth’s grammar stood out in that almost every catalogue investigated listed at least one copy of Lowth’s grammar, and when grammars were recorded as “a parcel of grammars”, then Lowth’s grammar was still listed separately as exemplified in the auction catalogue of an unknown gentleman’s for the benefit of its senior members; and limited the number of presses that might be used, and defined their location”.

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library (1797). Regarding Lindley Murray’s grammar, as his grammar was first published in 1795 and the book catalogue corpus only contains catalogues published up to 1800, the sample investigated did not provide us with any information on the importance and popularity of Murray’s grammar. Considering that Alston (1965) lists five editions/reprints of the grammar before 1800, we can assume that Murray’s grammar was very popular and thus possibly influential, but this should be better reflected in nineteenth-century book catalogues. Apart from Lowth’s and Murray’s grammars, the catalogue survey revealed that different grammars were popular in London, in the provinces, as illustrated by the catalogue of the Leeds bookseller John Binns (1789), and in areas that were not covered by the Copyright Act. In all three areas editions/reprints of early eighteenth-century grammars such as Greenwood’s grammar (1711), Brightland’s grammar (1711) and Maittaire’s grammar (1712) were still for sale after 1768. Ward’s grammars appear to have been popular both in London and in Dublin. The Leeds catalogue, in turn, listed a range of grammars published in the Northern provinces, e.g. Fisher’s and Story’s grammars (Newcastle upon Tyne), Carter’s grammar (Leeds), Harrison’s grammar (Manchester) and Bell’s grammar (Glasgow). One aim of this paper was to explore the potential usefulness of book catalogues as a source of information for studying the dissemination of grammar books and as a consequence their potential effectiveness on actual language use (Auer in prep.). The study of three types of book catalogues, namely sale catalogues, auction catalogues and library catalogues, has provided rather varied results. As regards the usefulness of book catalogues for the study of the distribution and the effectiveness of grammars on a large scale, I do have to express my doubts. In the case of sale catalogues we do not exactly find out which books were effectively sold. We can only infer which books were most likely considered prestigious and thus saleable. It might, however, be viable to analyse more London and provincial catalogues in order to find out where certain grammars were particularly popular. After all, the analysis of Binns’s catalogue from Leeds already showed that Binns listed a set of grammars that differed from the ones found in Payne’s catalogues from London. Auction catalogues and in particular those which contain library sales of deceased prominent writers and/or grammarians can be useful in providing us with an idea of which works might have influenced their writings, i.e. if fundamental information such as the author, title and publication years of the grammars is given. The investigation of purchase or holding catalogues of different types of libraries was not particularly fruitful in tracing the most influential grammars. As with sale catalogues, the grammars recorded were possibly considered saleable, but the lack of lending records, in which the distribution of grammars


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were noted, makes library catalogues a futile source. The most useful information can thus be retrieved from comparing London and provincial sale catalogues during the period 1750 to 1800 as this is the time when the publication of grammars flourished. Ultimately, to answer the question raised at the beginning of this paper of whether book catalogues are a valuable source for historiographical research, I would have to conclude that they certainly provide an enormous amount of information with respect to the availability of books, their categorisations, different editions, sizes and prices.

Part 2. Reception and the market for grammars

Reception and the market for grammars: Introduction Ingrid Tieken Boon van Ostade

On 9 January 1761, Robert Lowth announced in a letter to his publisher Robert Dodsley that he would be in Town probably about the latter end of March: I shall [brin]g up the Grammar with me, a [goo]d deal improved. I am not re[sol]ved whether to print a few Copies [to] give about to friends & critics, to [ge]t their remarks; or to publish an [ed]ition of a small number, with ye. [s]ame design, & to feel the pulse [of] the public (Lowth to Robert Dodsley, 9 January 1761; British Library Add. MS 35,339, f. 31).

The public, as it happens, responded at once and also quite well, as the reactions quoted in my paper below indicate, so much so that Lowth wrote to Dodsley, one month after the grammar had been published: I am very glad to find the Public has so good an Appetite for Grammar: but hope, that what we have already treated them with, will stay their stomachs for some time. For I shall certainly wait for the opinions of the Critics; & when I have leisure, will endeavour to give it all the improvements I can. So that possibly by about this time two years we may be able to give them another Edition (Lowth to Robert Dodsley, 5 March 1762; BL Add. MSS 35,339, f. 27).

But Lowth hadn’t reckoned with Dodsley’s intentions to make the most of what seemed like a hot item, and he evidently put pressure on Lowth to bring out a second edition sooner than that. Dodsley was after all a bookseller, and he had a keen eye for what would sell well (Tierney 1988: 29). A writer’s interests do not always coincide with those of a publisher, even in the eighteenth century, and a revised edition was brought out already a year later, in April 1763 (Tierney 1988: 461). The favourable response to the grammar is evident from its reception in the Monthly and Critical Reviews, though praise also included Priestley’s grammar, which had been published shortly before, as well as other grammars published around the same time. In her paper in this section, Percy analyses the reception of the grammars which were brought out during the 1760s. Like modern scholars today, the reviewers could not fail to notice the enormous increase in publication, just as in looking backwards they acknowledged the earlier, though much smaller peak in grammar production which is the fo-

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cus of Buschmann-Göbels’s paper. Percy notes that during the late 1750s the Monthly Review on two occasions noted that no good grammar was available at the time, and Dodsley must have been aware of this. Percy also notes that the reviewers criticised writers for the grammatical errors they made; possibly, this practice inspired the proscriptive approach Lowth took in the footnotes to his grammar, an approach which earned him the scorn of many modern linguists such as Aitchison (1981: 23–24). The codifiers were therefore not the sole instigators of the extraordinary production of grammars, particularly during the latter half of the eighteenth century. I have argued elsewhere that the codification of the English language was as much the result of the interest of the booksellers in putting grammars on the market (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a), and now Percy adds the reviewers as well. She shows, moreover, that the Reviews played an important role in creating a market for the grammars, and that they continued to play a role in assessing the medium, praising some grammars but criticising others for what they failed to do. Both the Monthly Review and the Critical Review were a new phenomenon at the time, the former starting in 1749 and the latter in 1756, at a time when there was not as yet a lot of grammatical activity, as the figures in my own paper show. In the case of the grammars produced during the early years of the century, Buschmann-Göbels shows that the role later on taken up by the periodicals was fulfilled by a single pamphlet, the anonymous Bellum Grammaticale (1712). Like the later reviewers, the criticism its author provided was direct and unsparing, but unlike in the case of the reviews, the author is shown to have been a grammarian himself, someone with a vested interest in other words. What is also worth noticing is that the publishers of the early grammars, like those of the ensuing ones, made use of distinct marketing devices, many of which must have been extremely effective and are still generally in use today. Following Watts (1999a) and also his paper in Part 1 above, BuschmannGöbels shows that the writers who engaged in the bellum grammaticale 1711−1712 formed a discourse community, with the author of the Bellum Grammaticale (1712) acting as a mediator or platform for the writers in question. All this similarly applies to the group of reviewers writing for the Critical Review and the Monthly Review, who may therefore be considered to have been part of a discourse community, too, their “common public goal” (Swales 1990: 25) being the creation of a good, authoritative grammar of English.

Bellum Grammaticale (1712) – A battle of books and a battle for the market1 Astrid Buschmann-Göbels

1.

Introduction

In 1712, a book was published in London called Bellum Grammaticale. Its authorship, however, has thus far not yet been established definitively. In this paper I will attempt to identify the author, and show how this work fits into a time when the production of grammars reached its first peak in the first decade of the eighteenth century (cf. Figures 2 and 3 in Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume, below). Previous to the publication of the Bellum Grammaticale, between 1710 and 1712, four grammars had appeared, also in London,2 i.e. William Turner’s A Short Grammar of the English Tongue (1710), John Brightland’s and Charles Gildon’s A Grammar of the English Tongue (1711), James Greenwood’s An Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar (1711) and Michael Maittaire’s The English Grammar (1712). In addition to that, John Brightland published a pamphlet with the title Reasons for an English Education (London, 1711). The pamphlet consists of seven pages, filled with arguments why school-children should be taught grammar, rhetoric, poetry and logic in their own mother tongue, i.e. English, rather than in Latin. On the last page of this document there is a reference to the second edition of what the author calls “Brightland’s Grammar”, but which actually refers to the grammar jointly published with Gildon listed above (cf. Vorlat 1975: 34); this reference demonstrates the importance of the grammar, as well as Brightland’s intention to establish it on the educational market: “There is now preparing for the Press, a Second edition of Brightland’s Grammar of the English Tongue, with Notes, giving the Grounds and Reason of Grammar in general” (Brightland 1711: 6). The Brightland grammar as well as those by Greenwood and Maittaire have been dealt with in various amounts of detail elsewhere, by e.g. Flasdieck 1 I am particularly grateful to Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade for her comments on an earlier version of this paper. 2 Unless noted otherwise the editions of the grammars quoted in this paper are those included in Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), to which I got free access due to the licence being sponsored by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

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(1928: 324–327), Göbels (1999), Michael (1970), Scheurweghs (1959) and Vorlat (1975), but almost nothing has been written on the pamphlet Bellum Grammaticale, which contains a more or less critical comparison of these three grammars. For this reason I want to try and throw some light on what seems to be a forgotten problem. I will begin with a short introduction to these three grammars in order to provide an indication of what the aims were of the grammarians writing at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Next, I will continue with a description of the Bellum Grammaticale itself, followed by an attempt to reveal the author of the book. Finally, taking up the arguments provided by Watts in the present volume, I will discuss the question of whether the grammarians of the first decade of the eighteenth century can be said to have formed a kind of discourse community.

2.

The Brightland grammar

The Grammar of the English Tongue that was published in London in 1711 has been attributed to John Brightland and Charles Gildon (Vorlat 1975: 34). Though only the name Brightland appeared on the title-page, the preface and the dedication signal that this grammar was the work of more than one author. Thus, the dedication to the Queen is signed with “The Authors”. One of the central tenets of this grammar is to describe the English language in such a way “that the Rules of our Tongue are only to be drawn from our Tongue it self, and as it is already in Use; … and that we are to have no manner of Regard to the Proprieties of other Tongues” (Brightland and Gildon 1711: A5v). The grammar is divided into four parts: “Of Letters”, “Of Syllables”, “Of Words”, and “Of Sentences”. The subtitle With Notes, Giving the Ground and Reason of Grammar in General, to which is Added, A New Prosodia; Or, The Art of English Numbers indicates that this book is a kind of mixture between a national and a rational grammar (for a detailed description and analysis of the grammar, see Göbels 1999: 122–132). The grammar was designed for the use in schools as well as for all “Gentlemen and Ladies” (1711: Title-page) who wanted to learn the grammar of English. The main body of the text is devoted to the description of English grammar, while the notes are designed for the “learned” who wanted to go into the subject more deeply. The notes to chapters one and two show a strong resemblance to John Wallis’s Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1653), and those to chapters three and four are more or less a literal English translation of the grammar of Port-Royal (Arnauld and Lancelot 1660; see Vorlat 1975: 35 and Göbels 1999: 126–129). The grammar is therefore far from an

Bellum Grammaticale (1712)

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original work. In the preface to the first edition the authors openly admit that “there was no Spelling-book or Grammar in English, Latin, French &c. that we have not consulted, and in our Tongue alone there are about Thirty” (1711: A6 r–v). The aim of the writers of the grammar is to teach those who did not know any Latin to Read and Write English with as Great Justness and Exactness as the Learned may be suppos’d to do … On the contrary we ought to lay down the certain Rules of Reading and Writing this Language as it is establish’d by the general Use of the Learned themselves … and that we are to have no manner of Regard to the Proprieties of other Tongues, either Ancient or Modern (1711: A5r–v).

This shows a narrow view of what might constitute a linguistic model for the intended audience, as the authors only appear to have taken the language of the learned into account. In addition, this passage could be interpreted as an expression of a kind of national pride on the part of the authors in their own language. There were altogether eight editions of this grammar (Alston 1965: 13–14). In his article on the Brightland grammar, Scheurweghs (1959: 136ff.) stated that the fourth, fifth and sixth editions of the grammar no longer mentioned Brightland’s name on the title-page. Brightland had died in 1717, and Gildon consequently may have wished to acknowledge his own authorship. Interestingly, Brightland’s name is again associated with the seventh and eighth editions of the grammar. This could be a kind of marketing device, as in the case of the publication of the grammars of Lowth and Priestley discussed by Tieken-Boon van Ostade (this volume). I will return to this in § 5 below. If Gildon was indeed the author of the grammar, as Scheurweghs (1959: 140) maintains, the preface to the 1711 edition explains why the writer of the grammar, Gildon presumably, must have been more or less prevented from exposing himself: This Observation touch’d our sagacious Friend Mr. Brightland … and made him spare neither Money nor Pains to procure such a Grammar for English … and it being our Good Fortune to be acquainted with him, after so many Disappointments, he was pleas’d to press us to the Undertaking … we have ventur’d to suffer our Endeavours to see the Public (1711: A4v–5r).

Without actually mentioning his own name, Gildon thus did his best to let the public know that he was the author of the grammar, but it is not until he published The Complete Art of Poetry (1718) that the identification is a fact. The Complete Art of Poetry presents a text of 23 lines on grammatical rules in verse which contains pages 138–139 of the 1714 edition of the Brightland grammar. It is preceded by the following words: “But to give Rules yet more plain and

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peculiar, I shall quote those in my English Grammar”, (1718: Vol. I, 153; emphasis added), to which a footnote is added which reads: “Recommended by Isaac Bickerstaff”. According to Scheurweghs (1959: 141), Gildon’s Complete Art of Poetry was advertised in No. 1411 of the Evening Post, 16–18 August as follows: “Just published in two Pocket vols. by Charles Gildon, Gent. (Author of Bickerstaff’s Grammar) The Compleat Art of Poetry in six Parts”. The name “Isaac Bickerstaff” had first been adopted as a pseudonym by Jonathan Swift and later by Richard Steele in The Tatler (ODNB, s.v. “Richard Steele”). The Brightland grammar is the only grammar that was published in the first decade of the eighteenth century that has such a recommendation prefixed to the preface, i.e. the one to the second edition (1712).3 As Swift stopped using the pseudonym in 1709 (Wikipedia, s.v. “Isaac Bickerstaff”), it seems likely that this is a reference to Steele.4 I will return to this below. That Gildon in fact wrote the grammar is also clear from the following quotation from a letter he wrote to the Earl of Oxford on 2 January 1711: “I did myself the honour some time ago to leave for you one of my Grammars of the English Tongue, the public Design of which, I am sure, cou’d not miss of Your Approbation” (British Library, Add. MS 4163, f. 65). But there is also some evidence for this in the grammar itself. In the first edition of the grammar, Gildon inserted his name in several places, for example when giving examples for words beginning with G: “gild, gilder, Gildon, a sur-name” (1711: 45). Bateson (1940: 576) believes the authorship of Gildon to be a fact, and in doing so agrees with Flasdieck (1928: 324). Gildon’s name was first connected with the grammar by Paul Dottin (Scheurweghs 1959: 141), though without providing any evidence. I believe, however, that the arguments presented above offer a very clear case for the attribution of the authorship of the Brightland grammar to Gildon, at least to the fact that he was one of its authors. But that is not all, for the seventh edition of the grammar, published in 1746, shows the following handwritten information on the title-page: “By Sir Richard Steele”. Could this mean that Richard Steele contributed to the Brightland grammar as well? In his article on the Brightland grammar Scheurweghs mentions two

3 While working with ECCO I came across three different second editions “with Improvements” of the Brightland grammar, all published in 1712. This reference is taken from the second edition, Gale Document Number: CW3315960520. It has 313 pages, including two essays which were missing in the other second edition from 1712 (Gale Document Number: CW3312393788), which has 270 pages. The third copy (Gale Document Number: CW3314267324) comprises 281 pages. 4 Cf. Percy (this volume), who notes that the Brightland grammar was recommended by the Tatler.


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copies owned by a certain Prof. Gabrielson: “The name Steele’s Grammar is stamped on the back of the contemporary leather bindings of Prof. Gabrielson’s copies of the first and the fifth edition” (1959: 139). This lends further support to the possibility that Steele may indeed have been one of the authors of the grammar. The question of the authorship of the Brightland grammar has been dealt with by several scholars (Flasdieck 1928: 324–327), Göbels (1999: 122–132), Göbels (2000a: 113–129), Michael (1970), Scheurweghs (1959) and Vorlat (1975), but has not been completely resolved. From what I have found it is clear that other people contributed to the grammar apart from Brightland, the evidence that this included Gildon being perhaps most clear of all. I will return to this question when dealing with the Bellum Grammaticale (§ 5).

3.

Greenwood’s Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar (1711)

As already mentioned, the Bellum Grammaticale also contains criticism of James Greenwood’s Essay towards a Practical English Grammar (1711). Greenwood (1683?–1737) was for some time usher to Benjamin Morland at Hackney (see ODNB, s.v. “James Greenwood”, as well as Göbels 2000b: 120–122). Around 1712 he opened a boarding school at Woodford, Essex, while nine years later, in 1721, he was appointed surmaster of St. Paul’s school, where he remained until his death in 1737. Greenwood was a distinguished pedagogue, who wanted to provide his pupils with a practical grammar of English. There are five numbered editions of this grammar, which came out in 1711, 1722, 1729, 1740 and 1753 (Alston 1965: 15) . The fourth and the fifth editions were thus published after Greenwood’s death. As with the Brightland grammar and those of other grammarians of the period (see Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume), Greenwood’s grammar thus continued to be published under his name even after his death. This could have been another marketing device (cf. above). Greenwood published a kind of abridgement of his grammar in 1737 in London under the title The Royal English Grammar. According to Alston (1965: 20) eight more editions of this grammar came out, down to 1780. Greenwood’s work must therefore have been popular and possibly fairly influential, well into the eighteenth century. In the preface to the first edition of the Essay Greenwood makes the following remark about his intended audience: I have endavour’d to explain the Principles of Grammar in such a perspicuous and familiar way, as may rather incite, than discourage the Curiosity of such who would have a clear Notion of what they speak or write. And herein I have had a regard to

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Astrid Buschmann-Göbels three Things: In the first place, I was desirous … to excite Persons, to the Study of their Mother Tongue. Secondly, to give such a plain and rational Account of Grammar, as might render it easy and delightful to our English Youth … My third Aim that I had in the writing this Treatise was, to oblige the Fair Sex whose Education perhaps, is too much neglected in this Particular (1711: A3r–v).

In other words, Greenwood’s main concern was to provide the “English Youth” as well as the “Fair Sex” with an English grammar, giving simple rules and expressions for their sake. As a “pedagogue of renown” (Vorlat 1975: 36), Greenwood tried to provide his readers with a grammar that should be “easy and delightful to our English Youth, who have for a long time esteemed the Study of this Useful Art very irksome, obscure and difficult” (1711: A3v). Vorlat (1975: 36) claims that Greenwood’s Essay is the “most eclectic of all the grammars examined” by her in her book. I have already argued that this qualification is also relevant for the Brightland grammar, as well as for many other works that appeared at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and I believe that this has to do with the fact that the Copyright Act of 1710 was more or less neglected (see also Auer, this volume; for more information on the Copyright Act see § 5 below). Greenwood openly admitted to copying from Wallis, Wilkins, Locke and Hickes: I must here confess, that I have been very much obliged in the following Papers to Bp. WILKINS’s Real Character, Dr. WALLIS, Dr. HICKS’s Saxon Grammar, and some others. I must also take notice, that in two or three Places I have made use of Mr LOCK’s Expressions, because I lik’d them better than my own (1711: A4r).

Greenwood shared the common concerns of his time, and one of these is the sound principle to “explain Things unknown, by Things that are known” (1711: A3v): English grammar should be taught first and this should be considered as a preliminary step towards the study of Latin. 4.

Maittaire’s English Grammar (1712)

Another grammar that was published in the first decade of the eighteenth century and that was discussed briefly in the Bellum Grammaticale was Michael Maittaire’s English Grammar (London, 1712). Maittaire (1668–1747) was born in Rouen, France, as the son of protestant parents, who left France at the time of the edict of Nantes (ODNB, s.v. “Michael Maittaire”). In 1682, he obtained a scholarship at Westminster School, where he proved himself very much interested in Latin and Greek. He took his BA degree in 1696 and received his MA at Cambridge in 1708. As Vorlat puts it, “Dr Johnson considers him as possess-


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ing a large measure of scholarship, but calls him ‘puzzleheaded and without genius’” (Vorlat 1975: 447). Maittaire died in 1747 in London. Maittaire’s grammar consists of 272 pages devoted to a kind of universal grammar, as the full title may suggest: The English Grammar, or, An Essay on the Art of Grammar, Applied to and Exemplified in the English Tongue. With its many references to Latin, Greek and Hebrew, Maittaire’s grammar is undoubtedly a scholarly work. Nearly sixty years after the publication of Wallis’s grammar (1653), Maittaire returned to the classical grammarians to impose grammatical patterns of the classical languages upon English. According to Vorlat, the “risk of such a method is that it tends to impose a rational, but not empirically verified construction, upon language data. In Maittaire’s case this danger has not proved imaginary” (Vorlat 1975: 37). Hence, Maittaire’s grammar could be seen as a brave attempt to reconcile erudite scholarship with the teaching of grammar to women and children, who were his intended audience. Apart from being a rational grammar, Maittaire’s work is thus also a practical grammar, addressed to children and “that tender sex” (1712: v). In the preface, Maittaire complained that it “is now a-days the miserable Fate of Grammar to be more Whip’t than Taught; and the children, like slaves, are bred up into the hatred of it” (1712: iii–iv). The grammar is, however, far from being a grammar for children. The approach is of a philosophical nature, “calling in often the help not only of Logick but even of Metaphysick to discuss these minute Principles of Speech”, as Maittaire put it (1712: viii). For all that, Maittaire was well aware of the fact that some passages of the grammar might be too difficult for children: “Many things, which are above the understanding of the young Beginner, and often belonging more properly to the other Languages, but however brought in for the illustration of the English, are printed in a smaller character” (1712: ix). Thus, unlike with the Brightland grammar, where footnotes were used to separate the practical from the rational parts of the text, Maittaire used smaller characters within the text to separate philosophical inquiries into grammar from practical comments and discussions. However, I think that as a grammarian Maittaire was old-fashioned in his approach. As Vorlat puts it, “The force of tradition is more powerful for him than systematic language analysis, and he wants it to be that way” (Vorlat 1975: 436).

5.

Bellum Grammaticale – contents and authorship

To say something about the origin of the title of the anonymous Bellum Grammaticale would be mere speculation. One possible source could be Andrea Guara’s Bellum Grammaticale of 1511, which explained grammar as a royal

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battle between two kings − the Noun and the Verb. The book is described as one of the recent acquisitions on the website of Princeton University Library as follows: “This witty book was an immediate success, being reprinted five times in 1512, and three more times in 1514. Eventually it reached one hundred separate editions by the end of the eighteenth century and was translated into French, English, Italian, German, and Swedish. Oxford students rewrote it as a play perhaps as early as 1590 but certainly before 1635”. As already explained, the Bellum is a brief and critical comparison of three grammars published around the same time, i.e. Brightland and Gildon (1711), Greenwood (1711) and Maittaire (1712). Hence, there may well have been a kind of struggle for the market amongst the publishers and authors of these grammars. For all that, only the grammars by Greenwood and Maittaire are discussed in the Bellum Grammaticale. The criticism of Maittaire is added as a postscript at the end of the pamphlet. It is, moreover, interesting to see that the criticism of Greenwood and Maittaire also appeared in the preface to the Brightland grammar from the second edition (1712) onwards. In this edition, the authors refer directly to two competing contemporary grammars, i.e. the Brightland grammar and the one by Greenwood: To learn, therefore, not only this necessary Part of the Grammar of our MotherTongue, but all the rest, a certain Grammar must be fixt on, to attain this end. There have been two lately Printed, and that may confound our Choice; but having perus’d both, and seen the Corrections of the first of these, call’d A Grammar of the English Tongue, with Notes, and Printed for Mr. Brightland, we fix this as the fittest for this End … The other Grammar is not calculated for Use, tho’ call’d An Essay at a Practical English Grammar. For the Author being without Method, must be obscure (Brightland and Gildon 1712: 17).5

While this was written in an essay preceding the grammar and the preface, in the Preface itself the accusation against Greenwood continues: “For these, and many other Reasons, we cou’d not think this Essay towards a Practical English Grammar sufficient to deter us from endeavouring to correct the Errors of our First Impression, and from giving the World an Edition more useful, and more perfect” (1712: Preface A3). The author of the Bellum thus aimed his work directly at one of the three competitors, i.e. Greenwood. In his Essay, Greenwood invited all readers to make comments on the grammar, promising that they would be “inserted in their proper Place” (1711: A4). The title-page of the Bellum quotes Greenwood’s invitation for corrections to the grammar: “If any Gentleman will be pleas’d to make any Amendments, or Additions 5 This quotation is taken from the second edition (1712), Gale Document Number: CW3315960520.


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to this, they shall be gratefully acknowledg’d, and inserted in their proper Place” (1712: Title-page). In the “Word to the Reader”, the author of the Bellum notes that there “has been lately a mighty Bent, in the Buyers of Books, to Grammatical Essays; and particularly those which treat of the Nature of our own Language; … in this Kind these last eleven or twelve Months have introduc’d two Authors: The one owns himself boldly a Pedant, nay, seems vain of the Honour; the other has been so prudent or modest to conceal his Name” (1712: A2r–v). One of these two authors appears to have been Gildon, who, as argued above, had been more or less forced to conceal his name as a possible author of the Brightland grammar. The other author who is referred to here is identified by name: “The learned Mr. Greenwood, to whom I have directed the following Discourse” (1712: A2v). It is for this reason that the text of the Bellum begins with the address “Learned Sir” (1712: 5). The question that strikes me most is that a kind of polemic struggle against Greenwood’s Essay appeared more or less simultaneously and verbatim in two grammatical treatises published in 1712, in the second edition of the Brightland grammar and in the Bellum. In his address to Greenwood, the author of the Bellum refers to himself as “your Antagonist” who has offered “great Names” and who confessed to have borrowed large parts from the Port-Royal grammar (Bellum 1712: 18). Could all this provide further evidence for my assumption that Gildon, who I have argued was very likely one of the authors of the Brightland grammar, is probably the author of the Bellum as well? Another point in support of my assumption is the fact that the criticism of Maittaire’s grammar which appeared in the Bellum can be found verbatim in Gildon’s Complete Art of Poetry (1718: Vol. I, 145). The criticism of Greenwood’s grammar is rhetorically well structured. At first, the writer praised Greenwood’s grammar, upon which he let his disapproval follow immediately. He accused Greenwood of having taken over the term “Essay” from Locke, of presenting two prefaces to his book, and especially of borrowing Wallis’s preface. This is astonishing, as the Brightland grammar took over large passages from Wallis as well. Furthermore, the author of the Bellum criticised Greenwood’s division of grammar into “natural, general” and “instituted, particular”. This is a direct borrowing from Wilkins’s Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) and, according to the anonymous author, this borrowing is the only indication that Greenwood wrote a “rational and plain Account of Grammar in General” – though it is actually no more than an English school grammar. By taking over large parts from Wallis and Wilkins, Greenwood referred to the outstanding figures of seventeenth-century grammar writing and language philosophy in England. Wallis’s grammar had been the first to provide an insight into teaching deaf-

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mutes, while Wilkins’s Essay was the most elaborate work on universal grammar and philosophy as yet to be found. The Brightland grammar is praised again, and its direct relationship to the Port-Royal grammar is explicitly mentioned, as follows: “He [your Antagonist] indeed not only gives us the great Names,6 but the Matter they deliver’d; but you, Sir, according to that Self-sufficience which you every where discover, talk of Bishop Wilkins, Dr. Hicks, &c. but we must take your Word for their Merit, or dive into their Works” (Bellum 1712: 18). Greenwood did indeed adopt large passages from Wilkins and others without giving any indications of having quoted them other than in the preface. Furthermore, Greenwood did not use Wilkins’s classification scheme to underline his own argumentation or to pursue along its lines in his work. This means that the whole concept of a universal language, written and spoken, and a corresponding “natural, philosophical grammar”7 developed in Wilkins’s exhaustive Essay was not taken over by Greenwood, who merely borrowed the differentiation of grammar into “instituted” (referring to a particular language) and “natural” (referring to a universal language or language in general). It is on the other hand interesting to see how the Brightland grammar represents a blend between the work of Port-Royal, Wallis and Locke. Vorlat states that eighteenth-century grammarians often copied “without any mention of their sources” (1959: 125). Is it true that Brightland, Gildon and Greenwood were guilty of plagiarism? (For a discussion of the concept of plagiarism in relation to eighteenth-century grammars, see Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1996.) In the preface to the first edition of the Brightland grammar the authors stated that the conception of the grammar had been a painstaking process: “What Pains we have been at in the Composing this little Discourse, we need not dwell upon, when the Reader shall know, that there was no Spelling-book or Grammar in English, Latin, French, &c. that we have not consulted” (1711: A6r). After all, according to Vorlat one of the merits of the Brightland grammar is that it has introduced “the Port-Royal ideas into English grammar, and that it is one of the few English works to propagate ideas from the Continent” (1975: 35). Nevertheless the dependence on previous works is a fruitful help for the historiographer in tracing the existence of possible influence between the works. I will The author of the Bellum stated that the Brightland grammar has “from Mr. Arnaud [sic], the Messieurs of Port-Royal, etc. given us the whole Rationale of the Thing” (1712: 18). 7 For a fuller discussion of Wilkins’s Essay and the idea of a natural grammar, see Formigari (1988), Göbels (1999: 51–104), Hüllen (1989), Slaughter (1982) and Subbiondo (1992). 6


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return to this below. The question presents itself as to how this agrees with the Copyright Act of 1710. This “Statute of Anne” was the first British copyright law, which was enacted in 1709 and entered into force on April 10, 1710 (see Feather 1988: 74–76). This statute for the first time accorded exclusive rights to authors rather than publishers, and it included protection for consumers of printed work ensuring that publishers could not control their use after sale. It limited the duration of such rights to 21 years with two 14-year extensions, after which all works would pass into the public domain. It is generally considered to be the first fully-fledged copyright law in the world (Batchelor 2004). If one takes into account that Brightland comes out favourably in the Bellum Grammaticale, it could be argued that Gildon was the author of the Grammar of the English Tongue. Gildon was born in Gillingham, Dorset, in 1665, to a Roman Catholic family (ODNB, s.v. “Charles Gildon”). He could be described as an English hack writer, playwright, essayist, poet, translator and critic. He was employed by John Dunton for the Athenian Mercury, the first regularly published periodical in England, and the History of the Athenian Society (1692). In 1698, he converted to Anglicanism and in 1705 published The Deist’s Manual, an attack of Deism. Brightland hired Gildon to run The British Mercury, so it makes sense that he also engaged Gildon as the author of A Grammar of the English Tongue (see Michael 1970: 563–564). Gildon also conducted a series of attacks on Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. He died in London on 1 January 1724, blind and in great poverty. Brightland is referred to by Michael (1970: 563) as his “sponsor”. The criticism in the Bellum goes on with a harsh comment on Greenwood’s division of grammar into four parts, i.e. Orthography, Prosody, Etymology and Syntax, as well. The charge is repeated in the second edition of the Brightland grammar, as appears from the following quotation: “That the first Essayist has no Method, is plain from his very Division of Grammar; for having divided Grammar into four Parts, yet the Parts of Speech (which he unnecessarily makes eight, after the old way) are plac’d under no one Head of that Division” (Brightland and Gildon 1712: A2r–v). This is another indication that Gildon could be the author of the Bellum. In the Bellum the author, moreover, added that “your Antagonist”, i.e. Brightland and Gildon, planned a similar distribution of the word-classes but never implemented it, the reason allegedly being that this would have been because his rival had done so (cf. Brightland and Gildon 1712: 19). That Gildon could be the author of the Bellum is, moreover, confirmed by the accusation against Greenwood that the application of notes, question-and-answer patterns and descriptive text is too much for a learner. At this point the question arises as to Greenwood’s intended audience. Above, I argued that the grammar was written for learners of English, especially chil-

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dren. The author of the Bellum, however, believed that the terminology, the division into word classes and the whole concept of Greenwood’s book is too complicated for young learners. He suggested the distribution into “Letters, Syllables, Words, and Sentences” instead, “which need no Manner of Explanation” (1712: 21). Exactly these terms had been used by Brightland and Gildon in their grammar (cf. 1711: ii; 1759: 2). The accusation makes clear that a strict distinction between a didactic and a philosophical grammar was no longer valid at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Instead, it is a mixture of both types that is advocated here. After all, the authors of the Brightland grammar, like those of other works of that time, proceeded from the assumption that grammars were to be divided into school grammars and rational grammars, with the former being more descriptive and the latter being characterised by a more scholarly approach. The author of the Bellum continues with another point of criticism, which is hardly a fair comment. He blames Greenwood for sticking to Lily’s system of eight word-classes: In the second Chapter you stand to your Pan-Puddings, Lily’s eight Parts of Speech, and describe them much in as easy Words; tho Mr. Johnson in his Grammatical Commentaries, has confuted this Division; and your Antagonist had done the same, yet you keep the old exploded Track, without giving any Reason for it; nor could you indeed produce any other, than what the Wild Irish did for there Horses drawing with their Tails, viz. Their Grand-fathers did so (Bellum 1712: 24).

One may find exactly the same charge in the preface to the second edition of the Brightland grammar and it can be found in all later editions as well: “The first Essayist [i.e. Greenwood] has, indeed, partly quitted the old Track, but cou’d not prevail with himself to quit it entirely” (1712: A2r). Apart from criticising all these relatively minor aspects in Greenwood’s work, which seem to lose ground when considering the Brightland grammar and its way of dealing with these matters, the anonymous author of the Bellum Grammaticale criticised one thing most: all the parts of Greenwood’s work which show a clear dependence on seventeenth-century language philosophy. In doing so he referred to the English translation of Wallis’s Tractatus de Loquela, the opening part of his Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1653), which Greenwood similarly placed before the beginning of his English grammar: If the Letters, Spelling, &c. were essentially founded in Nature, then would they be the same all over the World. And this, Sir, you might have found justify’d by Mr. Lock, in his third Book of Human Understanding, with the Beginning of the second Chapter of which, you face your Introduction, Chap. 2. Lib. 3. immediately after these Words, in your Introduction: For which Purpose, nothing was so fit, either for Plenty or Quickness, as those articulative Sounds, call’d words, which, with so


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much Ease and Variety, he found himself able to make … for then there would be but one language among all men, but by a voluntary Imposition whereby such a word is made arbitrarily to mark such an idea (Bellum 1712: 43).

As I have mentioned above, Greenwood did not continue along the lines he started his work with. He quoted Wilkins and other predecessors in his field without marking quotations from their work as such, and did not present his grammar from the philosophical framework constituted by their publications. The author of the Bellum knew quite well how to fulfill the role of a critic. By mentioning a handful of weak points in Greenwood’s work he argued in such a way that one could easily get the impression that the grammar was full of inconsistencies and consequently of no great use for the learning of English. In summing up all the “faults” of Greenwood’s Essay at the end of his own treatise this impression is strengthened further. The concluding criticism is introduced with a kind of excuse and justification for possible errors in the Brightland grammar, because this was allegedly the first work that claimed to combine philosophical aspects with the learning of grammar, and later writers, like Greenwood, could have learned from this. The Brightland grammar and Greenwood’s Essay were published within a year of each other. Hence, it must have been nearly impossible for Greenwood, even if he had attempted to do so, to take the Brightland grammar as a kind of paradigm. I have already mentioned that an indication is given in the Bellum that the notes in the third chapter of the Brightland grammar derive from the PortRoyal grammar. This is done against the background that Gildon, the supposed author of the Bellum, did not want the authors of the Brightland grammar to be blamed for any faults which had been made by the writers of the sources used: “I refer you likewise to your Antagonist on this Head, confute or allow his Reasons, but reflect before you attack him in any of his Notes, that they are all built on Messieurs of Port-Royal” (Bellum 1712: 54). This passage could serve to prove two points: that the notes of chapter three of the Brightland grammar were actually borrowed from the Port-Royal grammar, and, once again, that Gildon was the author of the Bellum. Was it mere self-protection that Gildon did not expose himself as the author of the Bellum? Did he fear that such harsh and sometimes unjustified criticism could ruin the reputation of the Brightland grammar? If so, this would be the exact opposite of what he wanted to achieve: to praise the Brightland grammar by showing that the competing grammars were not half as good as his own. The short and critical review of Maittaire’s English Grammar (1712) appeared after the exhaustive criticism of Greenwood’s grammar and was attached to the Bellum as a postscript. Gildon’s criticism of Maittaire resembles the criticism that appeared in the preface to the eighth edition of the Brightland

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grammar. There is a direct suggestion in the text of the Bellum that the reader should read the preface to the above-mentioned edition of the Brightland grammar (1712: 52). By doing this, one would find more or less the same criticism as mentioned in the Bellum. Gildon blamed Maittaire for his system of wordclasses and his definition of grammar, which are both very similar to those in the Brightland grammar. Gildon’s adverse criticism is therefore all the more astonishing. He accused Maittaire of referring to the classical languages, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, when giving examples, which are all printed in a smaller font. Furthermore, Maittaire used the analogy of language and mathematics throughout his text, which reminds us of the language project of seventeenthcentury language philosophers (see e.g. Wilkins 1668). What Maittaire tried to put across is not a one-to-one correspondence between name and referent but the point that the parts of speech “are by a necessary and mutual dependence so linked, that not one can be thoroughly understood without the knowledge of all the rest, especially in what relates to Derivation and Composition; yet the Verb is the chief of all” (Maittaire 1712: 60). He compared the sentence with a circle, with the verb as its centre. In his view, a certain number of verbs compete in the attempt to build a sentence that is meaningful and syntactically correct. In contrast to the seventeenth century, when an isomorphism between “signifier” and “signified” was seen as an expression of the function of the “linguistic sign”, Maittaire was thus thinking in metaphorical categories. What is expressed here is not an “as is” state but an analogy. Language conforms to the operations of the mind, and these operations result in words and expressions of our thoughts that are linked by convention. Brightland and Gildon regarded Maittaire’s English Grammar as the ultimate legitimisation for the publication of further editions of their own grammar. Thus, the following argument can be found from the second edition of the Brightland grammar onwards. The quotation is from the eighth edition: “… that in the Title of his Book he [i.e. Maittaire] is guilty of an evident Misnomer, it being no more an English Grammar, than a Chinese” (Brightland and Gildon 1759: iv). Exactly the same accusation can be found in the Bellum (1712: 62). Maittaire postulated that the knowledge of the classical languages could lead to perfection through the mother tongue. As a response one could find the same criticism in the Bellum as well as in the eighth edition of the Brightland grammar, in which the following statement can be found: Not considering, that by this he [i.e. Maittaire] requires an Impossibility, since much the greater Part of Mankind can by no means spare 10 or 11 Years of their Lives in learning those dead Languages, to arrive at a perfect Knowledge of their own. But by this Gentleman’s way of Arguing, we ought not only to be Masters of Latin and Greek, but of Spanish, Italian, High Dutch, Low-Dutch, French, the Old Saxon, Welsh, Runic, Gothic, and Islandic (Brightland and Gildon 1759: v).


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At the end of his exhaustive criticism of Greenwood’s Essay, the author of the Bellum formulates a question to the reader, which in this case is first of all James Greenwood, though also of course the general reader. This passage could be seen as the answer to the question why the Bellum was published in the first place: I know you will be apt to ask me here, what I have to do with the Controversy? What are either you or your Antagonist to me? Have I any Interest in either? I answer, honest Scraulum, in the Negative, I have no Manner of Interest to draw me into this Squabble with thee, but only of natural Love which I have of exposing Pretenders: Besides, how do you know, but that I my self deign to write another English Grammar, (since they are now in Mode), and I know no better Way of bespeaking the Expectation of the Town, than by exposing the Defects of those who have gone before me (1712: 58).

First and foremost, I think, this passage demonstrates the enormous self-confidence of the author, but it does a lot more besides. On the basis of what I have discussed above, this quotation informs us of the fact that the Bellum was published to advocate the Brightland grammar (and Gildon as one of its authors) as a kind of leading grammar on the market in the first decade of the eighteenth century and to push possible rivals off the market. 6.

Brightland, Gildon, Greenwood and Maittaire: A network of grammarians?

In his article on discourse communities among grammar writers Watts (1999a) proposes the notion of a “discourse community” with regard to the eighteenthcentury grammar writers. He defines the concept of the discourse community as follows: Thus, a discourse community may show strong or weak member affiliation to the values of the community, and the community itself may only become “visible” through the course of time. In this sense, of course, a discourse community might also be defined as an embryonic institution with its own historicity. If we use this definition to evaluate whether grammar writers in the first sixty years of the eighteenth century can be classified as a discourse community, we need to know the following: 1. What aspects of the discourse observable in their grammars allow us to posit a degree of homogeneity, even over a relatively long period of time? 2. Is it possible to assess from the written discourse who the intended addressees were, and do those intended addressees constitute a relatively homogeneous group? 3. Is it possible to interpret the features of that discourse as forming part of the legitimate language of the social institution of “public” education, i.e. as constituting a significant part of the symbolic resource of language? (1999a: 43).

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There is no doubt that the grammars by Brightland and Gildon, Greenwood and Maittaire show a strong connection with each other, not only due to their dates of publication but also with regard to the common interest shared by the authors. The Bellum thus worked as a kind of mediator or platform for the above-mentioned grammars and made the common enterprise in which these grammarians were engaged very vivid (see also Watts, this volume). With regard to the first characteristic of discourse communities quoted above, there is no doubt that we are dealing with an actual kind of discourse in so far that we have direct references to other grammars and philosophical works belonging to the seventeenth as well as the eighteenth centuries. This culminated in the Bellum, in which the grammars by Brightland and Gildon, Greenwood and Maittaire are explicitly mentioned, quoted and evaluated. Although the author of the Bellum criticised the grammars mentioned above for reasons I have described in detail, the works as such show a kind of homogeneity. They are grammars of the English language designed for the use in schools,8 and the authors of these grammars hark back to the language planners of the seventeenth century. I think by looking at Greenwood’s Essay it is quite obvious that he not only accepted the definitions of grammar drawn up by Wilkins and Wallis by quoting them but also that he constructed a discourse community reaching back to the seventeenth century. According to Watts (1999a: 44) this is the “most salient type of discourse community”. The second point mentioned above to decide whether an author belongs to a particular discourse community is the intended audience of the work. The intended audience of all the grammars criticised in the Bellum are children within the social field characterised by those dependent on public education. The Brightland grammar served two types of audience: pupils at school as well as “the learned” for whom the notes were written. In his “Approbation” prefixed to Brightland and Gildon’s Grammar of the English Tongue (1711), Isaac Bickerstaff recommended the work in the following terms: “I therefore enjoin all my Female Correspondents to Buy, Read and Study this Grammar, that their Letters may be something less Enigmatic”. But all the grammars discussed refer to a common set of notions as to how language is defined, structured and described. This is sometimes done very thoroughly, and one gets the impression that the grammars were designed for foreigners and not for native speakers of English. In addition to this one finds meta-discursive commentar-

8 The Brightland grammar can be seen as serving several addressees: the learner at school as well as the more advanced reader for whom the notes were designed, giving a more rational/philosophical account of grammar.


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ies on grammatical explanations. Thus, the third of Watts’s aspects of what constitutes a discourse community is fulfilled as well. Brightland and Gildon, Greenwood and Maittaire were also in no doubt about the ultimate value of their enterprise. They recognised the difficulty of the task they faced, stressing that the teaching of grammar and knowledge of language structure in general is both time-consuming and intellectually challenging. Not surprisingly, therefore, almost all of them claimed that their own work provided a simple, quick and effective method to grammatical knowledge and its application. One common aim among them is that grammar books should be simple and clear and based on rational and rule-governed principles, and that they should be “aimed at our English Youth, who have for a long time esteemed the Study of this Useful Art very irksome, obscure and difficult” (Greenwood 1711: A3v). Precisely because no mutual acknowledgment was given by the grammarians and sometimes the quoted works were regarded as being of less value than their own, Brightland and Gildon, Greenwood and Maittaire formed a discourse community rather than a community of discourse (for a discussion of the distinction between these two types of network, see Watts, this volume). Against this background the author of the Bellum appears to have played a very crucial role, that of a mediator in the discourse that was going on, but also in that he pursued a marketing campaign for his own work.

7.

The Bellum – a mere pamphlet?

Brightland died in 1717, but the seventh and eighth editions of his grammar (1746 and 1759) still show his name on the title-page. One simple reason for this could be that the name Brightland stood for an authority and institution in the field of grammars; it thus appears to have been a clear marketing device to continue to publish a grammar under his name long after the death of its author. I would like to argue that the Bellum was published for the same reason – to advertise the Brightland grammar. In this context, the term Bellum refers to a possible struggle for existence, a struggle of publishers and authors to get a top position on the market place of grammars. The early decades of the eighteenth century, like the 1760s, as is shown by Tieken-Boon van Ostade in her paper below, were a busy period as far as the production of grammars was concerned. Publications included philosophical inquiries into grammar, national grammars as well as the first more or less comparative studies of language. In later years the ultimate aim was no longer to combine all these features into a single work, and this happened first by relegating the philosophy of language from the

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main text to the footnotes and later by a still more radical separation, when the subject came to occupy separate texts in its own right. The Brightland grammar was the first grammar to combine all these aspects. This grammar was very popular and it made use of footnotes.9 Their function was not only to separate a practical from a rational grammar, but also to distinguish between several types of addressees or readers: between women, children and the “Ignorant Learner”, who should look at the large print only; the “reasonable Teacher” should look at the notes, printed in small type: But since the Rational Grounds of Grammar may be thought Useful, we have added them in the Notes, as well as the Formation of Sounds, which may Instruct the reasonable Teacher in means of informing the Learner in many things necessary in Pronunciation, especially Foreigners, and such as may have any Natural Defect. This being in the Notes, does not interrupt the more Ignorant Learner of the Common Rules of the English Grammar, since those are plain and distinct by themselves (Brightland and Gildon 1711: A6r).

The Brightland grammar enunciates this method for the first time,10 and has therefore allowed the feasibility of a division into different grammar types. That means that the Brightland grammar offered a new approach towards grammar writing that had not been thought of before: the combination of a vernacular grammar and a philosophical grammar within one book. About fifty years later, Robert Lowth (1710–1787) made an explicit comment in his grammar of 1762 about the desirability of a separation of national grammars and philosophical inquiries. He suggested that everyone who is interested in the niceties of the English language should consult a specialist work such as Harris’s Hermes (1751) (1762: xiv). This statement suggests that around the middle of the eighteenth century the idea of distinct types of readership was born. Different readers were given different books to read. The texts were programmatic in that they not only described distinctions that already existed but also contributed to the existence of this kind of distinction. Comments like Lowth’s 9 The use of footnotes in the Brightland grammar differs from earlier attempts to differentiate several kinds of grammatical information. A differentiation within the text was common in earlier pedagogical works such as Comenius (1685). 10 After the Brightland grammar there were other grammarians who made use of footnotes, i.e. Harris (1751), Lowth (1762), Bayly (1772) and others. These “footnotes” were used to refer to other grammars and grammarians. Even Turner (1710) used notes to refer to aspects of preposition stranding. But I think all these notes show a different concept of “footnotes” from the one of the Brightland grammar. Brightland and Gildon not only used them to make observations and remarks, but also to separate their grammar into two parts, for the benefit of different types of audience.


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show that there seemed to be limits to what grammatical treatises should contain: philosophical inquiries should not be dealt with in grammars. The co-occurrence of several other grammars published within one year could have provoked Gildon to publish the Bellum. As one of the authors of the Brightland grammar, it was, however, one of his main concerns to advertise the grammar, which had become a selling point. The Bellum was thus a bookseller’s project, and we must draw the conclusion that the authors together with their publisher were battling each other for a claim to dominance of the market. By using the form of a pamphlet the Bellum becomes highly interactive and persuasive.

8.

Conclusion

With the present article I have tried to shed some light on a forgotten problem: the publication history of the Bellum Grammaticale and its function in the early decades of the eighteenth century. What all three grammars criticised in the Bellum have in common is that their authors seek to present English grammar in a form that could include universal features as well. Brightland and Gildon as well as Greenwood refer to Locke’s definition of the linguistic sign according to which a word is the expression of certain operations of the mind. The Brightland grammar is the first grammar of the eighteenth century that presents a combination of a national and a rational grammar. It is addressed to learners generally, while it also takes into account pupils who could be overburdened with such a work. Greenwood’s grammar is more or less a grammar of the English language, combined with some implications for philosophical language theory through references to Wallis, Wilkins and Locke. Greenwood was faithful to the common definitions, which, in his eyes, had the advantage of being generally accepted. Hence, he only made additions to the work of his predecessors when striving after more accuracy. He can thus be seen as the promotor of Wallis’s ideas, which thus ensured that Wallis’s influence lasted until well into the eighteenth century, i.e. at least throughout the forty years of the publication span of Greenwood’s grammar (1711–1753). After the appearance of his Essay Greenwood published another grammar, The Royal English Grammar (1737), which is a kind of shortened version of his original work. This book was published in 1780 for the last time. The Brightland grammar was last reprinted in 1759, eight years after Harris’s Hermes (1751) had appeared on the scene. Although Maittaire stuck to the grammar of classical languages in composing his own, his comparison of different languages, even though it is incom-

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plete, is outstanding and paved the way, together with the work of Bayly (1772) and Horne Tooke (1786), for comparative studies in the nineteenth century. The Bellum Grammaticale is a polemic pamphlet that served several purposes. First, its publication can be seen as an effort to launch the Brightland grammar, of which Gildon was one of the authors, onto the market. The book was published at a time when a veritable battle for the dominance of the market began to take place. On the other hand, the Bellum Grammaticale shows the developments that were taking place with respect to the functions of grammars. In contrast to the seventeenth century, when philosophy and science were in the hands of scholars only, the eighteenth century “is the period of vulgarization, of pseudo-philosophy and pseudo-science, of ‘chats’ à la Tatler and Spectator” (Vorlat 1975: 25). The eighteenth century is concerned with the education of a larger public (see also the development described by Bax, this volume). In this respect the increasing interest in practical language learning manifested itself in the need that was felt for practical grammars of the mother tongue. In conclusion, I would argue that there was after all no strict division between practical and rational grammar during the period focused on here, as is often claimed. Writers could not be pigeonholed as belonging to one or the other movement, but we almost always have works which provide a combination of both approaches.

The 1760s: Grammars, grammarians and the booksellers1 Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1.

Introduction

Some time around the year 1780, Robert Lowth (1710−1787), author of one of the best known and most authoritative English grammars of the eighteenth century, sat down to survey his life’s achievements. In doing so, he recorded the main events of his life in a three-page document, which is kept in the Bodleian Library. The document is of great interest to the publication history of his grammar because it contains the following information: Published, … [various titles] … Short Introduction to English Gram: :mar 8vo. 1762. Many Editions since in 12mo. all corrected with some alterations, additions, &c by ye. Author. The number of Copies printed in the whole including the Edition of 1780 (or 1781) amounted to about 34.000 (MS Eng. misc. c. 816, f. 127).

First and foremost, I think, this passage demonstrates Lowth’s pride in the evident success of the grammar during his lifetime, but it does a lot more besides. It informs us of the fact that the grammar came out in two formats, octavo and duodecimo, and that Lowth evidently continued to correct and adapt all new versions of the grammar that were published during his lifetime. In this respect it would appear that we have to do with proper editions here rather than reprints, always a complicated issue in the history of eighteenth-century grammar production. As Michael (1997: 25) explains it, the difference between a new edition and a reprint is that in the former there has been “a substantial change of text” compared to “little or none” in the latter. Accordingly, to judge by its preface, the 1768 edition of Joseph Priestley’s (1733−1804) grammar of 1761 would have been a new edition rather than a reprint:2 “… being frequently 1 The research for this paper was carried out in the context of the NWO research project The Codifiers and the English Language: Tracing the Norms of Standard English. I am particularly grateful to Noel Osselton, Jane Hodson and Nuria YañezBouza for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. 2 My source for this edition, as well as for later editions and reprints of the grammars discussed in this paper, is Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

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importuned to republish the former grammar, … I have, in this treatise, republished that work, with improvements, and so much of the materials I had collected for the larger [i.e. a much larger version of his grammar he had originally planned to write], as may be of practical use to those who write the language” (Priestley 1768: vi). (For a detailed discussion of the differences between the two editions, see Hodson, this volume.) This particular edition is unnumbered, though a later edition of the grammar was labelled “third edition” (1772). With two further intervening editions or reprints, of 1769 and 1771, each by a different publisher, it is hard to see from the inventory provided by Alston (1965: 40–42) whether this was indeed the third edition proper. According to Suarez (2000: 141), in any case, the numbering of editions on the title-page of eighteenth-century books is not always reliable. The passage from Lowth’s brief memoir contains another important piece of information, i.e. that altogether 34,000 copies were published of his grammar. To my mind this suggests that between 1762, when A Short Introduction to English Grammar first came out, and the year 1780 or 1781 when Lowth made this comment, 34 editions or reprints were published of the grammar, either in octavo or in duodecimo format, at a thousand copies of each print-run. My reason for this assumption is that this would be the simplest way for Lowth to arrive at the above figure. Moreover, 1000 copies was the usual size of a print-run at the time (Suarez 2000: 136). But perhaps the actual situation was more complicated. The publisher of the grammar, Robert Dodsley (along with his brother James Dodsley and Andrew Millar), published books in print-runs of various sizes (see Tierney 1988: 29), and Dodsley’s decision to print a thousand copies “suggested a particular faith in a work”. That Dodsley had faith in Lowth’s grammar I have already argued elsewhere (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a, 2001), but Dodsley also produced print-runs of 1500 or 2000 copies, “for those authors or works that had already proven themselves with the public and for which there continued a high demand” (Tierney 1988: 29). Lowth’s grammar was immediately popular, as appears from its favourable reception in the press at the time (Tierney 1988: 461n; see also Percy, this volume), and Dodsley put pressure on him − with evident success − to bring out a second edition the next year rather than two years later, as Lowth would have preferred.3 The question, 3

From his correspondence with Robert Dodsley, it appears that Lowth had submitted the revised version of his grammar at the end of January in 1761. It subsequently took a year for the grammar to be published, which would have been quite normal for a book of its size (cf. Suarez 2000: 136). On 5 March 1762, Lowth replied to Dodsley that he would prefer to wait longer with the publication of a second edition. As the second edition came out in April 1763 (Tierney 1988: 461n), and as so many additions

The 1760s: Grammars, grammarians and the booksellers

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therefore, is whether Dodsley did indeed publish no more than 1000 copies for each new edition or reprint, and if so, why he chose to do so. As in the case of Priestley, the editions of Lowth’s grammar were largely unnumbered, so it might not have been easy for Lowth to do his arithmetic unless he had been informed by his bookseller or, in modern terms, his publisher (see Suarez 2000: 132), about the total number of editions. However, I have not found any evidence of this in his correspondence with the Dodsleys in as far as it has come down to us (ed. Tierney 1988). Lowth does not appear to have received a copy of every newly printed edition of his grammar, for the list of books that accompanies his will (National Archives, Kew, Cat. Ref. PROB 11/1160, file ref. 190, 189) only mentions a single − octavo − edition of his grammar.4 There is an interesting reference to Lowth in the preface to the second edition of Priestley’s grammar: I must, also, acknowledge my obligation to Dr. Lowth, whose short introduction to English grammar was first published about a month after the former edition of mine. Though our plans, definitions of terms, and opinions, differ very considerably, I have taken a few of his examples (though generally for a purpose different from his) to make my own more complete. He, or any person, is welcome to make the same use of those which I have collected. It is from an amicable union of labours, together with a generous emulation in all the friends of science, that we may most reasonably expect the extension of all kinds of knowledge (Priestley 1768: xxiii).

Priestley and Lowth are usually said to have taken a different approach to grammar, the one being descriptive and the other normative with respect to usage (see Baugh and Cable 2002 [1951]: 274−275; see, however, Hodson 2006). However, whereas Priestley refers to Lowth, Lowth does not mention Priestley in any edition of his grammar (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006c); the influence, if there was any, thus seems to have been one-sided only.5 The first edition of Lowth’s grammar was published on 8 February 1762 (Tierney 1988: 461n), which suggests, if we accept the claim made in the above quotation, that Priestley’s grammar appeared towards the end of the year 1761.6 Smith (1998: 438) were made to the grammar that an entirely new text had to be produced, it appears that the new edition was already started within a month of the publication of the first edition. Possibly, Lowth’s hesitation was inspired by the large numbers of comments that were coming in at the time (Tieken-Boon van Ostade and Navest 2006). 4 Following Alston (1965), this might have been either the first or the third edition, or one of the editions or reprints published in 1764 (“a new edition”), 1769, 1774 or 1775. 5 It is therefore unclear to me what the basis is of Schofield’s (1997: 99) comment that Lowth “took over substantial parts of Priestley’s descriptions and evaluations of usage, while retaining their stricter logical sense of the language”. 6 Schofield (1997: 83) merely notes that Priestley’s grammar was printed “late in 1761”.

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took Priestley’s assertion that his grammar came out before Lowth’s to indicate a possible case of plagiarism; Priestley had used the word himself in the preface to his first edition: It is not denied that use hath been made of other Grammars, and particularly of Mr. Johnson’s, in compiling this: But it is apprehended, that there is so much that is properly original, both in the materials and the disposition of them in this, as is more than sufficient to clear a work of such a nature from the charge of plagiarism (Priestley 1761: iv; emphasis added).

However, I think it is unlikely that Priestley’s concern was with being accused of having plagiarised Lowth. Rather, for reasons that I will go into below, he was concerned with establishing that his grammar had entered the market first, before the more popular one by Lowth, even if only just so. I have already argued elsewhere that Lowth’s grammar was to an important extent a publishers’ project (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a, 2001, 2003). This suggests that the codification of the English language was as much in the hands of the publishers as in those of the grammarians themselves. In the present paper I will pursue this point further in order to try and shed some light on what was going on during the second half of the eighteenth century, when the number of English grammars published was higher than ever before. According to Sundby et al. (1991: 14) 83% of the grammars published during the eighteenth century came out after 1750,7 a trend which continued during the nineteenth century (Michael 1991, 1997). I will attempt to show that what was going on at the time was a veritable battle for the dominance of the market, compared to which the codifying and prescription of English grammar as such seems to have been only of secondary importance. At the same time I will try to reconstruct the publication history of Lowth’s grammar, which is a much more complicated task that would appear from the inventory of the various editions of the grammar presented by Alston (1965).

2.

The 1760s

Michael (1991: 12) identified 856 grammars published during the nineteenth century. His figures indicate a steady increase during the first half of the century and a certain amount of stability for the second half of the century, as is evident from Figure 1 below. 7

This point is frequently commented upon; see eg. Fitzmaurice (1998: 326), Lundskær-Nielsen (2000: 2), Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2000a: 877), Beal (2004: 90).


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120 100 80 60 grammars

40 20 0 1801-1810 1821-1830 1841-1850 1861-1870 1881-1890

Figure 1. The number of nineteenth-century grammars published by decade (Michael 1991: 12).

The increase, Michael claims (1991: 13), first becomes apparent during the 1770s and 1780s. However, Figure 2, in which I have listed all new titles of English grammars published during the eighteenth century according to Alston (1965), suggests that the development had aready started a decade earlier, during the 1760s. The figure also indicates that more new grammars were published during the final decade of the century than during the first one of the next (cf. Figure 1; see also Figure 2 in the Introduction above, which combines the figures presented here). 60 50 40 30 grammars 20 10 0 1700- 1710- 1720- 1730- 1740- 1750- 1760- 1770- 1780- 17901709 1719 1729 1739 1749 1759 1769 1779 1789 1799

Figure 2. The number of eighteenth-century grammars (first editions) published by decade (based on Alston 1965).

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The earlier increase in grammar production, i.e. during the second decade of the century, is dealt with by Buschmann-Göbels (this volume). The new grammars that came out during the 1760s are the following: two anonymous grammars (1764, 1769), Ash (1760), Wells (1760), Gough (1760), Henson (1760?), Priestley (1761), Buchanan (1762, 1767), Lowth (1762), Wiseman (1764), Johnson (?) (1765), Edwards (1765), Elphinston (1765), Fleming (1765?), Ward (1765, 1766?), Burn (1766), Houghton (1766), Parsons (1768), and Bell (1769). Ten of these grammars were published in London, and the remaining ones in Worcester, Cheltenham (?), Dublin (3), Nottingham, New York, York, Glasgow, Salop (Shrewsbury) and Newcastle. But when we add the grammars that were reprinted during the 1760s to the data in Figure 2, the trend becomes even clearer (see Figure 3). 160 140 120 100 80

reprints

60

1st editions

40 20 0 1700- 1710- 1720- 1730- 1740- 1750- 1760- 1770- 1780- 17901709 1719 1729 1739 1749 1759 1769 1779 1789 1799

Figure 3. First editions and reprints of eighteenth-century grammars published by decade (based on Alston 1965).

The grammars published earlier which were reprinted in the 1760s are the following: – – – –

Wallis (1653): 1765 (London), 1765 (London) Greenwood (1737): 6th ed. 1761 (Cork), 7th ed. 1763 (London) Newbery (?) (1745): 3rd ed. 1769 (London) Fisher ([1745]): 7th ed. 1762 (Newcastle), 7th ed. 1762 (London); 8th ed. 1763 (London), 10th ed. 1765 (London), 9th ed. 1766 (Newcastle), 10th ed. 1767 (London), 11th ed. 1768 (Newcastle) – anon. (1747): partly reprinted in 1760 (London)


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– Wesley (1748): 2nd ed. 1761 (Bristol) – Martin (1754): 3rd ed. 1766 (London). It is particularly striking that even Wallis was reprinted during the 1760s, the more so since the previous edition of the grammar as recorded by Alston (1965) had come out in 1699 (on the reception of this new edition, see Percy this volume). Only three of the above grammars, Greenwood, Fisher and Wesley, were reprinted outside London; Greenwood’s reprint may be a pirated one, i.e. a reprint which was published without the author’s or the original publishers’ permission (Feather 1994: 74). The Copyright Act of 1710 covered England only, and according to Feather (1988: 77) the “printers and publishers of Ireland (which in practice meant Dublin) and of Scotland (in Edinburgh and Glasgow) had little need to concern themselves” with it. Fisher’s grammar had first come out in Newcastle, and continued to be published there while the grammar was published in London as well. Even several grammars that had first come out in the 1760s were reprinted during this same decade, i.e. – Ash (1760): 1763 (London); 4th ed. 176(3?) (London); 1766 (London); 1768 (London) – Gough (1760): 1764 (Dublin) – Priestley (1761): 1768 (London); 1769 (London) – Buchanan (1762): 2nd ed. 1768 (London) – Lowth (1762): 2nd ed. 1763 (London); 2nd ed. 1763 (Dublin); 3rd ed. 1764 (London); 1764 (London); 5th ed. 1765 (Belfast); 1767 (London); 1767 (London); 1769 (London); 1769 (Dublin) – Elphinston (1765): 1766 (London) – Ward (1766?): 1767 (York) – Buchanan (1767): 1769 (London). Gough’s grammar was published in Dublin, but in contrast to Greenwood’s Cork edition referred to above it seems a regular edition, for Michael (1970: 564) notes that Gough was “Master of the Boarding-School, Lisburn”, in Ireland. The editions of Lowth’s grammar that were published outside London, however, all seem to be pirated editions. This is suggested by the fact that the regular editions of the grammar all came out anonymously (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a: 29). Putting Lowth’s name on the title-page appears to have served as a marketing device, as did that of Priestley, for H. Saunders, the publisher of the Dublin reprint of Lowth’s grammar (1763), also added Priestley’s “Observations on style” to this unauthorised reprint of the book.

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3. The role of the booksellers As shown above, the 1760s were a busy period as far as the production of grammars was concerned. This is confirmed by the reception of the grammars in the press at the time (see Percy, this volume). The lists presented indicate that a number of activities were going on at the same time, which can all be interpreted as efforts at trying to gain control of the market. To begin with, three, possibly four, new grammars were published in the year 1760 alone, by Ash, Gough, Wells and Henson (though the date of publication of the latter grammar, according to Alston, is uncertain). Strikingly, none of these were published in London. Ash’s grammar is the most interesting of the four, not only because it was reprinted so frequently − Alston lists 48 editions and reprints altogether, including pirated editions, as well as two German translations − but also because it was later re-issued in London. The book had originally been published in Worcester, but the 1763 edition mentions that, since its original publication in 1760 “Two editions … of this little Book have been … published in London” (1763: vii). Michael (1970: 550) notes that Ash (1724−1779) had written the grammar for his daughter of five, and that it had subsequently been used by a friend of his, Rev. John Ryland from Northampton, in his school.8 That the two reprints − in the Advertisement to the 1763 version of the grammar Ash mentions that his grammar had been so well received that he decided “to revise the original Copy, [making] some Amendments and Additions” (1763: viii), so the earlier versions of the grammar were very likely reprints rather than new editions (see § 1 above) − had appeared in London, suggests that Ash tried to aim for a wider market than a local one. His attempt was evidently successful, for of the 48 editions and reprints listed by Alston 26 were published in London, the majority of them by Edward and Charles Dilly. As in the case of Lowth’s grammar, Ash’s grammar appears to have been pirated by publishers abroad as well: it was re-issued in Dublin, New York, Philadelphia and Albany (see Alston 1965).9 In the Advertisement to the 1763 edition, Ash also mentions that the two reprints, neither of which appears to have come down to us, had been subtitled “an easy introduction to Dr. Lowth’s English Grammar” (1763: viii), despite the fact, as Ash puts it himself, that “it was first printed before the earliest Edition of that valuable Book” (1763: viii). This suggests that both reprints 8 9

For an analysis of the publication history of Ash’s grammar, see Navest (forthc.). In the case of Ash it is less easy to distinguish pirated from regular editions than in the case of Lowth; Ash’s grammar, for instance, always had the author’s name on the title-page, whereas the regular editions of Lowth’s grammar were published anonymously.


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came out some time but not too long after 8 February 1762, the date of publication of Lowth’s grammar. As in the case of the pirated editions of Lowth’s grammar, his name had become a selling point, and it is interesting to note that this happened almost immediately upon the publication of the first edition, and despite the fact that the grammar was published anonymously. But, as I’ve already indicated, Priestley’s name had similarly become a selling point. Like Ash, Ann Fisher’s grammar ([1745]) was first published outside London, and just like Ash, Fisher (1719−1779) tried her luck in London as well. The first London edition came out in 1753, and this is also the first time that her name (“A. Fisher”) appears on the title-page (Alston 1965). (For a detailed discussion of the authorship of Ann Fisher’s grammar, see Rodríguez-Gil, this volume.) The title-page says that the book was printed for “the Author”, suggesting that she may have felt that at this stage she did not need a publisher there: according to Rodríguez-Gil (this volume), the first edition of the grammar, which has not come down to us, had been “distributed and sold in London by ‘M. Downing, C. Hitch, and J. Clarke, Booksellers’”. In 1762 a seventh edition of her grammar was published in London, this time under a slightly different title, A Practical New Grammar. The addition of the word “practical” may have served the purpose of marketing the grammar (see also Percy, this volume). The same idea is found in the publication of John Ward’s Essay of Grammar published five years later, as this book consists of two parts, one called “Speculative, being an Attempt to investigate proper Principles” and the other “Practical, containing Definitions and Rules deduced from the Principles, and illustrated by a Variety of Examples from the most approved Writers” (Ward 1765, titlepage).10 Priestley likewise used the concept in the preface to the second edition of his grammar (see § 1). It is probably no coincidence that the new edition of Fisher’s grammar came out in the same year as Lowth’s grammar, nor that another London edition appeared the year after that. The publishers of the 1762 edition were C. Hitch and L. Hawes; Hitch had been involved with the publication of the unlocated first edition (see above), and Hawes appears as one of the publishers of the eighth edition, in 1763, together with the London publisher J. Richardson and with Thomas Slack, Fisher’s husband, who is listed as the publisher of her grammar in Newcastle from 1757 onwards. Meanwhile, new editions or reprints continued to appear in Newcastle, down to at least 1800. After Ash, Lowth, and, indeed, Lindley Murray (1745−1826), Fisher was “the

10

That the two notions are linked is shown in the definition of the word practical in Johnson’s Dictionary: “Relating to action, not merely speculative” (1756 ed., s.v. “practical”).

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fourth most popular grammar of the period” (Rodríguez-Gil 2002a). She evidently knew how to market her grammars. With Priestley claiming that his own grammar had appeared a month before Lowth’s, we must draw the conclusion that the authors, perhaps together with their publishers, were battling amongst each other for a claim to being the first on the market. Lowth had begun to write his grammar in 1757 for his four-yearold son, and by agreeing to publish it, Robert Dodsley, who had seen his original plan of combining an authoritative grammar with an authoritative dictionary (i.e. that of Dr. Johnson) fail,11 saw a new opportunity in catering for a market which was evidently only just beginning to develop. Cooperating with Andrew Millar, who also published Buchanan’s The British Grammar that same year, i.e. in 1762, Dodsley together with his brother and successor James shared the risk of a potential financial disaster; Millar had also been involved with the publication of Dodsley’s earlier project, Johnson’s Dictionary (1755), the other publishers being J. and P. Knapton, T. and T. Longman, C. Hitch and L. Hawes. The latter two had reissued Ann Fisher’s grammar in 1762 (see above). In 1767, to judge by the information in Alston’s bibliography, the bookseller Thomas Cadell entered the scene, first as one of the publishers of a reprint of Lowth’s grammar, and a year later of a reprint of Buchanan. It looks as if we have to do with a consortium of publishers here, who were competing with the Dillys, the publishers of Ash’s grammar, and also that the earlier consortium of publishers of Johnson’s Dictionary had split up. Such collaboration between booksellers was common at the time, not only to share the financial risks involved, but also so that sales could be promoted by different people (Suarez 2000: 138). Suarez continues to note that “the eighteenth-century book trade was a fascinating mixture of financial cooperation and competition among its members”, and this is indeed what we witness here, too. Could all this provide a clue for the apparent lack of initial success of Priestley’s grammar? Having come out in 1761, it would take seven years for a new edition to see the light. Unlike in the case of Lowth, Priestley’s publisher, Ralph Griffiths (1720?–1803), who also published the Monthly Review (Schofield 1997: 79n), may not have put pressure on him for a second edition. But Priestley may have been to blame too, for according to Hodson (this volume) he was initially besieged by doubts about his own grammar after he read the one by Lowth, but eventually decided the revise his grammar and bring out a second edition after all. From a marketing perspective, the publishers of this second 11

Johnson had been criticised for having treated the syntax of English in only ten or twelve lines in the grammar prefixed to his dictionary (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1988).


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edition seem to have done a better job than those of the first, for successive editions and reprints came out between 1768 and 1798, though hardly as many as in the case of Fisher, Ash or Lowth. According to Schofield (1997: 99) Priestley did leave his mark on the history of grammar writing, as the grammar was translated into French in 1799, formed the basis of a book, published privately but not listed by Alston, called Elementary Principles of English Grammar collected … chiefly from Dr. Priestley (1798), and was used as late as 1827 for a book called Dr. Priestley’s English Grammar Improved. In the case of the publication of the grammar proper, we apparently have to do with a publishing consortium here as well: T. Becket and J. Johnson, two of the publishers of the 1768 edition, were involved in the publication of the 1769 edition, and Johnson in those that came out in 1786, 1789 and 1798. Another possibility for the grammar’s lack of popularity may have been its price: on the title-page of the 1772 edition the price of the grammar is recorded as three shillings, which is considerably higher than that the cheapest form at which Lowth’s grammar was advertised in 1766. In 1789 the Leeds bookseller John Binns advertised what appears to be a second-hand copy of Lowth’s grammar at one shilling and three pence (see further § 4 below). As a bookseller, John Binns, who is referred to by Michael (1970: 552) as “Schoolmaster, at Bretton, near Wakefield, Yorkshire”, is of interest here, too, though he was not involved with any of the grammars newly published in the 1760s. He did publish an edition by Lowth in 1794, in Leeds, which is described on the title-page as “a new edition, corrected”. Lowth’s name does not appear on the title-page. The question, however, is who was responsible for making the corrections, as Lowth had died seven years previously. The same applies to the “new edition, corrected” of Lowth’s grammar which was brought out by Dodsley and Cadell in 1794, and perhaps others as well. In the passage quoted at the beginning of this paper, Lowth claimed to have corrected all editions brought out by his publishers himself. How much he changed in later editions is as yet unclear, but for the editions published after his death it seems likely that the word “corrected” served the aim of advertising the grammar to the public. In other words, advertising the work like this was part of the marketing strategy of the publishers. Earlier, Binns had also published “a new edition” of Ann Fisher’s grammar (1780?), likewise after her death, and according to Rodriguez-Gil (2002a), another edition appeared in 1801. Binns even wrote a grammar himself, called The Youth’s Guide, to the English Language. The entry in Alston is dated 1788, but the addition “a new edition” suggests that a first edition must have come out earlier. Binns appears to have published the book himself, and the grammar was sold by John Milner in Halifax and G. Nicholson in Bradford. Both places are close to Leeds, where

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Binns had his bookshop. With the publication of his grammar he seems to have wanted to create a market for his own book in the North. In ECCO I came across three catalogues published by Binns in 1789, 1795, 1797.12 In these catalogues Binns advertised antiquarian as well as new books, and among them there are various grammars, including those by Lowth and Fisher (but not Priestley). (For a discussion of the role of such catalogues in assessing the possible impact of particular eighteenth-century grammarians, see Auer, this volume.) It therefore seems likely that upon realising the popularity of these grammars, Binns decided to issue reprints of Lowth’s and Fisher’s grammars. It is unlikely that he would have got permission from the original publishers to do so, as James Dodsley, together with Thomas Cadell Junior, brought out another reprint of Lowth’s grammar a year later, in 1795.

4. The publication history of Lowth’s grammar Above, I argued that Lowth’s figure of 34,000 copies of his grammar printed suggests that there were 34 regular editions, i.e. published by the Dodsleys, Millar and Cadell, down to the year 1780 or 1781. Lowth also mentioned in his brief memoir that his grammar first came out in octavo and later in duodecimo. That the grammar was regularly published in two sizes is confirmed by the following excerpt from a letter to James Dodsley: For the New Edition of the Grammar in ye. smaller size [i.e. 12°], You will give the Printer directions from any of the Editions of small size in regard to the Letter, ye. Form of the Page &c; but be pleased to observe, that he must print from ye. last Edition of 1772, (of ye. larger size [i.e. 8°], & better paper,) as yt. differs by some Corrections fm. ye. rest. Be pleas[ed] to give him orders to send the Sheets to me, after one Correction, by the Post; & I will return them regularly (Lowth to James Dodsley, 18 October 1773; BL Add. MSS 35,339, f. 39; emphasis added).

Alston’s inventory, however, only includes a duodecimo edition of the 1772 reprint, i.e. one “of the smaller size”. This indicates that Alston’s list is incomplete, which is hardly surprising given the fact that many copies of Lowth’s grammar may not have survived due to the wear and tear of frequent use and that consequently many editions may have disappeared without a trace (cf. Suarez 2000: 141). Just how incomplete Alston’s list is would be an interesting point for investigation. The following table provides an overview of what it contains: 12

On the title-page of the catalogue for 1797, for instance, he mentions that he was “bookseller, printer, stationer, print-seller, and music-seller, in Leeds”.


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Table 1. Lowth’s regular (i.e. non-pirated) editions as listed in Alston (1965) down to 1800.13 Year 1762

Numbered

1763 1764 1764 1767 1767 1769 1771 1772 1774 1775 1776 1778 1781 1782 1783 1784 1786 1787 1787 1789 1789 1791 1793 1795

second third a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition

Size Comment 8° “an Edition of no great number” (Lowth to Merrick, ca. 8 Feb. 1762) 12° 8° 8° 12° 16° 8° 12° 12° 8° 8° 12° 12° 12° 12° 8° 12° 12° 12° “for the Booksellers” (title-page) 8° 12° 12° “for the Booksellers” (title-page) 12° 8° 12° J. Dodsley, T. Cadell jun., and W. Davis

This list shows a number of things. In the first place, down to 1781, the terminus ante quem of Lowth’s memoir, Alston managed to track down no more than fourteen editions or reprints. Lowth’s memoir refers to an “Edition of 1780 (or 1781)”. This seems to suggest that an edition was planned either for 1780 or for 1781, not both, and in the light of Alston’s list that the edition was indeed published in 1781. Alston’s inventory also indicates that for some time at least the grammar was reissued yearly. Given its continued popularity in the 1780s and its immediate popularity in the early 1760s (see § 1), this very likely seems to have been the case for the 1760s as well as the 1770s. This would give us an additional hypothetical seven editions or reprints before 1781, i.e. 1765, 1766, 13

Neither this table nor the next contains the edition or reprint that came out in 1797 as this seems to be neither a regular nor a pirated edition (see also below).

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1768, 1770, 1773, 1777 and 1779, which would bring us to a total 21 editions and reprints, still well short of the proposed 34. The pirated editions provide evidence for the existence of the 1765 edition. Alston lists the following: Table 2. Pirated editions of Lowth’s grammar as listed in Alston (1965) down to 1800 (except for the 1790 edition, which is included in ECCO). Year Numbered 1763 1765 1769

1774 1775 1775 1780 1783 1783 1785 1787 eighth 1790 1794 1794 1795 1795 1799 1799 1800

Size Comment

second fifth a new edition (anonymous) a new edition

a new edition a new edition a new edition a new edition (anonymous) a new edition (anonymous) a new edition (anonymous) a new edition a new edition a new edition

12° Dublin: H. Saunders 12° Belfast: J. Hay and H. & R. Joy 12° Dublin: James Williams 12° 12° 12° 12° 12° 8° 12° 12° 12° 8° 12°

Dublin: Thomas Ewing Waterford: Hugh and James Ramsey Philadelphia: R. Aitken Hartford (America) Hartford: Nathaniel Patten Newbury-port: John Mycall Dublin: R. Jackson and T. White (Cork) Dublin: R. Jackson London: E. Wenman Basil: J. J. Tourneisen Leeds: Binns

12° New York: Rogers and Berry 12° Cork: Thomas White 12° Philadelphia: R. Aitken 12° London: J. Johnson, G. G. & J. Robinson, J. Walker [et al.] 12° Wilmington: Bonsel and Niles

According to Suarez (2000: 141) so-called “edition statements” on the title-page of an eighteenth-century book need not be taken at their face value, as entering a high edition number on the title-page might merely serve as a selling device, rightly or wrongly informing the would-be buyer of the popularity of the book in question. This may indeed have been the case with the eighth Dublin edition recorded in Table 2, for Lowth’s regular publishers ceased to number new editions possibly after the third edition (Table 1), but perhaps after the fifth. For this, we might take the fifth Belfast edition in Table 2 as evidence, though this would imply that a fourth edition had been published in the same year as the third edition (1764) or the fifth (1765). Neither editions have come down to us.


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That Alston’s bibliography doesn’t tell us the full story is confirmed by the fact that no “New Edition of the Grammar in ye. smaller size”, i.e. duodecimo, published shortly after the above letter (October 1773), is mentioned; it only includes an octavo edition (1774). Given the popularity of the grammar and Lowth’s own comments on its publication process, it seems likely that for some time at least two editions were brought out yearly, in two sizes, for different audiences perhaps. And not only in different sizes, for in an Advertisement added to the copy of Lowth’s Larger Confutation of Bishop Hare’s System of Hebrew Metre (1766) in Lambeth Palace Library the grammar is announced as follows: “A Short Introduction of English Grammar, with critical Notes. Two Editions, one on Writing Paper, price 3s. and the other for the Use of Schools, price 1s. 6d.”. I am not sure what the information that the grammar was printed on “Writing Paper” means. Possibly, it refers to a so-called interleaved copy, such as one of the two copies held by Winchester College (Navest 2007). Such copies of the grammar would be twice as expensive as the ones intended “for the Use of Schools” because of the double amount of paper needed. Percy (1997: 131) notes that the Monthly Review in 1762 advertised the grammar at three shillings, and that it was twice as expensive as Priestley’s “admittedly slimmer” grammar. I’ve already noted that Priestley’s grammar also cost three shillings in 1772, but this revised edition of the grammar was more than twice as long as the first (see Alston 1965). The price of Lowth’s grammar in Binns’s catalogues varies from nine pence for a secondhand copy and one shilling for a copy labelled “good as new” to 1s 3d for a new one. Possibly, therefore, Lowth’s grammar had become cheaper in the light of increased competition by the mid 1790s or because it had decreased in popularity in the course of time (cf. Figures 2 and 3). Whether the grammar came out in different sizes from the start is unclear. Table 1 shows that there were indeed two editions in the year 1764, but both of them appeared in octavo format. It is also striking that in 1767 a sextodecimo edition came out. This may indicate that around this time the booksellers were experimenting with a new size for the grammar, again with an eye to the market. It is unclear if this was a one-off attempt, as I have not come across any other such copies (see however below). If we assume that from the third edition onwards, the grammar was published in two sizes yearly, and that Lowth would have been informed of this, we would end up with 35 not 34 editions including the “1780 (or 1781)” edition, as Lowth put it. But as the first edition of the grammar was, again in Lowth’s own words, “an Edition of no great number”, it seems likely this edition was not included of the grand total of 34,000. As I have argued elsewhere (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a), he considered this a trial version in any case. Just how many copies were printed of this edition we may never learn; perhaps

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the grammar was published in 250 copies, Dodsley’s smallest print-run according to Tierney (1988: 29). The following quotation from one of Lowth’s letters to his friend and fellow scholar James Merrick (1720–1769) provides further illustration of the decision to bring out two editions in 1764: You sent me something, to the same purpose I believe, before, referring to Dr. Birch’s Life of Tillotson, 2d Edition; but I cd. not meet with yt. Edition time enough, nor find ye. place referred to, in ye. first Edition. The 2 Editions of ye. Grammar now published have been finished at the Press some months ago; so that ye. opportunity of Correction is past (Lowth to Merrick, 25 October 1764; Bodl. Lib. MS. Eng. Lett. C. 573, f. 106; emphasis added).

Both editions are indeed listed in Alston, and both were brought out in octavo format. Possibly the decision to bring out two editions a year also explains why there are no further edition statements on the title-page after the third edition (or, indeed, the fifth; see above). Lowth occasionally, it seems, continued to add corrections to the text, as he said he did in the case of the 1772 edition, but the additions may not have been so substantial as to merit the label of edition rather than reprint; it seems therefore that from the third edition onwards we would have to do with reprints rather than with editions proper according to Michael’s definition cited in § 1 (cf. Tieken-Boon van Ostade and Navest 2006). The next step is to see whether any evidence can be found to corroborate the above suggestions. I have already mentioned the fact that Alston’s bibliography seems incomplete. Not surprisingly, various additional copies of the grammars in his bibliography have surfaced since it was first drawn up. For many years now, for instance, York Minster Library has been acquiring copies of Lindley Murray’s grammar (1795), and the list compiled by Barr (1996) contains various items not in Alston (1965). Similarly, Rodríguez-Gil (2002a) found an additional ten editions and reprints of Ann Fisher’s grammar not listed in Alston (1965).14 In order to try and identify editions of Lowth’s grammar that have come to light since the appearance of Alston (1965) I checked the holdings of the following, fairly randomly selected libraries: those of the Universities of Cambridge and Leiden, Beinecke Library (Yale), the British Library,15 the Library of Congress, Lambeth Palace Library and Canterbury Cathedral Library.16 Doing so was complicated by the fact that possibly the information in Alston is not free from error. To give an example: the 1767 edition came out in two sizes according to 14 15 16

Cf. Austin (2000: footnote 1) on her search for editions and reprints of Daniel Fenning’s Universal Spelling Book (1756). For these editions and reprints, I checked the copies in ECCO, of which all but two are held by the British Library. I am grateful to Tony Fairman for supplying me with this information.


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Alston, duodecimo and sextodecimo, the former having 140 and the latter 205 pages. Alston lists a Cambridge copy with 140 pages, but the only Cambridge copy of that year which I found and checked was a duodecimo copy of 205 pages. Similarly, according to Alston, the 1769 edition was printed in octavo, whereas the Cambridge copy I saw is in duodecimo. As Alston lists numerous other octavo copies of this edition, we may well have to do with a different version of the grammar here. As an additional piece of information there are the annotations made by John Loveday (1711−1789) in his copy of the first edition of the grammar (see Navest 2007). Another complication in tracing copies of Lowth’s grammar – or any eighteenth-century grammar for that matter – is that it was not unusual at the time for different books to be bound together. A relevant example of this is the copy of the first edition of Lowth’s grammar owned by Chatsworth House, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, which is bound with a copy of the first edition of John Ward’s Four Essays upon the English Language published in 1758 (both printed in octavo).17 The results of my search may be summarised as follows: – Cambridge University Library: one additional edition (1769, 12°, 160 pp.); one copy not listed in Alston (1775); in addition, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has another copy of the 1804 edition in Alston (London, 8°, 168 pp.) – Leiden University Library: one additional copy (1764, 8°, 192 pp.)18 – Beinecke Library: three additional editions (1795, 12°, 144 pp.; 1795, 12°, 119 pp.; 1811, 12°? [18cm], 164 pp.); eight copies not listed in Alston (1763 2x; 1775 2x; 1783; 1799, 1800, 1811) – British Library: one additional edition (3rd ed. 1764, 12°, 146 pp.) – Library of Congress: one additional edition (1793, 12°, 221 pp.)19 – Lambeth Palace Library: one copy, not listed in Alston (1763) – Canterbury Cathedral Library: one copy, not listed in Alston (1778) – Loveday’s copy: two additional “new editions, corrected” (1767, 8°; 1772, 8°)20 – Chatsworth House: one copy (1762, 8°). 17

I am grateful for this information to Andrew Peppitt, archivist (The Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth). 18 The edition in Alston is described as octavo. 19 The copy measures 17 cms. Note that Alston lists the edition as octavo, and that the size of Lowth’s first edition in the Beinecke Library catalogue is given as 23 cms. 20 This information is based on the handwritten note on the page opposite the titlepage of the copy of the first edition of the grammar in Pennsylvania State University Library. I owe this to Sandra Stelts, Curator Rare Books and Manuscripts. Alston notes only duodecimo editions for the years 1767 and 1772.

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My search would thus have produced eight editions and fourteen copies not listed by Alston that have been discovered since. More of them, such as the duodecimo edition of 1774 that Lowth referred to in his letter to Dodsley, are expected to surface in due time, as there are many privately owned copies − including one in my own possession (1772) and one in that of Anthony Lowth, one of Robert Lowth’s living relatives (1778) − that may eventually find their way into libraries. But of the additional editions, only three came out before 1781, the date of Lowth’s estimate. In Table 3 I have presented the results of my library searches for copies of Lowth’s grammar published until 1781 that we didn’t know about already in addition to those listed in Alston (1965); these have been marked in bold. The table also contains editions the existence of which is only speculative (in italics). Table 3. Reconstructed publication history of Lowth’s grammar down to 1781 (hypothetical editions in italics, actually attested ones in bold), based on Alston (1965) and additional findings afterwards. Year Numbered 1762 1763 Second 1764 Third 1764 Third 1764 1765 1765 1766 1766 1767 1767 1767 1768 1768 1769 1769 1770 1770 1771 21

Size Comment/evidence 8° “an Edition of no great number” (Lowth to Merrick, ca. 8 Feb. 1762) 12° Alston 8°21 Alston (192 pp.) 12° British Library (146 pp.) a new edition 8° Alston (192 pp.); Brit. Library (208 pp.) pirated edition (fifth edition)

12° a new edition 16° new ed., corr. 8°

Alston Alston Loveday’s copy

a new edition 8° 12°

Alston Cambridge University Library (160 pp.)

a new edition 12°

Alston

This information has been confirmed to me by Malcolm P. Marjoram (British Library Rare Books Reference Service).

The 1760s: Grammars, grammarians and the booksellers Table 3.

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(continued)

Year Numbered Size 1771 1772 a new edition 12° 1772 new ed., corr. 8° 1773 1773 1774 a new edition 8° 1774 1775 a new edition 8° 1775 1776 a new edition 12° 1776 1777 1777 1778 a new edition 12° 1778 1779 1779 1781 a new edition 12°

Comment/evidence Alston Loveday’s copy

Alston Alston Alston

Alston

Alston

This table leaves us with almost as many gaps as evidence of existing editions or reprints. It also raises a number of questions, particularly relating to what seems an unexpectedly large number of 1764 editions. To begin with, it is clear that there were two different editions for this year, a third one and a so-called “new edition”. This leaves us with the problem that both copies of the third edition are described as being of a different size, i.e. 192 and 146 pages. Could a mistake have been made in the description of the copies in Alston? The “new edition” may of course have come out in two formats, octavo and duodecimo, as well, which would leave us with four versions of the grammar that were published in 1764: a third edition in two sizes, 192 and 146 pages, and a new edition published in octavo as well as duodecimo. All in all, according to the hypothetical reconstruction in Table 3, we would have 37, not 34 different editions. Possibly, as already noted, Lowth did not include the first edition of the grammar in his estimate as he himself said that it was published in a small print-run. For Lowth to be right in his estimate we would furthermore have to assume that towards the end of the period covered not two editions were published yearly but one. For all that, the reconstruction of the early years of the printing history of the grammar in the light of Lowth’s own comments about it does not seem far off the mark. In this light it will be interesting to await the results of the project announced at the Third Late Modern English Conference

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(Leiden, 30 August to 1 September 2007) by Rodríguez-Gil and Yañez-Bouza (2007) which aims at providing an up-to-date database of eighteenth-century grammars. The above reconstruction, speculative though it is, is the result of a close reading of Alston’s bibliographical account of Lowth’s grammar down to 1781 supplemented by my own search for copies of Lowth’s grammar. It has shown a number of things, one of them being that bibliographies and catalogues do not always describe items identically. Beinecke Library, for instance, variously describes its copies in cms and print sizes, which severely complicates any attempt at identifying different editions. Its descriptions, however, are far from uniform and possibly wrong, for how could copies of 17 cms be identified as quarto or octavo at the same time? Primarily, however, my reconstruction has shown that it was indeed quite likely that for commercial reasons Robert Dodsley and his successors preferred to publish the grammar in what was a fairly standard print-run of one thousand copies and that they did so in different sizes, presumably aiming at different sections in the market. New editions of the grammar were advertised in the press – “Observing in the papers, that a new edition is intended, of Dr Lowth’s Grammar; I beg leave, by your means, to communicate an observation that occurs to me, concerning the article a” (Bodl. Libr. MS. Eng. Lett. C. 574, f. 6), a certain Richard Burn wrote, presumably to Robert Dodsley, on 16 September 1764 – and it would have been part of good marketing strategy on the part of the Dodsleys and Millar to publish a new edition each year rather than have larger print-runs which would have lasted longer. Contrary to Suarez’s suggestion that booksellers would manipulate edition statements on the title-page in order to promote the sale of a book, this was not done in the case of Lowth’s grammar, very likely due to its popularity as such. Lowth’s name alone, for a considerable period of time at least, was enough to guarantee the sale of his grammar, even if it did not occur on the title-page. This is evident from its reception in the early months after its publication. Thus, on 26 February 1762, less than three weeks after the grammar had come out, a certain Thomas Fitzmaurice wrote to the philosopher and political economist Adam Smith (1723–1790), asking him: “Pray have you seen Dr Louths English Grammar which is just come out? It is talk’d of much. Some of the ingenious men with whom this University overflows, are picking faults and finding Errors in it at present. Pray what do you think of it?” (Mossner and Ross 1987, letter 64). And on 20 May of the same year the writer William Shenstone (1714–1763) wrote to a certain Mr. Graves: “What think you of Dr. Lowth’s Grammar? – Livie met him at Mr. Dodsley’s, and says, he is well pleased with our frontispiece, &c. to Horace” (Shenstone 1769: 379). It is clear that Lowth’s grammar was the talk of the town, which must have inspired Dodsley to bring


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out the second edition almost at once, and in any case sooner than Lowth would have liked to do himself. In a letter to his friend James Merrick, Lowth had written that the grammar had originally been published as “an Edition of no great number” (Lowth to Merrick, ca. 8 Feb. 1762). Possibly, the scarcity of the grammar contributed to its demand, and this may have continued even after the publishers had decided to raise the grammar’s print-run to 1000 copies. Alston lists 152 copies of Lowth’s grammar down to 1781. My own searches have produced an additional 14 copies. New copies will very likely continue to come to light,22 while it is obviously impossible to estimate the number of copies that are currently in private ownership. Compared to the original size of the total output or the grammar, I would still hazard to conclude that in the light of our present knowledge only around 0.5% of the copies printed, according to Lowth’s own record, has come down to us. This very low figure is due to the intensive use to which this popular grammar must have been put; I was indeed struck by the fact that almost all copies of the grammar which I recently saw, including my own, do not appear to have been used much. This evidently added significantly to their chances of survival (cf. Suarez 2000: 141). 5. A market for grammars According to Fitzmaurice (1998), the increase in grammatical productivity during the second half of the eighteenth century catered for the rising middle classes who had to be supplied with new norms of speaking and writing correctly (see also Michael 1991). This is, indeed, the reason why Lowth wrote his grammar in the first place. But it is thanks to Robert Dodsley and his fellow publishers that the grammar was published to begin with, and that it reached such a wide circulation. Dodsley can be credited with a good eye for what would succeed in such a market, as appears from the popularity of his other major project, Johnson’s Dictionary. It is interesting to see how publishers at the time employed particular strategies that served to make their books appealing to prospective buyers. In the above discussion I have identified a number of them: – to publish the grammar in different formats as well as forms; this seems peculiar to Lowth’s grammar, as Fisher and Priestley were only published 22

Searching the holding libraries listed in ECCO for copies of the grammars included in the database did not prove very helpful: occasionally, as in the case of the 1762 edition more copies would indeed seem to have been located since Alston (1965), but in other cases, e.g. that of the 1769 edition, there would seem to be fewer copies around than before. It is not quite clear to me what to make of this.

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in duodecimo, while Ash’s grammar was published once in octavo in 1783 (was Dilly imitating Lowth’s publishers in this?) – to add an advertisement in books by the same author; the first instance of this in Lowth’s works as I far as I have seen them occurs in 1766, but it becomes standard practice after that23 – to print the grammar in limited numbers so that new editions could be published regularly and advertised in the press – to advertise new editions as having been “corrected” by the author, even after the author was no longer alive. The immediate popularity of Lowth’s grammar led to many pirated editions: Alston lists nineteen of them, sixteen of which carry Lowth’s name on the titlepage. Identifying the author’s name on the title-page served as another marketing strategy, as did that of Priestley; it was very likely common knowledge that Lowth was the anonymous author of the grammar, and I have seen many copies of the grammar in which Lowth’s name was added by hand. It was for this very reason that the Dodsleys and Millar never needed to do so themselves: the grammar was selling well as it was. That so many grammars were published outside London, whether regularly or in the form of pirated editions, indicates that the market for grammars was expanding on a nation-wide scale. This is another development that took place in the 1760s, and Binns’s activities illustrate this development very well (see also Auer, this volume). For all that, to find a London publisher evidently remained an important issue in the marketing of grammars, as appears from the fact that both Fisher and Ash sought to publish their grammars there. This is even true for Lindley Murray, whose abridgement of his grammar, after its original publication in York in 1797, came out in London only a year later. His English Grammar (1795) proper, according to Alston (1965), did not appear in London until 1805. Publishers, those in England as well as those abroad who could evade current copyright regulations (Feather 1994: 71), clearly watched each other’s activities closely. This is suggested by the attempt on the part of the Dilly brothers to bring out Ash’s grammar in a different format, but also by the fact that in the 1790s A. Millar, together with W. Law and R. Cater, brought out editions of the grammar by Ash (1791) and Lowth (1797) as well as Fisher (1793).24 By this time, Lowth’s grammar had just run out of copyright, which according to the Copyright Act of 1710 lasted for 28 years after original publication with 23

As these advertisements are not always included in the reprints in ECCO, it is impossible to use this resource in order to investigate this more systematically. 24 Alston’s information, based on the catalogue of the Library of Congress, merely reads “A. Millar [et al]”.


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two possible further extensions of fourteen years each (Feather 1788: 74). The copyright on Fisher’s grammar would have run out earlier, and I myself possess a copy of Fisher’s grammar published in 1789 for Millar, Law and Cater and for Wilson and Spence (the grammar is not listed in Alston). In the case of Lowth the publishers collaborated with the publishers of Murray’s grammar, Wilson, Spence and Mawman. Wilson and Spence had earlier reprinted Ann Fisher’s grammar, as my own copy of the grammar indicates, while Mawman was involved in the publication of the thirty-first edition of Fisher’s grammar (1800) (Alston 1965). Ash’s grammar would still have another few years to go, but it may be that its copyright had not been renewed – Ash had died in 1779, two years before the first extension expired. It looks as though the publishers of Murray’s grammars, after first producing an edition of the grammars themselves, did so as part of an attempt to push possible rivals of Murray off the market. And successfully so, for during the next decades the market would be dominated by Murray’s grammars, which came out not with a mere thousand copies a print-run, but with ten times as many (see Dekeyser 1996: 203).

6.

Conclusion

In the present article I have tried to shed some light on publishers’ practices with respect to the publication of grammars during the eighteenth century. True interest from the publishers is already evident a decade before the increase of grammatical activity during the period noted by Michael. This interest may well have been sparked off by Robert Dodsley, whose earlier dictionary project of the 1750s proved very successful. What is more, Priestley’s assertion that his own grammar entered the market first dates from the time of his second edition, when there had already been five new editions and reprints of Lowth’s grammar. By also looking at the publication history of the other two most popular grammars of the age, i.e. Ash and Fisher, I discovered that there were consortia of publishers each of which marketed a single grammar, and all developed distinct marketing strategies to do so. These strategies included focussing on the London market outside the one for which the grammar had originally been intended, while in the process the title of their grammars was adapted as well. The former strategy was also adopted in the case of Murray’s grammar, the Abridgement as well as the grammar proper. The power of the publishers becomes evident at the end of the copyright span of the grammars, when an even stronger consortium of publishers appears to have come along to push a new and very promising grammar onto the market. All this demonstrates the importance of the role played by the booksellers in

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the codification process of the English language. The grammars that developed into the most popular ones of the eighteenth century were first and foremost booksellers’ projects. The question therefore arises whether the grammars that were so strongly supported by their publishers, particularly the ones by Ash and Lowth, would have become as successful as they did without the support of their publishers or the heavy competition that arose subsequently. Lowth’s grammar was considered unsuitable as a grammar for children (Percy 1997: 131), being rather more a grammar for scholars than for children, whereas the one by Ash proved to be quite the opposite. It seems likely, I think, that in due time each would have found their own respective readership. At the end of their lives, I believe that both grammarians would have had good reason to look back on their achievements with pride, with or without the role played by the booksellers in the publication process.

Mid-century grammars and their reception in the Monthly Review and the Critical Review1 Carol Percy

1.

Introduction

The importance of English grammar to the rising middling classes in eighteenth-century Britain is a familiar theme in modern surveys of linguistic prescriptivism (see e.g. Fitzmaurice 1998, Beal 2004: 93–94, Percy 2004). Modern scholars have often documented the especially intense interest in grammar in the second half of the century by counting editions, both new and reprinted (Alston 1965, Tompson 1977: 83, Michael 1987: 12). Of these grammar books, A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) by Robert Lowth (1710–1787),2 was particularly important. In the present volume, the popularity of Lowth’s grammar has been documented both by Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s inventory of contemporary editions and by Auer’s survey of contemporary booksellers’ catalogues. Curious to see how this mid-century publishing phenomenon was interpreted by Lowth’s contemporaries, in this paper I present some trends from another eighteenth-century source, book review periodicals. Like modern scholars, the reviewers themselves were certainly aware that books about the English language were particularly popular by the 1760s. For instance, faced with A Complete English Grammar on a New Plan, by Charles Wiseman (1764), reviewers from both the Monthly Review and the Critical Review expressed their annoyance and concern (Kenrick 1765d: 20–21, Anon. 1765d: 473). In the words of the Monthly Review’s William Kenrick (1729/1730–1779), “How many complete English Grammars on new plans, have we not already had, or been threatened with?”

1

For very helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, I am very grateful to Michèle Cohen. 2 Where available, life-dates have been taken from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB). Other dates of activity have been inferred from the English Short-Title Catalogue. With the exception of the entries for Meilan and Scott, supplied from the reviews by Anon. 1771c and Anon. 1778, edition information has been supplied from the English Short Title Catalogue, consulted on 31 July 2006: http://estc.bl.uk.

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What light can contemporary book reviews cast on this well-documented popularity of grammar books? Perhaps most importantly, they help to historicise the phenomenon. Reviews of other books provide an important context: the continuing war with France and attacks on the classics remind us that there was a national and even a nascently imperial backdrop for individual narratives of self-improvement. Reviews of other grammar books also suggest that Lowth’s grammar seems to have become the “standard” by the mid 1760s. They also confirm that Lowth’s popular grammar must have inspired − or at least did not discourage − the production of additional grammars. According to contemporaries, Lowth’s grammar was suitable for scholars. However, although its preface proclaimed that the grammar had been “calculated for the use of the learner, not excluding even the lowest class” (quoted by Rose 1762a: 37), there was more debate over Lowth’s suitability for learners (cf. Percy 1997a: 131). Thus, continuing an earlier trend, some other authors and publishers targeted their own textbooks to more specific audiences, for instance to school pupils rather than to scholars. Other trends in the reviews are less clear. Reviewers sometimes assert opinions that ultimately cannot be interpreted as sincere. For instance, by 1770, when authors like Lowth, Priestley (2nd ed.,1768) and Baker (1770) had enumerated errors in the works of modern authors, one critic wondered whether the codification and study of English by disparate individuals wouldn’t ultimately confuse rather than improve the English language. Like other professional journalists, reviewers were prone to making such provocative statements. Reviewers’ statements should be seen less as reflecting their sincere opinions than as engaging their readers’ interest by taking controversial stands on current issues. Analysing these book reviews will help historical (socio)linguists to contextualise and thus more fully to understand some of the debates about grammar-writing in the 1760s.

2. The reviews as a source As a source for this paper, I have drawn on and considerably supplemented my database corpus of reviews from both the Monthly Review (1749–1844) and the Critical Review (1756–1817) (Percy 1997b).3 Similarly well-established 3

See Albrecht (1983: 236) for the dates of the Monthly Review and Spector (1983: 77) for the Critical Review. For compiling the database corpus, I would particularly like to acknowledge my long-term student research assistants, Jessica Bowslaugh, Mary Catherine Davidson, Emma Gorst, Eliza Marciniak, Karin Marley and William Moreau. For supplementing it and for drawing my attention to contemporary

Mid-century grammars and their reception

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and differing somewhat in religious and political affiliations, this pair of periodicals is an efficient index of contemporary opinion in the 1760s (Donoghue 1996: 17–24; Forster 2001). As a source for my purposes, however, the reviews nevertheless have some limitations. Like grammar books, periodical reviews were themselves a publishing phenomenon of the mid-eighteenth century. Notices and reviews of books had been included in periodicals like the Gentleman’s Magazine, and there had been much earlier but abortive attempts at publishing periodical reviews, but after its establishment in 1749 the Monthly Review was effectively the first successful review periodical to be published in Britain. Thus, in part because the book review was a new and as yet undeveloped genre, the longer reviews sometimes consisted principally of summaries and extracts (e.g. Donoghue 1996: 27; Forster 2001: 180–181). The book reviews might therefore represent the ideas of the book’s author more than the independent judgment of the reviewer. For instance, an unidentified reviewer’s assertion that the grammars by Lowth and Priestley (1733–1804) are “much fitter for Men of Letters than for Youth at School” (Anon. 1771e: 497) is in fact an unacknowledged quotation from the text under review in the article in question, i.e. Daniel Fenning’s (1714/1715–1767) posthumously published grammar (1771: iv–v). Finally, some of the more frequently occurring statements tend to occur in the context of negative reviews: for instance, it is often in reviews of later and less impressive texts that reviewers praise Lowth’s grammar. Nevertheless, by synthesising and contextualising the most common opinions articulated in the reviews, modern scholars can still attempt to gain some insight into the contemporary reception of the grammars. The authority of the book reviews derived to some extent from their anonymous publication: although insiders could often identify individual reviewers, most readers would have inferred that Lowth’s grammar (for instance) was reviewed favourably not by an individual but by the Monthly Review. It is useful for my purposes that the authors of some of the reviews have subsequently been identified with varying degrees of certainty: while the Scot Tobias Smollett (1721–1771) has not been identified as the author of any of the reviews collected here from the Critical Review (see Basker 1988: 220–278), a number of the reviewers in the Monthly Review have been identified by Nangle (1934). Because editors like the Monthly Review’s Ralph Griffiths (1720?–1803) employed reviewers who were knowledgeable in the field, reviews were often not disinterested. For instance, in the 1760s many English dictionaries and grammars were reviewed in the Monthly Review by William Kenrick, who in 1773 was to reviews of books on shorthand I am grateful to my Work-Study student Kate Francombe.

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publish his own Dictionary (ODNB, s.v. “William Kenrick”). Moreover, Ralph Griffiths himself was the publisher of the first edition of Priestley’s grammar (see Hodson this volume), which was reviewed in the Monthly Review (Anon. 1762g: 27–31). Nevertheless, because it is sometimes possible to identify individual reviewers and their personal preoccupations, opinions which are held by demonstrably different reviewers can thus be identified as contemporary trends.

3. “An infinite number of English grammars” In comparison with the enumeration of grammar books begun by Alston and built on by later scholars such as Rodríguez-Gil (2002a) and Tieken-Boon van Ostade (this volume), the few tallies by contemporary reviewers are not only imprecise but also spectacularly exaggerated. According to some reviewers, grammar books “multiply every month” (Anon. 1765g: 389; emphasis added) along with “dictionaries, spelling-books, reading and pronouncing essays, and other daily treatises of the same kind” (Anon. 1765e: 138–140; emphasis added) culminating in 1771 with what one reviewer claimed was “an infinite number of English grammars” (Anon. 1771c: 314; emphasis added). Reviewers exaggerated the number of books partly because the proliferation of printed works generally was one motivation for the founding of the periodicals. The reviewers justified their existence by promoting their profession as that of (in the words of the Monthly Review) “tasters” to the public (quoted in Forster 2001: 183), helping readers select the best publications from what they constructed as an overwhelming mass of material. From the anxiety and anger of some contemporary authors, we can conclude that the reviewers’ opinions were perceived to be influential (Forster 1994; Donoghue 1996: 22). Despite the imprecision of tallies of “monthly”, “daily” and “infinite number[s]” of books about the English language, the reviews nevertheless provide a useful corroboration for Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s claim (this volume) that it was in the early 1760s that the market for grammars and other works on language became particularly active (see also Percy 2004: 159–164). In the late 1750s, two different Monthly Reviewers claimed that a good English grammar was “wanting” (Goldsmith 1758: 520; Ruffhead 1758: 335). Because these statements both occur in positive reviews of new works on grammar, they should not necessarily be taken as accurate: Anselm Bayly’s (1718/1719–1784) Introduction to Languages (1758) and John Ward’s (1678/1679–1758) Four Essays upon the English Language (1758) are praised as having helped to fulfill the need for, in the words of the reviewer Owen Ruffhead (c. 1723–1769), “[a]


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regular and compleat grammar … to facilitate the progress and improvement of our language” (1758: 335). Nevertheless, in conjunction with slightly later evidence, these statements are somewhat suggestive. In the early 1760s, two reviews in the Critical Review, perhaps written by the same person, identify the Gildon-Brightland grammar of 1711 as the most recent grammar of note. The reviewer of the British Grammar (1762) by James Buchanan (fl. 1753–1773) argues that the “several new English grammars” written “of late years” had failed to “improv[e] upon that recommended by the Tatler” (Anon. 1763: 67), that is, the Grammar of the English Tongue promoted by John Brightland and very likely written by Charles Gildon (see Buschmann-Göbels, this volume). Similarly, The English Verb (1761) by James White (fl. 1761) is contextualised in a tradition culminating in “the grammar of Mr. Brightland, which was recommended to the notice of the public by the Tatler” (Anon. 1761d: 347–357). For this claim, the reviewer drew on White’s own “Advertisement”, for some reason omitting White’s equally flattering references to Brightland’s contemporaries Greenwood and Maittaire, and to White’s recent predecessors Bayly, John Ward and Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) (White 1761: viii). Considering all of the material presented in this paragraph, one might conclude that before about 1760, London reviewers generally felt that little of note had been written about English grammar since the 1710s. An interesting omission from my corpus of reviews is the demonstrably popular and influential grammar by Ann Fisher (1719–1778), first published in 1745 and frequently reprinted (Rodríguez-Gil 2002a, as well as this volume). In contrast, in the 1760s, many reviewers observed that there had been a sudden rise in production of grammars. The Critical Reviewer had begun his review of the British Grammar by noting that “[w]e have of late years had several new English grammars ushered into the world with very pompous titles, but without any other recommendation; for instead of improving upon that recommended by the Tatler, they have been jejune copies of it, such as proved equally the ignorance and the bad taste of their authors” (Anon. 1763: 67). By 1762, the Monthly Review’s William Rose (1719–1786) can observe “with pleasure”, “that the cultivation of our Language is now become an object of general attention” (Rose 1762b: 69). Many such comments can be found in 1765: those quoted above, for instance, as well as references in the Critical Review to “several”, and, indeed, “the numerous publications upon English grammar” (Anon. 1765d: 473). William Kenrick’s comments are not always complimentary: within two pages “the many attempts which have been lately made to improve the grammar of our language” (1765e: 274) become “the recent attacks that have been made on English Grammar” (1765e: 276). While these enumerations of the great number of grammars often occur in negative reviews, they

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are expressed by at least two reviewers from two different periodicals, and they corroborate the more solid bibliographical evidence. Of course, as sources the value of the reviews is less statistical than interpretive.

4. Some explanations: the evidence of the reviews As noted in § 1 above, a common and credible explanation for the proliferation of English grammars is the demand by the rising middling classes for new norms of speaking and writing correctly. This demand was not only met but to a great extent intensified and perhaps even created by publishers like Robert Dodsley (1704–1764), as Tieken-Boon van Ostade has argued (2000a), by other entrepreneurial individuals like the Irish actor-manager Thomas Sheridan (1719?–1788) (see also Watts, this volume), and to a certain extent perhaps by the influence of the reviews themselves. Yet as Watts has acknowledged, the factors catalysing this mid-century phenomenon are of course complex. Many have been summarised recently by Beal (2004: 89–105). Corroborating our sense of the grammars as passports to politeness, the reviews also furnish some additional explanations, explicitly and implicitly. Several reviewers link the codification of English with its functional expansion. Reviewing a republication of the Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1653 [1765]) by John Wallis (1616–1703), Kenrick attributes the codification of English to the vernacular’s increasing use as a vehicle for “scientific and moral subjects” (1765b: 305). Similarly, an unattributable review of Priestley’s Grammar in the Monthly Review connects the interest in English with the language’s rise in status: “the English Tongue is not only become the vehicle of science, but is also the Language of the Orator” (Anon. 1762g: 28). The orator Sheridan’s role in raising the status of English was certainly recognised by his contemporaries. William Rose gave credit to Sheridan “for the share he has had in exciting this … general attention” to “the cultivation of our Language” (1762b: 69). Contemporary newspapers confirm Sheridan’s popularity, evident not only in satiric parody by the dramatist Samuel Foote (bap. 1721–1777) but in sincere imitation by teachers like John Trusler (1735–1820) (Percy 2004: 160). Indeed, in 1765 reviewers from both periodicals link the proliferation of English language textbooks with the profession − or “trade” as they called it − of teaching. “Professors of speaking and reading are of very late grown in this country, and we wish that their trade may be as beneficial to literature as it is to themselves” (Anon. 1765b: 256). Writing about the grammar by Charles Wiseman (1764), Kenrick claims that “most of these writers are particularly interested in the pecuniary success, or sale, of their books; writing more for their own emolument


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and that of their respective schools, than for the public in general” (1765d: 21). Priestley’s treatise on education prompted a Critical Reviewer to write that “It is with some concern that we have seen of late so many attempts by the various grammars, dictionaries, spelling-books, reading and pronouncing essays, and other daily treatises of the same kind, to reduce the business of education (the most important, if not the most noble, of any in civil society) to a mere mercenary job” (Anon. 1765e: 138; see also Anon. 1771a: 240). Many grammars were indeed written by teachers (e.g. McIntosh 1998: 178). Other explanations for the interest in vernacular codification can be inferred from contemporary interest in other subjects − especially when all of the subjects were the specialty of the same Monthly Reviewer, William Kenrick. The standardisation of English might be contextualised in the Enlightenment interest in standardising generally: in the same period, many enterprising authors also devoted themselves to devising a system of shorthand (see e.g. Anon. 1761a, Anon. 1762c). The Alphabet of Reason was composed upon Rational Principles, and also reviewed by Kenrick (1763b: 163–164); Cryptography; Or a New, Easy, and Compendious System of Short-Hand, published around the same time, also included a grammar (N– 1762: 511). The publication of English grammars must have reflected concerns in Britain about the current customs of educating modern males and females (Beal 2004: 101–105). The European obsession with education can be epitomized most effectively with Rousseau’s Émile, also published in 1762 and also reviewed by Kenrick (Nangle 1934: 189). But in Britain, a particularly evident trend was the debate about the function of foreign languages in the curriculum, French (e.g. Percy 2004: 163–164) and especially Latin. Although the debate was not new (see e.g. Holmes 1982: 47–48), at the mid-century it was vigorous. The Monthly Review of Priestley’s grammar begins by lamenting the “waste” of “time in learning to write or speak a dead Language, which they might more usefully employ in studying their own” (Anon. 1762g: 28). According to Raven, it was to moneyed traders that “taste was being sold” in the form of grammars, novels and periodical reviews (1992: 66, 138–156, esp. 151–153). When considering a classical education for their children, successful businessmen might be torn between the practicality of English and the more symbolic status of Latin. Among the other books reviewed are plans of education that either “abridg[e]” (e.g. Anon. 1764a: 286) or even eliminate the study of the classics from the education of boys from the leisured classes. At least one of these plans to eliminate the classical languages from the curriculum was proposed by a grammarian of English. In 1772, an anonymous author published Proposals for an Amendment of School Instruction (Anon. 1772a: 334), and two years previously, in 1770, Buchanan, the author of The British Grammar (1761), had published a

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Plan of an English Grammar-School Education. With an Introductory Inquiry, whether by the English Language Alone, without the Embarrassment of Latin and Greek, the British Youth cannot be Thoroughly Accomplished in Every Part of Useful and Polite Literature. Buchanan was reviled by reviewers from both periodicals (Anon. 1770: 238; N–. 1770: 154–155). If reluctant to sanction attacks on Latin, reviewers were more willing to publicise the interest of writers in elevating English. Reviewers of books by Priestley, Lowth and Sheridan relay or express concern about the neglect of “The study of our own Tongue … in our public schools” (Anon. 1762g: 27); “the defects of modern education, with respect to the study of our own language” (Anon. 1762e: 161); the absence of “[a] grammatical study of our own language” from “the ordinary method of instruction which we pass through in our childhood” (Rose 1762a: 39). Well into the Seven Years’ War with France, displays of patriotism were evidently thought to appeal to potential purchasers. Indeed, some political events of the period must have intensified attention to the English language. Within Britain, there was certainly concern with what was truly “English”. With the accession of George III (1738–1820), the first of the Hanoverians whose first language was English (Hedley 1975: 6), 1760 saw the rise to influence of his Scottish tutor and political advisor the Earl of Bute (1713–1792): the early 1760s witnessed a “torrent of virulence” against “Scots and all things Scottish” (Langford 1989: 354). Indeed, founded by Smollett in 1756 as a kind of monthly academy of language and literature, the Critical Review epitomised the supposed infiltration of English culture by Scotsmen (Basker 1988: 17–28, 75–84). Beyond Britain, the war with France intensified the disconnection between the English language and English-speaking territories. With the surrender of Quebec in 1759, for instance, Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) in The Interest of Great Britain Considered explored the implications of the French surrender of Canada for the future stability of the empire (Anon. 1760: 411–412). The war must also have intensified the English tendency to compare themselves with the French. The French Academy had sought to standardise the French language, and perhaps because French was more widely disseminated than English, contemporary British writers articulated what we might think of as counterintuitive assumptions about the connection between language codification and political power (Bailey 1991: 102). Considering the Pronouncing and Spelling Dictionary published by William Johnston in 1764, an anonymous Critical Reviewer claims that even the humblest text on language should not be disdained: We look upon that before us in a patriotic light; because, as we have observed on other occasions, the extension of language is an extension of influence. France owes her power to her language, and we should be glad to find that the next turn should


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fall to England. … What pains did not some of the best writers and critics in France take upon this study, before their language became so universal as it is now! (Anon. 1764b: 237).

A few reviewers assert that standardising and codifying English will help to disseminate that language more widely. Lamenting the lack of “[a] regular and compleat grammar” … “to facilitate the progress and improvement of our language”, Ruffhead assumed that “such a performance, well executed, … might prove of general benefit to the nation, by encouraging foreigners to study English; by which means the French lisp might, in time, grow out of fashion, and the advantages which our enemies reap by spreading their language all over Europe, in a great measure be defeated” (1758: 335). Ruffhead’s comment was provoked by a monolingual English grammar. Reviewers of bilingual works are of course also attentive to the interests of foreign learners of English (e.g. Anon. 1761b: 498). Kenrick claims that the republication of Wallis’s grammar of English in Latin is timely for “foreigners” because English “is becoming daily more and more important …” (1765b: 305). A review of an English-French dictionary, Peyton’s Vocabulaire Anglois & Françoise; Contenant outre les Mots les plus Essentials de la Langue Angloise, sees it as “well calculated” “for teaching foreigners the pronunciation of the English language”, a task “hitherto deemed unattainable” because of the “volatility” of English. The anonymous reviewer believes that “an academy” should be established, “and invested with full power and authority” to ascertain “the vast number of exceptions from every general rule, not yet properly ascertained, either by grammar or dictionary”, to “fix the volatility of the English tongue, which is so fluctuating and mutable” (Anon. 1759: 323). The reluctance among foreigners to learn an as yet unstandardised language is also lamented by Kenrick in the Monthly Review. In 1765, when he deals with Wiseman’s Complete English Grammar on a New Plan, for the Use of Foreigners, and such Natives as would Acquire a Scientific Knowledge of their Own Tongue (1764), Kenrick also claims that “it is owing principally to the amazing uncertainty and irregularity prevailing in our orthoepy, that foreigners do not attempt to learn a language which is so greatly deserving their acquisition” (1765d: 21). Elsewhere in the volume, on the subject of the Principles of the English Language Digested (1765), by James Elphinston (1721–1809), Kenrick considers whether “the many attempts which have been lately made to improve the grammar of our language” might put an end to the “ridicule of foreigners, and even of each other, on account of the amazing uncertainty and diversity of our colloquial style” (1765e: 274). Scots like Elphinston, Smollett and Buchanan exemplified the “provincial” speakers identified by Sheridan as one cause of such diversity (e.g. Anon. 1762b: 160–161). Thus, in mid-eighteenth-century Britain, some commentators be-

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lieved, or claimed to believe, that the variability of the English language impeded its general dissemination. Publishers like Dodsley must have been keen to meet such a demand (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a).

5. The impact of Lowth’s grammar Cumulatively, the reviews suggest that in the very early 1760s no single grammarian was unanimously perceived to have cornered the market. Early in 1763, two reviewers of Buchanan’s British Grammar imply that no grammarian prior to Buchanan had produced what Kenrick deemed a “methodical and well-digested English grammar” (Kenrick 1763a: 76; Anon 1763: 67). Such statements often have ulterior motives, but in condemning the current state of grammatical study, the two reviewers had different purposes: Kenrick’s review is negative, but the anonymous Critical Reviewer finds Buchanan’s grammar acceptable, if badly written (1763: 68). In 1765, an anonymous Critical Reviewer deems Charles Wiseman better-qualified “for being the author of an English Grammar than those of the other English Grammars we have reviewed” (Anon. 1765d: 473). Priestley also seems to have acquired some reputation as a grammarian: in 1765 the first edition of his grammar is mentioned by Kenrick as superior to Ward’s (1765a: 289); and in 1771 an unidentified Monthly Reviewer relays a statement from Fenning’s posthumously-published grammar that “Lowth’s and Priestley’s Grammars are fitter for men of letters than for youth at school” (Anon. 1771e: 497) (see also Percy 1997a: 131). The apparent approbation of Priestley by Fenning may reflect the opinion of an editor, since Fenning had died in 1767 and the audience of “men of letters” seems more appropriate for the expanded edition of 1768. Although both these statements are taken from the Monthly Review, run by the non-conformist Griffiths, Priestley’s status as a grammarian cannot have depended entirely on his non-conformism: from his life records, I infer that Fenning was a member of the established church (ODNB, s.v. “Daniel Fenning”). Yet it was neither Priestley, Buchanan nor Wiseman who was to set the benchmark for the writing of English grammar. Perhaps the most decisive and satisfying result of my investigation here is the confirmation that Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) established itself as the leader in the field relatively quickly, though Kenrick acknowledged that “the public demand may sufficiently encourage the labours of different writers” (1765f: 495). Praise of Lowth occurred in both negative and positive reviews of other grammars, often though not always written by Kenrick. For instance, in a negative review of the Essay on Grammar by William Ward (1708/1709–1772), Kenrick writes that


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After the clear, concise, and comprehensive tracts, on Speculative and Practical Grammar, which have already appeared in this country*, the Public may be naturally surprised to see them followed by a huge, voluminous quarto on this subject. *

On the speculative, by the truly learned and ingenious author of Hermes: on the practical, by the author of a short Introduction to English Grammar, with critical notes. For an account of the former, see Rev. Vol. VI. p. 129, of the latter Vol. XXVII. p. 37. See also Mr. Priestley’s Rudiments of English Grammar, Rev. Vol. XXVI. p. 27. (Kenrick 1765a: 289).

Kenrick makes a similar statement in a negative review of a grammar by Caleb Fleming (1698–1779), deeming “Dr Lowth’s little tract extremely well calculated” for both teacher and pupil (1765f: 495). Even in a positive review, of Wallis’s republished grammar, Kenrick makes the same assumption, attributing to “the little tract of Dr. Lowth” recent “improvements made in our … syntaxis” (1765b: 306). It was not only Kenrick who used Lowth as a standard: in 1768, a review of the second edition of Priestley’s grammar in the Critical Review praised it as “a valuable addition to that of the accurate and judicious Dr. Lowth” (Anon. 1768a: 106). Lowth’s grammar is held up as a standard later in the Critical Review as well (e.g. Anon. 1771c: 315; Anon. 1772c: 400; Anon. 1773a: 78–79). From some of the quotations cited above, it is clear that there was ongoing debate over whether Lowth’s grammar was as appropriate for learners as it was illuminating for men of letters. Authors and publishers exploited the possibility that Lowth’s grammar was insufficiently “practical” for a large market. As a range of scholars have already observed, later grammarians like John Ash (1724–1779), Ellin Devis (1746–1820) and Ellenor Fenn (1744–1813) marketed their grammars for young people as introductory to Lowth’s, both deriving value from and adding value to Lowth’s (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000c; Percy 2003: 55; see also Navest, this volume). Even earlier, in 1759 according to Rodríguez-Gil (2002a), the commercially astute Fisher had added the word “practical” to the title-page of her now not-so-New Grammar. The reviews confirm that this attention to audience and to applicability had intensified during the period: in the present volume, for instance, Hodson’s comparison of his 1761 and 1768 grammars charts Priestley’s increasing sensitivity to issues of audience. From the reviews, it seems that Caleb Fleming, Daniel Fenning and Abraham Crocker (fl. 1772) attempted to market their English grammars as particularly “practical” (Kenrick 1765f: 494–495; Anon. 1771e: 497; Anon. 1772c: 400; e.g. Crocker 1772). Some authors of subsequent grammars targeted particularly distinct audiences. In 1771, Mark Anthony Meilan (c. 1743–1813) tried to define an intermediate audience, consisting of “young Gentlemen and Ladies passed [sic] the first Principles of Learning” (Anon. 1771c: 314). In 1776,

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Daniel Farroe (fl. 1754–1775) unsuccessfully petitioned charity-school governors to support the teaching of grammar with his Royal Golden Instructor for Youth throughout the British Dominions − a potentially enormous market, despite the imminent revolution in America, but, if the reviewer’s ridicule is any indication, one whose time had obviously not come (Hirons 1776: 87–88). Around the same time, a much more elite audience was addressed by Richard Wynne (1718? –1779) and John Shaw (1729–1796) for their grammars: both identified the need for grammars codifying both English and Latin targeted to boys who would study both (Enfield 1776: 160; Rose 1778: 319). That an English grammar’s applicability to Latin was a marketing ploy might be inferred from a review by William Enfield (1741–1797): while “an Universal Grammar, adapted to the use of young persons, is still wanted”, Wynne’s “is … nothing more than an English Grammar”. Suitability for youth was a clear criterion for reviewers of grammars: for instance, Anselm Bayly’s Plain and Complete Grammar of the English Language was praised but labelled as “less adapted to the capacity of youth, than of those who are more advanced in years” (Anon. 1772b: 240). For any scholar compiling contemporary criteria for learners’ grammars, the reviews seem to be a particularly useful source. To catalogue these criteria comprehensively is beyond the scope of this paper, but at least for one reviewer in 1771, the question and answer method was felt to be “peculiarly well calculated for the instructing of youth in English grammar” (Anon. 1771d: 399; see also Rose 1758b: 498). Moreover, it is clear that these grammars were marketed as some kind of combination and permutation of matter that was “plain” (e.g. Rose 1758a: 498, Anon. 1767a: 74, Anon. 1771e: 497, Rose 1772: 391), “perspicuous” (e.g. Anon. 1771d: 399, Rose 1772: 391), clearly arranged (e.g. Anon. 1762f: 504, Anon. 1768b: 240) and concise (e.g. Anon. 1761c: 159–60, Anon. 1762a: 77, Anon. 1762g: 28, Anon. 1765a: 199–203, Anon. 1765f: 388–389, Anon. 1769a: 231, Anon. 1771d: 399, Anon. 1774a: 400, Anon. 1778: 77, Rose 1758a: 498). Ideally, a grammar for learners should be “compendious” (Anon. 1767a: 74) yet so structured to be concise or even “little” (e.g. Rose 1772: 391). Farroe’s abridged and duly less expensive grammar is targeted both at the “infant” as well as “the poor” (Hirons 1776: 87–88). By some reviewers who felt that it was suitable for schools, Lowth’s grammar was described as “little” (Kenrick 1765f: 495) and having a “commodious form”, as by the following anonymous reviewer: Dr. Lowth was the first who struck out of the common road, and gave us a rational grammar, consisting of manly observations, judicious criticisms, and useful learning. And as this excellent performance is printed in a commodious form, and is as intelligible as any grammatical treatise can be made, we cannot see any reason why it should not be universally adopted in the education of youth; much less can we


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conceive that any advantage can possibly arise from the publication of grammars, which are inferior to it in every respect (Anon. 1771c: 315).

In 1765, one reviewer observes that “portable English dictionaries” had become fashionable (Anon. 1765c: 398). The modest size of English grammars like Scott’s Principles of English Grammar (Anon. 1778: 77) and The Grammarian’s Vade-Mecum by “T. M.” (Anon. 1774a: 400) must have promised ease of memorisation, a standard (Michael 1987: 320–321) if not universally approved method of grammatical instruction (e.g. Langhorne 1768b: 243). Dissatisfaction with contemporary methods of teaching grammar can be gleaned from other sources, for instance, by David Williams (1738–1816) in his treatise on education, reviewed in the Critical Review (Anon. 1774b: 212–213).

6.

The immediate impact of grammars

In the 1760s, perhaps the most interesting discussions in the two Reviews examined raised the issue of whether teaching and studying grammar had any beneficial end. In 1765, anticipating his positive assessment of Charles Wiseman’s Complete English Grammar on a New Plan, an anonymous Critical Reviewer writes: We have lately reviewed several works upon this subject, and animadverted upon them, we hope, with justice and candour. Some may be apt to think, that the numerous publications upon English grammar is an indication of our language improving itself into a classical purity. We are afraid of the reverse, and that both strangers and natives may be so bewildered by the variety and disagreement of their instructors, each of whom is a nostrum-monger in grammar, that our language, instead of being regulated and fixed, will be confounded and injured (Anon. 1765d: 473).

Prior to this, the most telling proof of the need for grammars had been the same linguistic variability cited by both grammarians and reviewers: “the vast number of exceptions from every general rule, not yet properly ascertained, either by grammar or dictionary” (Anon. 1759: 323); “the amazing uncertainty and diversity of our colloquial style” that subjected the English to “the ridicule of foreigners, and even of each other” (Kenrick 1765e: 274). Examples of such variability had been furnished by the Critical Reviewer of James White’s English Verb: the formation of the future with shall and will and of the intransitive perfect with have and be (Anon. 1761d: 352, 357). In the 1750s, the reviewers themselves must have helped to construct this climate of anxiety by publicly criticising the language of contemporary writers. In some cases, grammatical shibboleths may even have been cited in reviews

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before they appeared in grammar books (for lay vs. lie, see Percy 1996: 350 and Lowth 1762: 76). With interesting implications, later grammarians enumerated examples not of the language’s “volatility” but of “errors” made by individuals. Following Lowth in 1762, grammarians like Buchanan (1767), Priestley (2nd ed., 1768) and Baker (1770) cited, and reviewers reprinted, examples of grammatical errors by literary authors (e.g. Anon. 1762f: 503; Rose 1762a: 37–41; Anon. 1767b: 454; Anon. 1768a: 101–106, Kippis 1768: 184–186; Anon. 1771b: 367–376; Hawkesworth 1771: 91–94). In his review of the second edition of Priestley’s grammar (1768), Andrew Kippis (1725–1795) explored the implications of enumerating errors from living authors: while Priestley’s principal exemplar, David Hume (1711–1776), can hardly feel “satisfaction”, Kippis conceded that “[i]t was … right that [his improprieties] should be exhibited to public view, to prevent the bad effects that might proceed from the example and imitation of so eminent an author” (1768: 186). If even eminent authors wrote ungrammatically, what other models for grammatical accuracy could a grammarian use? The conflicting principles for standardizing English have recently been summarised by Beal (2004: 107–115): they include Latin, logic, reason and prejudice. By the mid 1760s, selecting standards for English must have become particularly problematical. Not all authors were authoritative, as John Entick (c. 1703–1773) discovered when he was mocked for ranking Samuel Richardson with William Shakespeare (Kenrick 1765c: 471; see also Anon. 1761d: 355). Moreover, even the most authoritative writers were prone to what had been constructed as error. In the opinion of the anonymous reviewer of Kenrick’s dictionary, lexicographers and grammarians could not be guided by “authority”, since “in the works of our most eminent writers … there are innumerable improprieties; and if we are implicitly governed by authorities, grammatical inaccuracies will be propagated from one generation to another”. Kenrick himself was taken to task for wrongly conjugating the verb write, having copied in 1773 the by then outmoded paradigm from Johnson’s dictionary of 1755. “Reason, and not authority, should be the ultimate guide of lexicographers” (Anon. 1773b: 345). Although knowledge of Old English might best help to select the most appropriate past participle of write, not many reviewers used that criterion for praising grammarians. A rare example is the praise of Lowth in the Critical Review: “He seems to be a complete philologist, well acquainted with the antient dead languages, and particularly versed in the Saxon, which gave birth to the English” (Anon. 1762f: 504). Much more prevalent was the assumption that knowledge of “the antient dead languages” qualified English-speaking men to codify their native language or truly to appreciate its use in literature (e.g. Anon. 1762d: 491). In the reviews, we do find a number of statements by re-


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viewers as well as grammarians that decouple English from Latin. Buchanan’s opinions are summarised in § 4 above. Elphinston points out, and Kenrick relays, that “the English hath less affinity” to Latin “than most others in Europe” (1765e: 274). By a Critical Reviewer, White is “greatly to be commended for disdaining to torture the English paradigma unjustly, to the form of the Latin, or of any other foreign language” (Anon. 1761d: 356). However, the need for a good grammarian and a good writer to know Latin is articulated more frequently. It is implied in a negative review in the Critical Review, condemning Caleb Fleming’s Grammatical Observations on the English Language (1765?) and “works of this useless kind, which multiply every month, and are the genuine offspring of Ignorance begot upon Pedantry; a pedantry, too, that has not even the smallest knowledge of the liberal arts or classical learning to recommend it” (Anon. 1765g: 389). In the opinion of the reviewer of a Latin-English grammar by Alexander Adam (1741–1809) (Adam 1772), “The English language hath received its greatest improvements from those who were masters of classical learning; and perhaps it cannot be thoroughly understood, without some acquaintance with the Latin” (Rose 1772: 392). Even better (in the opinion of a Critical Reviewer) is the knowledge not merely of Latin but of many languages: Wiseman is pronounced far better qualified as a critic of the English tongue than any of his cotemporaries, who have written on the same subject. His comparative view of the English language both antient and modern, is curious, well executed, and may be instructive, even to our best and most accurate writers. We may say the same of his comparative view of the Scotch and English tongues, with that of the antient British, or Welsh, and the English; and his acquaintance with the Latin, Spanish, Italian, and French, we think, upon the whole, qualifies him better for being the author of an English Grammar than those of the other English Grammars we have reviewed (Anon. 1765d: 473).

Finally, another review in the Critical Review links good writing with the author’s “knowledge of the analogy between the English and other languages” (Anon. 1765a: 199). In 1762, Lowth had promoted the study of grammar because of the inaccuracies found in the writing and conversation of even the most “polite”. However, in 1765, whether a good writer needs to know grammar remains an issue for at least this reviewer, who claims to doubt that studying English grammar will result in literary excellence: We own we are far from being friends to arbitrary systems of grammar, if tedious, in any living language. A general and easily attainable knowledge of a vernacular tongue is expedient, and may be necessary for those who aim at writing and speaking correctly and elegantly: but to employ one’s life in the study of grammar, is

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like a man grown old in courting the maid that he may come at the mistress; … We know of no eminent author in our language whose fame is owing to a preparatory study of the English grammar. They seem generally to have trusted to the received modes of writing and conversation, to their knowledge of the analogy between the English and other languages, but, above all, to their accommodating their stile to the subject. The inutility of long, laboured volumes of grammar for a living, and therefore fluctuating tongue, is perspicuous in the present state of the French language, which for above thirty years has been degenerating from the most approved standards erected by its refiners. Upon enquiry, it will perhaps be found, that our purest and best speakers, as well as writers, lived in times when no grammar of the English tongue existed; or, if there was one, that they never consulted it; and could the experiment be made, we should find that two men of an education equally liberal, and of natural abilities nearly upon a par, would write pretty much in the same manner, though the one should be so unfortunate as never to have seen Mr. Ward’s grammar, and the other should have it all by heart (Anon. 1765a: 199–200).

This very long pronouncement happens to be articulated in the context of a negative review of an exceedingly long grammar. More typically, it was inelegantly written grammars that undermined the assumption that studying grammar improved a writer’s language and style. Typical of reviewers’ responses are comments on the grammars by White (1761) and Baker (1770): We have here a striking proof that a man may be an excellent Grammarian without attaining to elegance of style (Anon. 1761f: 47[6]). We would not, indeed, desire our readers to form their opinion of it from a perusal of the dedication and preface: for we scarcely ever remember to have seen a piece of more unintelligible and absurd bombast than the former of these; and in the latter there are several expressions that are hardly English (Anon. 1761d: 357). Though it is carelessly written, and very incorrectly printed, it undoubtedly contains many observations and criticisms, which cannot fail of being acceptable to every Englishman who has any ambition to speak and write his native language with accuracy and precision (Anon. 1771b: 375).

Similarly, Daniel Fenning was “a good Compiler” but “not … an elegant Writer” (Anon. 1761e: 472; see also Berkenhout 1756: 324). As ever, the reviewers’ comments have to be interpreted in the immediate context of the reviews. These comments are likely addressed ad hominem, being subjective criticisms of individual grammarians and their works rather than genuine attacks on the genre of grammar generally. Moreover, like any journalist, reviewers were prone to making provocative statements on current topics in order to engage their readers. Whether a living language could be standardised was evidently a matter of interest and importance.


7.

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Conclusion

In the middle of the 1760s, as grammars proliferated, some reviewers expressed hope and even confidence that English grammars would improve the English language. In 1768, one reviewer claims to have found “nothing so well calculated to teach inaccurate writers to write better” as Buchanan’s Regular English Syntax (1767), and expresses “hopes that it will save us [i.e. reviewers] both trouble and disgust” (Langhorne 1768a: 148). Less than ten years after its publication, at least two reviewers praised Lowth’s grammar for already having improved the English language. For instance, “[t]he truly critical observations contained in the little tract of Dr. Lowth” are credited for “the improvements made in our … syntaxis” (Kenrick 1765b: 306). It is because of “the bishop of Oxford” that Kippis can write of “the regard which has, of late years, been paid to the cultivation of our tongue” and the attention to its grammar (1768: 184). The language has not yet been perfected. In his conclusion of this generally positive review of Priestley’s grammar, Kippis acknowledges that “it cannot be doubted but that there is still room for further improvements upon the subject” (1768: 186). In a negative review of Houghton’s grammar, John Langhorne (1735–1779) asserts that “In the analysis of human language there are many dependencies, relations, and connections, which have escaped the most accurate researches and furnish objects for future enquiries” (1766: 232). Yet at the same time, at least two reviews are pessimistic about the possibility of standardising living languages. In the negative review of William Ward’s “long, laboured volumes of grammar”, cited at length above, a writer in the Critical Review claims that “The inutility of long, laboured volumes of grammar for a living, and therefore fluctuating tongue, is perspicuous in the state of the French language, which for above thirty years has been degenerating from the most approved standards erected by its refiners” (Anon. 1765a: 199). Four years later, perhaps the same reviewer makes the same point: “Nothing can convey a better idea of the inefficacy of grammars to ascertain the standard of a living tongue, than the present state of the French language; for so totally has that nation disregarded all grammatical systems, that the stile of their purest writers under Lewis XIV, may be considered as a dead language, and requires to be grammatically studied” (Anon. 1769b: 345–346). In both cases, the variable, volatile, and indeed degenerate living language is French. These statements need to be interpreted as rhetorical rather than as descriptive, undoubtedly reflecting the bellicose sentiments of an enemy and a victor, and ultimately more valuable as expressions of political attitudes than as descriptions of linguistic conditions. However, they do remind modern scholars that, in the eighteenth century, the state of the language was seen as reflecting the

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state of the nation (Bailey 1991: 102). At least one other Monthly Reviewer, James Kirkpatrick (1696–1770), connected the “liberty” of the English language and its speakers to “deriv[e] and compound boldly” with the absence of a “formal academy for the cultivation or standard of our tongue”, implicitly contrasting stereotypically English liberty with the centralised control of “our enemies” (Kirkpatrick 1759: 19–20). The prospect of improving English grammar must have raised the social and financial aspirations of individuals, readers and authors alike. In the 1760s, as the Seven Years’ War changed the distribution of European languages around the globe, improving the language was also an activity seen as inextricable from raising the status of the nation. A well-received vernacular grammar could raise the status of English and thus of Britain. Published after the surrender of Quebec and near the end of the Seven Years’ War, Lowth’s grammar was well-timed. With a title almost identical to that of William Lily’s (1468? –1522/1523) officially-sanctioned Short Introduction to Grammar, the commercial and critical success of Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar must have helped to raise English a little closer to the status of Latin. Finally, the role of the reviews themselves in shaping Late Modern English and ideas about Late Modern English should be acknowledged. Before the middle of the eighteenth century, contemporary opinions about language had been disseminated and consolidated very effectively in books, pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals such as The Spectator (see e.g. Fitzmaurice 1998). For instance, the linguistic anxiety of the socially-marginal author Samuel Richardson (bap. 1689, d. 1761) had been fuelled by something other than the Monthly Review (Eaves and Kimpel 1971: 187–88, 218, 307, 594). Nevertheless, some important developments may be correlated with the appearance of periodicals that exclusively reviewed contemporary books. The reviews disseminated and very likely affected trends in the development of both the English language and of its codifying texts. By treating the publication of new grammar books as a news item in the context of an ongoing and critical assessment of the genre, the reviews may have created both desires and doubts amongst purchasers and readers and more competition amongst the book trade. Moreover, as I have argued in a recent paper (Percy 2007), the verbal criticism articulated in the reviews of the 1750s must have helped to intensify the anxiety that the grammars of the 1760s were ostensibly designed to dispel.

Part 3. The grammarians

The grammarians: Introduction Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade

In his effort to throw a different light on Lowth and what he set out to do with the publication of his grammar, Pullum (1974) shows that much of the presentday criticism of Lowth’s grammar is due to the fact that Lowth “is more mentioned than read by the majority of the grammars today” (1974: 64). Hodson (2006) shows that the same is true for Priestley, who is usually portrayed as being descriptive in the light of Lowth’s frequently asserted prescriptivism.1 In her paper in the section below she shows that, similarly, no-one has previously considered what happened between the publication of Priestley’s grammar in 1761 and its second edition in 1768. By demonstrating that these are in essence two different texts, she at the same time depicts Priestley as a man affected by grave doubts about what he had originally set out to do. These doubts appear to have arisen as a result of the popular reception Lowth’s grammar, which was published less than a year after his own. Priestley, in any case, appears to have been so daunted by all this that he decided not to use his own grammar at the academy at which he taught. Gradually, however, he came to realise that Lowth’s grammar suffered from a number of defects, which inspired him to prepare a second edition of his grammar. In doing so he decided to focus on different audiences, beginners as well as students who had “made some Proficiency in the Language”, as the new title specified. That Lowth’s grammar was too difficult for “young beginners” (Percy 1997a: 131) had been one of its criticisms, and Priestley thus tried to improve on this. One of the problems with English grammar, he noticed, was that did not fit the Latin model, and in his grammar he tried to offer a different approach by “creating a new intermediate level of analysis” as Hodson puts it below. What is particularly interesting is that Priestley is portrayed as a man who saw himself not so much as an expert on grammar (see Chapman, Part 1 above), but as someone who realised that much work still needed to be done. Another grammarian who was keen on developing a native metalanguage for the teaching and studying of English grammar was Ann Fisher, the first 1 See e.g. the Oxford Companion to the English Language (McArthur 1992, s.v. “Robert Lowth”), which says that Lowth’s “name has become synonymous with prescriptive grammar”. See, however, Tieken-Boon van Ostade (forthc.a).

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woman to produce a grammar of English (Rodríguez-Gil 2002a). Though her grammar was first published in 1745, in Newcastle, it is unlikely that Priestley would have had access to it (see Percy, above). Like Priestley, at the time when he revised his grammar, Fisher was a schoolteacher, and this must have made her aware of the specific needs of young learners. The authorship of Fisher’s grammar has long been a mystery, as the name Daniel Fisher is usually associated with it. In her paper below, Rodríguez-Gil finally solves the problem, showing that Daniel Fisher was someone close to Ann Fisher, geographically as well as possibly as a relative, who was also instrumental in putting her in touch with booksellers and publishers in Newcastle and London. The history of the publication of her grammar illustrates the problems which ambitious – and, as in her case, extremely knowledgeable – women like herself must have experienced at the time when trying to publish books in a thoroughly male-dominated society. It can’t be stressed enough that her grammar proved to be as popular as those by Lowth and Ash (see also my Introduction above), while it was in particular her innovative addition of exercises of bad English which left its mark on later grammars. What is also of interest in the grammar is that it was addressed to women. Fisher was not of course the first to include women among her targeted readership (see Percy 1994 and Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000b), but she seems to have had the needs of young female learners particularly at heart. This is evident from the general approach she took in her grammar, as Rodríguez-Gil demonstrates, and also from her overt concerns with matters of pedagogy. Ann Fisher heralds a new class of grammar writers, that of the female “teacher-grammarian”, as Cajka calls them in her paper below. There were six of them, who, not being content with the nature of the grammars available at the time, decided to take the matter into their hands and write their own. In doing so, Cajka demonstrates, they developed their own teaching methodologies, while at the same time adapting their material to the level of understanding of their pupils, particularly by supplying appropriate examples. Their goal was at the same time to educate young girls into “proper” women. Ellenor Fenn, the grammarian discussed by Navest in her paper in this section, does not quite belong to this group of teacher-grammarians primarily because she herself did not run a school as such; her experience with teaching and young learners was through the Sunday schools she established as part of her charity work. Furthermore, she not only catered for young learners, girls as well as boys, but also for their mothers, who, by the ideas current at the time, would have to teach the early stages of English grammar to their own offspring, but who might not have the necessary skills to do so. Navest shows in her paper that Fenn was well aware of previous work done in the field of grammar writing. Because she

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based herself on Ash rather than on the more prestigious grammar by Lowth, Fenn showed a judicious and well-informed choice of example for her own work. In not acknowledging her sources she also demonstrated herself to be part of a tradition of grammar writing which is perhaps most pertinently exemplified by Lindley Murray (see also the introduction to Part 1 above). Like Murray’s grammar, hers presents “a careful selection of the most useful matter” as well as “some degree of improvement” on what she found (Murray 1795: iii). And like Murray, she proved immensely successful in her undertaking.

Ann Fisher’s A New Grammar, or was it Daniel Fisher’s work?1 María E. Rodríguez-Gil

1.

Introduction

When considering A New Grammar ([1745]), we take it for granted that Ann Fisher (1719–1778) was its author. However, the early editions of this grammar raise the question of its authorship. Though, unfortunately, there is no extant copy of its first edition, there is an advertisement in a Newcastle newspaper that shows that the grammar was published anonymously in 1745 in London. The title-page of the second edition, published in 1750 in Newcastle, reads that the grammar was written by “the author of THE CHILD’s CHRISTIAN EDUCATION, and others”. The author of The Child’s Christian Education was Daniel Fisher (1718–1799), a popular writer at the time. Next, a third edition of A New Grammar was printed twice, once in Newcastle in 1751 and once in London two years later, in 1753. The Newcastle edition was published under the name of “D. Fisher, and others” and it was “printed by Thompson and Co.” (titlepage). It is in the 1753 London edition, which was “printed for the author” (title-page), that the name of “A. Fisher” first appears as the sole author, and this would remain so in all subsequent editions. This amount of variation in authorship poses many questions: did Ann Fisher use a male pseudonym in the early editions? If not, the obvious next question is: who is “D. Fisher”, and what is the relationship between them? But the most important question is: who was the real author of A New Grammar? In this paper, I will try to provide answers to these questions, although we have to bear in mind that any definitive conclusions will be hampered by the absence of the first edition.

2. Current views Modern scholars such as Michael (1970) simply point out the changes without questioning Ann Fisher’s authorship: “The first two editions of the grammar were published anonymously. In a third edition of 1751 the author is given 1 This article is based on my unpublished PhD thesis (Rodríguez-Gil 2002b).

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as D. Fisher; in the third edition of 1753, and subsequently, the author is A. Fisher” (Michael 1970: 562). Others suggest co-operation between Ann Fisher and Daniel Fisher, though without offering any evidence: “During these years the works of Mrs. Slack [A. Fisher’s married name] and the “New Grammar”, which she had co-operated in writing …” (Robinson 1972: 334). And the same assumption appears in Alston: The authorship of this grammar is said, on the title-page, to be by “the author of The Child’s Christian Education and others”. This work survives in a sixth edition (1759) in the British Museum, the author being given as “Fisher”. It would seem, therefore, that we may suppose D. Fisher and Anne Fisher to be in part responsible for the work, since “D. Fisher” appears as the author on the title-page of the third edition (Alston 1965: 25).

It seems unlikely that the name of Daniel Fisher was used as a pseudonym for two reasons. First, it is difficult to believe that Ann Fisher used the name of a recognised contemporary author whose popularity was such that his book was included “in the list of those recommended by The society for promoting Christian Knowledge” (Daniel Fisher 1759: title-page);2 the use of this name without the author’s permission would have caused her legal problems granted by the Statute of Anne, from 1710, the first copyright act to defend that “the Author of any Book or Books … shall have the sole Right and Liberty of Printing such Book and Books for the Term of One and twenty Years” (Tallmo). And secondly, if Ann Fisher used “Daniel Fisher” as a pseudonym, the last thing to do would be exposing herself to Daniel Fisher’s notice. This is what she did when advertising A New Grammar in exactly the same local Newcastle newspaper, on the very same date and page as Daniel Fisher’s other writings, as in the case of the advertisement of the first edition of A New Grammar ([1745]) and Daniel Fisher’s works Easy Lessons and The Child’s Christian Education (see below § 3). Before tackling the controversy about the authorship of A New Grammar, it seems relevant at this point to provide some biographical details of the two candidates. Ann Fisher had been a schoolteacher in Newcastle for at least five years before the publication of the grammar, from 1745 to 1750.3 An advertisement appeared in the Newcastle Journal on 29 June 1745, announcing that “a school will be Open’d, where reading, according to the best Spelling-books, 2 A year after The Child’s Christian Education was first published in 1743, the Society for Promoting Christian Education bought 500 copies of the book (Robinson 1972, Appendix I, s.v. “Daniel Fisher”). 3 See Rodríguez-Gil (2002a), (2002b) and Cajka (2003) for a more detailed biography of Ann Fisher.

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and Grammars extant, writing, fine and plain sewing, will be Taught, by Anne Fisher” (Newcastle Journal, 29 June 1745). She may well have continued teaching after 1750, since as late as 1770 there is a direct reference to her teaching activities in one of her books: This kind of Transgression [i.e. mistakes in the placement of subject and object pronouns] may possibly be chargeable upon Dame Custom, but is in Custom with Nurses and Children only; the latter of whom are generally ashamed of it ere they reach their third Year, – long before Mr Ward’s Tuition or mine commences (Ann Fisher 1770: vii; emphasis added).

Fisher’s school for young ladies was originally situated “at the end of Denton chair, opposite to the Pant in Westgate” (Newcastle Journal, 29 June 1745) and afterwards “in St. Nicholas’s Church-yard” (Newcastle Journal, 28 April 1750). A few years later, in 1763, Ann Fisher, together with her husband Thomas Slack (1723–1784),4 set up a family business which consisted of a shop, a printing press, and a local newspaper, the Newcastle Chronicle. Ann Fisher was, moreover, the editor of The Ladies’ Own Memorandum-Book, published between 1767 and 1805 (e.g. Ann Fisher 1771), as well as a popular writer of educational books, namely The Pleasing Instructor (1756), The New English Tutor (1762a),5 A New English Exercise Book (1770), An Accurate Spelling Dictionary (1773 [1771?]) and The Young Scholar’s Delight (5th ed. 1802).6 Daniel Fisher was a curate at Wythop, near Cockermouth, Cumbria, where he was also a schoolmaster from 1738 to 1740. Later, he taught at a private school 4 Ann Fisher and Thomas Slack got married on 15 December 1751 in Yorkshire (Parish Register: 150). 5 I owe to ECCO the discovery of the first edition of The New English Tutor, published in 1762 in London, which is held in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Thus far, the first extant edition was believed to be the third edition, published in Newcastle for the author in 1774, while the date of the first edition was unknown. Robinson (1972: Vol. 3, 79) suggests that the first edition had been published in 1772 for J. Richardson and T. Slack in London and Newcastle. However, Welford (1907: 77) includes this book in the list of books published in 1763 in Newcastle, though he does not offer any evidence for his statement. Alston (1967: 104) agrees with Welford in giving 1763? as the date for the first edition, though noting that no copy has been located; he gives the third edition from 1774 as the first extant edition, of which he provides an illustration of the title-page (1967: plate LXVII). 6 This edition, the fifth one published by Solomon Hodgson in Newcastle, is the only extant edition. Earlier editions have not been preserved, and the only reference to the publishing date of the first edition comes from Myer (1997: 85), who states, without providing any authority, that it was published in 1770 together with her other book A New English Exercise Book.

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at Whickham until he was appointed headmaster at a school in Cockermouth in 1758, and rector of Bolton in 1761. As a teacher he taught English, Latin, Greek, writing and arithmetic (Robinson 1972, Appendix I, s.v. “Daniel Fisher”), and he wrote three elementary school books, i.e. The Child’s Christian Education (1743), Easy Lessons (1745) and The Young Christian Instructed (1763), which primarily dealt with spelling and Christian education. The relationship between Ann Fisher and Daniel Fisher is unclear. They may have been more or less close relatives since they share the same surname and were both from Cumbria, in the north of England: Ann Fisher was born in Lorton and Daniel Fisher was educated in Appleby (Robinson 1972, Appendix I, s.v. “Anne Fisher” and “Daniel Fisher”).

3. Common bonds: printers, booksellers and advertisements Whether relatives or not, Ann Fisher and Daniel Fisher were connected through Isaac Thompson, a Newcastle printer, from, at least, 1745 to 1754. Thompson had been a teacher himself for three years, running an academy in Newcastle. His interest in education led him to “embark upon printing and publication in Newcastle” (Robinson 1972: 332), thus steadily building a flourishing business that included printing, publishing and journalism; he owned the Newcastle Journal, and was editor of the Newcastle General Magazine (Welford 1907: 27–30). Thompson was a publisher of educational books, and both Ann Fisher and Daniel Fisher were among his authors. Thus, the second edition of A New Grammar was printed “for I. Thompson and Co. by J. Gooding”7 in 1750 (Ann Fisher 1750: title-page), and the third and fourth editions were printed “by I. Thompson and Co.” (Ann Fisher 1751, 1754: title-page). According to Robinson (1972: 334), the first edition of Daniel Fisher’s Easy Lessons (1745) “was probably printed by Thompson although no printer was mentioned in the advertisement”, and the two other editions of this book, published in 1746 and 1751, were printed by “Thompson and Co.”. The fact that the second, third and fourth editions of A New Grammar were printed in Newcastle, contrary to the first edition which was apparently printed in London, suggests “the influence of Ann Fisher and her future husband” (Robinson 1972: 338) in the publication of A New Grammar. Thompson being a common acquaintance supports the 7 John Gooding became Thompson’s printer in 1744, not only for his books but also for the Newcastle Journal and the Newcastle General Magazine (Welford 1907: 32–33).


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possibility that Ann Fisher and Daniel Fisher knew each other. Unfortunately there is no clear evidence that they ever met, but their common interest in teaching as well as in educational publishing might well have brought them together considering the fact that they lived at a distance of only about 3.5 miles from each other. Daniel Fisher was a schoolmaster in Whickham, Gateshead, probably from 1740 until 1758 (Robinson 1972: 191–192). Whickham is situated on the south of the River Tyne, just opposite to Newcastle, the city where Ann Fisher lived and worked. Besides Thompson, Ann Fisher and Daniel Fisher also shared the London printers and booksellers M. Downing and C. Hitch. The first edition of A New Grammar ([1745]) was distributed and sold in London by “M. Downing, C. Hitch, and J. Clarke, Booksellers” (Newcastle Journal, 29 June 1745). Daniel Fisher’s The Child’s Christian Education (1743) was printed in London by Hitch and Downing until 1752, and afterwards by B. Dodd (Robinson 1972: Vol. 3, 77), who was “Bookseller to The SOCIETY for promoting Christian Knowledge” (Daniel Fisher 1759: title-page). Since Daniel Fisher’s work came out two years earlier than A New Grammar, in 1743, Ann Fisher may have come to know of these printers through Daniel Fisher; moreover, they published two of her other books, which is clear from the fact that the names C. Hitch and L. Hawes appear on the title-pages of the 1756 and 1757 editions of The Pleasing Instructor, as well as on that of the 1773 edition of An Accurate New Spelling Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language. Having shared the same booksellers for their early printed work, Ann Fisher and Daniel Fisher went different ways. The 1753 edition of A New Grammar was printed in London for the author, i.e. Ann Fisher according to the title-page. As a woman, Ann Fisher must have felt it safer to let the world know she was the author of A New Grammar in a distant city, London, and not in Newcastle, where she lived, although “A. Fisher” still doesn’t identify her as a female writer. Having been published “abroad”, she felt confident enough to publish the fourth edition (1754), and further editions to come, at home. The editions of 1759, 1762 (1762b), 1763 and 1767 were printed jointly by C. Hitch & L. Hawes and J. Richardson. A second issue of the 1767 edition was again printed in London, but this time by G. Robinson and J. Roberts,8 who would continue to publish A New Grammar until 1800, and who eventually became the Slacks’ London associates. However, “despite the 8 L. Hawes may well have been the person who brought Robinson and Roberts and Ann Fisher into contact, since Ann Fisher’s The Pleasing Instructor, which was printed in 1756 and 1757 by Hitch and Hawes, was printed in 1766 by G. Robinson & J. Roberts and L. Hawes, and then from 1770 onwards by Robinson & Roberts only.

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London imprint on such works it is probable that the actual printing was still done in Newcastle” (Robinson 1972: 338). The connection between Ann Fisher and Daniel Fisher is also corroborated by the advertisements to promote their books in the Newcastle Journal, which was owned by their former publisher I. Thompson. The first edition of A New Grammar and Easy Lessons were advertised together: “This Day is Published, Pr. 1 s. A NEW grammar and Spelling-book: being the most easy guide to Speaking and Writing ENGLISH Properly and Correctly […] of whom9 may be had, at 2s. 6d. per Dozen, EASY LESSONS for little children and beginners” (Newcastle Journal, 29 June 1745). And again the next two months A New Grammar and Daniel Fisher works’ The Child’s Christian Education and Easy Lessons appeared on the same page: “This Day is Published, Price 9s. per Dozen, the second edition of THE CHILD’s CHRISTIAN EDUCATION … as also, price one shilling, A NEW GRAMMAR and SPELLING-BOOK … of whom may be had, at 2 S. per Dozen, EASY LESSONS for little children and beginners”10 (Newcastle Journal, 13 July 1745, 10 August 1745). The situation changed in 1750, when the advertisement of the second edition of A New Grammar was published again, though with a number of differences from its counterpart for the 1745 edition: (i) neither The Child’s Christian Education nor Easy Lessons are in the same announcement, nor even on the same page; (ii) there is a slight change in the title of the book from A New Grammar and Spelling-Book (Newcastle Journal, 29 June 1745) to A New Grammar (Newcastle Journal, 10 March 1750), thus leaving out “and Spelling Book”; (iii) whereas the first edition was published anonymously, now in the second edition the authors are identified as “the author of The CHILD’s CHRISTIAN EDUCATION, and others”. This same advertisement appeared repeatedly in the Newcastle Journal from March to December 1750.

9 10

The pronoun whom refers to the booksellers listed in the advertisement for A New Grammar and Spelling Book. The different prices of these books provide a clue to the intended readership. The prices of A New Grammar and Spelling-Book, i.e. one shilling, and of The Child’s Christian Education, i.e. nine shillings a dozen, or nine pence a copy, reveal that these books were among the “more advanced works on English”, which usually cost “between nine pence and one shilling and six pence”, and that “this price was still within the means of most artisans” (Robinson 1972: 341). Instead, Easy Lessons cost half a crown (2 s. 6d.) a dozen, that is, 2.5 pence a copy, which places this book in “the cheapest range of books”, which “were designed for very young children” and which “were clearly within the price range of all classes of society” (Robinson 1972: 340–341).


4.

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The setup of A New Grammar

A New Grammar offers an ambitious plan designed to teach the English language and to do so by covering four areas: orthography, prosody, grammatical categories and syntax. There is a clear distinction between orthography and prosody. The first section on orthography discusses (i) the short and long sounds of vowels, diphthongs and consonants, (ii) the division of words into syllables by rules and (iii) the use of punctuation marks. The contents of this section are entirely traditional: Orthography meant the study of the letters of the alphabet, which were enumerated, and classified as consonants, vowels, diphthongs, and often into more refined categories still. The sounds which each letter could represent were usually described. Letters compose syllables, syllables compose words; the structure of a word was therefore shown by the syllables into which it could be divided. Spelling was conceived as the division of a word into syllables, according to rules, and not simply as the enumeration of its letters (Michael 1970: 184).

The second section of this work, prosody, first provides a theoretical explanation of accent, quantity and rules for accenting words, and then supplies tables of words of up to eight syllables with the stress marked and the syllables separated. This practice is justified as follows: After all the Rules that can be given, no Method will lead a Learner so easily to put the right Accent upon Words, as Tables, or Catalogues of Words, disposed according to their Accents on the first, second, or third Syllable, &c. for which Reason the following Tables and Examples are added. Most of our Grammarians omit Tables of this kind, thinking them more peculiar to Spelling Books, with Lessons interspersed: But as it is the most concise Method to a right accenting, and Exercises in Spelling cannot be too frequent, they will not, on any Account, be superfluous. After a thorough Knowledge of the few Words contained in these Tables, I would recommend, to the Use of Schools, Martin’s new English Dictionary; which contains the greatest Number of modern Words, fully explain’d, and mark’d both with the single and double Accents on their proper Syllables (Ann Fisher 1750: 49).

In the section headed “etymology” the author explains the different parts of speech, dividing them into four primary categories: names, qualities, verbs and particles; the latter category comprises adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections. This innovative fourfold division and the anglicised terms used to describe some grammatical terms, e.g. “qualities” for “adjectives”, “names” for “nouns”, and “relative names” for “pronouns”, identify this grammar as being part of what Michael (1970: 512−514) refers to as the “movement of reform”. The grammarians in this group deviated from the tradition of producing “latinate” English grammars, and wrote theirs more faithfully according to the

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nature and structure of the English language (see Rodríguez-Gil 2002a, 2002b and 2006). The last section of the grammar, syntax, contains an enumeration of the “general rules for English concord” (Ann Fisher 1750: 117), which regulated subject-verb agreement and the correct use of subject and object pronouns, while it also contained grammatical strictures such as those which proscribed the use of double comparison and double negation. These and similar prescriptive and proscriptive rules were listed in the syntax section of other grammars of the period, since according to Michael “the traditional conception of syntax as primarily the relations (agreement and government) between the parts of speech” still continued throughout the eighteenth century (Michael 1970: 468). The formulation of syntactic rules in A New Grammar is followed by a chapter on transposition, i.e. “the placing of Words in a Sentence, or Sentences, out of their natural Order, to render their Sound more harmonious and agreeable to the Ear” (Ann Fisher 1750: 122), and by one dealing with grammatical figures, such as ellipsis, defined as “the want of one or more Letters in a Word” or as “the want of one or more Words in a Sentence” (Ann Fisher 1750: 124). Then, to finish the theoretical part of the grammar with some practice, a section with “examples of bad English” has been added, illustrating the preceding rules for concord and agreement. These examples range from short sentences to long paragraphs, most of them of a trifling nature, but some with a moralising or even political intent: Sarah is more fairer than Anne. The Merchants and Traders at Amsterdam has raised 17,000l. to be distributed among the Troops who makes so brave Defence at Bergen. To be careless of what others says of us, is a fatal Error. The Fear of Infamy are the Shield of Virtue, who should never be laid down. To be negligent of our Character, make us negligent of our Conduct. ’Tis not enough that we is virtuous, we must be careful also to appear so; and publickly to discourage Vice in others, as well as refrain from the Practice of it ourselves (from Ann Fisher 1750: 129–130).

5. Daniel Fisher’s contribution to A New Grammar The setup presented in A New Grammar is completely different from Daniel Fisher’s The Child’s Christian Education.11 This book provided material for 11

I will not deal with Daniel Fisher’s Easy Lessons (1745) and The Young Christian Instructed (1763) here, because the former was a primer, intended for beginners and offering introductory reading lessons without any further reference to spelling, while the latter contained only devotional matter.


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children to learn to read, wrapped in a religious package. The author, however, paid more attention to its religious content than to teaching spelling and reading skills since, although the subtitle of this book reads “Spelling and Reading made Easy”, only 33 pages out of 156 deal with spelling, while the rest concerns aspects of religious education, namely baptism, faith, commandments, prayers and sacraments.12 The spelling material in this book is of particular interest for the sake of a comparison with some sections in A New Grammar, and for this reason I will deal with some of the elements discussed by Daniel Fisher. The book starts with a picture alphabet, followed by an enumeration of vowels, consonants and “double letters”, that is, letters joined to show “typographical ligatures such as ct, ff, fh” (Michael 1987: 28). After this, there are short lists of words of two to more than five letters, thus introducing an element of prosody, as well as graded reading lessons of words ranging from one to five letters.13 For example, lesson one reads: As for me, I will call on God: and the Lord shall save me. Thou art my God, and I will thank thee; thou art my God, and I will praise thee. Praise the Lord, ye that by Night stand in the House of the Lord; in the Courts of the House of our God (Daniel Fisher 1759: 13).

Daniel Fisher considered these “easy lessons”, designed to help young children to read, to be sufficient, because they are followed by religious discussions about God, the duty of man to God, prayers and the like. However, he gave this setup a second thought, and in the second part of the book he again introduced words listed according to the number of syllables, though this time with the stress indicated, and divided according to the rules of spelling. In doing so he followed the established practice with respect to reading and spelling: “Because reading depended on the correct division of syllables, and because reading was so often considered to be a process dependent on, or parallel with, spelling, the 12

13

In fact, the preface of this book emphasises the importance of imparting religious education, and the book itself is aimed at granting that children were “principled in their Religion”; to achieve this aim, “nothing more is necessary than to propose such Portions of the Bible to Children as are short, and at the same Time suited to their weak Capacities” (Daniel Fisher 1759: iii, iv). In the same way, Easy Lessons was devised for “little children and beginners” and it consisted of “an alphabet, illustrated with cuts, (upon the plan of the great Mr. Lock) together with a great Number of easy lessons not exceeding Words of one Syllable, which are so digested that they are cheated, as it were, to improve, whilst they are agreeably diverted” (Newcastle Journal, 5 January 1751).

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division of syllables came to be equated with spelling itself” (Michael 1987: 73). Around the middle of the book, the author introduced spelling rules14 together with the use of punctuation marks,15 and exercises to practise spelling, i.e. tables of words of six and seven syllables to be divided according to the preceding rules. To sum up, the elements dealt with by Daniel Fisher in this book include the alphabet, syllables, tables of words listed alphabetically with the stress marked and divided into syllables, spelling rules and short reading lessons. This teaching plan concurs with the prevailing idea at the time that in learning to read it was necessary to start from the simplest components, i.e. letters, then syllables, and then finish with more complex ones, i.e. words, since for most eighteenthcentury teachers “if you could read words, you could read” (Michael 1987: 72). The Child’s Christian Education conveys a blend of orthography and prosody, a confusion that was rather common: “Strictly, the pronunciation of letters and syllables belonged to orthography and the pronunciation of words to prosody, but the distinction was quite unreal, and constantly ignored” (Michael 1970: 185). In contrast with what is found in The Child’s Christian Education, in A New Grammar a clear distinction is made between orthography and prosody. There is a conspicuous difference between these two works not only in terms of quantity, with sixty-one pages as compared to the thirty-three pages in Daniel Fisher’s book, but also, and more importantly, of quality, particularly in the discussion of the vowel sounds, the different types of consonants, and the rules for word stress. Even those sections that are common in both works differ to some extent, except for the spelling rules. For example, the list of words for disyllables with the letter a in A New Grammar (1750: 50) is: “abbot, abject, absent, accent, after, amber, ambush, anchor, angel, annals, answer, anthem, anvil, any, apron, ardent, asses”, whereas its counterpart in The Child’s Christian Education lists the following words: “abase, abate, abhor, abide, able, abound, abroad, abstain, account, Adam, afar, afraid, after, again, aged, ague, against, alive, alone, also, altar, always, amen, among, angel, anger, answer, any, appear, apply, apron, arise, armour, ascribe, aside, asketh, asleep, avenge, 14 15

“Until 1775 rules of spelling, of varied kinds, appeared in about 70 per cent of the relevant texts” (Michael 1987: 109). Explaining the use of punctuation marks was commonly found in other contemporary spelling books; cf., for instance, William Baker’s Rules for True Spelling and Writing English (1724), Nathaniel Bailey’s (d. 1742) An Introduction to the English Tongue: Being a Spelling Book (1726), Daniel Fenning’s (d. 1767) The Universal Spelling-Book (1756), and Arthur Masson’s An English Spelling Book (1757).


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avoid” (Daniel Fisher 1759: 25). Another common section is that on punctuation marks. In The Child’s Christian Education, these are very briefly enumerated and defined in a short sentence, with the entire section occupying less than a page, whereas A New Grammar provides a fuller description of the use of each punctuation mark, illustrated by several examples, and amounting to over seven pages. There are two issues that tie The Child’s Christian Education to A New Grammar: rules of spelling and double accent. When we compare the spelling rules recorded in The Child’s Christian Education and A New Grammar it becomes obvious that they run almost parallel, even occurring in the same order, although with some more or less trivial changes. In both works the seven rules provided – eight in A New Grammar, though rule number eight in Daniel Fisher’s work appears as part of the general explanation and not as an actual rule – deal exclusively with the division of syllables in general, without referring to particular cases, and without a discussion of the pronunciation of letters or words. Four out of the seven rules are almost identical, the difference lying only in some minor changes or additions in the wording or in the examples illustrating them. For instance, Rules I and V read as follows: Rule I If two Vowels come together, not making a Diphthong, they must be divided, as Liar, Ru-in (Daniel Fisher 1759: 101). Rule I If two Vowels come together, not making a Diphthong, they must be divided; as pious, ru-in, &c. (Ann Fisher 1750: 33). Rule V When two of the same Consonants come together in any Words, they must always be parted in spelling, as ap-pear, ap-ply (Daniel Fisher 1759: 102). Rule V When two of the same Consonants come together in a Word, they must be parted; as, ap-pear, ap-ply, bor-row, man-ner, &c. (Ann Fisher 1750: 34).

The remaining rules are also identical, the only difference being that those in A New Grammar provide more information. For instance, in Rules III and VI in A New Grammar, which discuss consonant clusters at the beginning of syllables and words, there are additional lists of “double” and “treble consonants” in this position. In Rule II the explanation is longer: Rule II A single Consonant between two Vowels joins to the latter Vowel, except x, as abide, Max-im (Daniel Fisher 1759: 102).

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Rule II A single Consonant, between two Vowels, joins to the latter vowel; as, a-bide, alone, &c. except x and w, which are always join’d to the former; as, ox-en, ex-ample, jew-el, vow-el, &c. (Ann Fisher 1750: 33).

The other common feature in The Child’s Christian Education and A New Grammar is “double accent”, a concept first found in Thomas Dyche’s (d. ca. 1733) A Guide to the English Tongue (1707) to refer to those syllables in which a single consonant was doubled in pronunciation (see Michael 1987: 83–84): A great number of Words do in Pronunciation draw a Single Consonant after the former Vowel or Diphthong, actually doubling the Power of it. And this I consider’d was occasion’d by the Accent reflecting upon that Syllable: And, therefore, tho’ I have plac’d the Consonant with the latter Vowel, according to the first Rule […] Yet I have taken great Care all along the Book to mark such Syllables with a Double Accent, thus ". As for instance in the Word po"-pu-lóus, the Double Accent upon o directs the Reader to pronounce it, as if it were written pop-pu-lous (Dyche 1707: preface).

Despite the fact that there is no evidence that Daniel Fisher read Dyche, the term “double accent” appears in The Child’s Christian Education, although the author modified meaningfully the concept to signal words whose division into syllables offered difficulties: N.B. any Word that may be divided one Way by Sound, and another Way by the Rules of Spelling, the Scholar is directed how to understand the doubtful Division by this Mark ": so that they who do not like the Division of Words by Rule, may with Ease teach these Tables according to the Ear, because the Words are mark’d, where the Rule and Ear disagree (Daniel Fisher 1759: 25).

In A New Grammar the explanation of “double accent” stays faithful to the original discussion in Dyche, though it also admits of the use given by Daniel Fisher: This (") is called the Double Accent, the Use of which is every where to denote, that the Letter which begins the Syllable to which it is prefix’d has a double Sound, one of which belongs to the preceeding Syllable … This double Accent is an Idiom peculiar to our Language, without which our Division could not be reducible to Rule, except to that random one of the Ear; which of course must change with the various Dialects of Counties: However, such as chuse to follow that uncertain Way, may, with Ease, teach by these Tables, as the Words are all properly mark’d where this double Accent happens. – The double Accent shews also where the Stress of the Voice lies when alone, the same as the single one (Ann Fisher 1750: 50n).

That Ann Fisher adopted the feature from Dyche and not from Daniel Fisher is supported by the advertisement of A New Grammar in the press, which


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boasted that the book “answers all the Purposes of Dyche’s Spelling-book and Loughton’s Grammar, tho’ but about half the Price” (Newcastle Journal, 29 June 1745). In a later work, The New English Tutor (1762a), she continued to use “double accent”, though she believed that it causes “perplexities”, and instead of using the mark “"”, she highlighted the consonant to be sounded double by means of italics, as in “damage”, “finish”, and “habit” (Ann Fisher 1762a: 39). In the light of what has been discussed so far, there is no doubt that Daniel Fisher’s interest lay in orthography and prosody, as the contents of The Child’s Christian Education attest, and that this interest seems to have been his major contribution to A New Grammar. Daniel Fisher may have been responsible for the introduction in A New Grammar of the concept of “double accent” presented above, but his contribution is readily visible in the spelling rules, since the wording and the examples in both works are meaningfully identical. However, the same rules or very similar ones were recorded in contemporary grammars and spelling books,16 and therefore I can provide no proof that Daniel Fisher was co-author of A New Grammar apart from circumstantial evidence, namely his name on the title-page, the high similarity of the spelling rules and the probable acquaintance between Ann Fisher and Daniel Fisher. Whereas Daniel Fisher’s part in A New Grammar is uncertain, I will show in the section below that there are a number of indications in the work itself that supports Ann Fisher’s authorship.

6. Ann Fisher’s role in A New Grammar 6.1. Copyright, self-advertising and personal letters In 1753 A New Grammar was “printed for the Author”, and from 1757 onwards the editions of A New Grammar were printed for Ann Fisher’s husband Thomas Slack in his own printing office in Newcastle,17 although, according to Robinson (1972: 334), until 1763 they were presumably still printed “under Thompson’s press”.18 Even before starting their own business in 1763, the 16

17

18

Cf. for instance Thomas Dyche (1707: 116–117), James Buchanan (fl. 1753–1773) (1762: 30–49), Nathaniel Bailey (1726: 28–30), the anonymous A New English Grammar (1746: 35–40), and John Corbet (1784: 29–30). When Thomas Slack died in 1784 his son-in-law Solomon Hodgson continued managing the family business, which included a printing office (Welford 1907: 46). A New Grammar was among the books that Hodgson printed from 1787 to 1810. Thomas Slack managed Thompson’s business from some time between 1751 and 1755 until 1762, when they quarrelled due to rivalry in business; the quarrel “may

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Slacks started to print Ann Fisher’s books probably “to take the larger profit of merely renting the printer’s time” (Robinson 1972: 335),19 and when they left Thompson’s company, they took their books with them, including A New Grammar, which continued to be published for T. Slack. Since only copyright owners had “the crucial privilege of the sole right to print and publish a particular work” (Feather 1985: 2), it can be conjectured that the Slacks, or in any case Ann Fisher, owned the copyright of A New Grammar. Mr. Slack himself confirms this fact in a draft copy of his will drawn up in 1779: “Mr. Robinson in London has half the copy right of all our books except the Grammar and the Edition of the Dictionary20 now on sale” (BL: Add 50240) (as quoted by Cajka 2003: 59). Ann Fisher claimed repeatedly in her school books that A New Grammar was her own work. In the title-page of The New English Tutor (1774) the author is presented as “A. Fisher, Author of the New English Grammar, with Exercises of Bad English”; and in An Accurate New Spelling Dictionary, it is stated that it was written “By A. Fisher, Author of the Practical New English Grammar, with Exercises of Bad English: The New English Tutor, calculated for the New Method of Teaching, &c.” (1773: title-page). This same practice is followed in The Young Scholar’s Delight (1802), in which the grammar, the New English Tutor and the spelling dictionary are advertised on the title-page. Ann Fisher felt very proud of her grammar, which she had produced “with great Diffidence, and after much Assiduity in studying the English Language independently” (Ann Fisher 1770: iii), giving as a result “the first [grammar] that exhibited an Etymology, and a system of Syntax rules peculiarly adapted to the genius and idioms of the English language, independent of any other tongue, with Exercises of false English, &c.” (Ann Fisher 1773: iv). She even included an abridgement of A New Grammar in The New English Tutor (1762a) and in the New Spelling Dictionary (1773), as supplementary material that would attract prospective readers, as she “recommended [it] as a proper Introduction to Fisher’s Grammar, with Exercises of bad English, being upon the same Principles and Plan” (Ann Fisher 1762a: 122). This practice of advertising books was have arisen over the Newcastle Memorandum Book, a popular volume edited and apparently entirely owned by Slack, but printed and published in Thompson’s office” (Hodgson 1921: 180). 19 In 1756 another of Ann Fisher’s books, The Pleasing Instructor, was printed for T. Slack. 20 It is not surprising that the Slacks kept the copyright of these books, the grammar being a best-seller and the dictionary because of an injunction brought unfairly against Ann Fisher by Robinson among others, and which ended up in favour of the accused (see Rodríguez-Alvarez & Rodríguez-Gil 2006).


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frequently found in the eighteenth century, but only when the books were from the same author,21 or were printed by the same printer, and these lists were usually inserted at the end of the book 22 (see also Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume). That Daniel Fisher followed the same practice with A New Grammar, though for a very short time only, is further evidence of their cooperation in writing A New Grammar. However, his name and his advertising of the book soon disappeared from both the press and from his other works, implying thus that he withdrew his name as one of the authors of the grammar to give prominence to Ann Fisher. There is also evidence of Ann Fisher’s authorship of A New Grammar in her personal writings. In an unedited draft version of the preface to her dictionary, she vehemently defends herself against an injunction laid on her by John Entick and his publishers, and claims that the grammar annexed to Entick’s dictionary (1765) was hers: “& [I] could not possibly be angry at my Name being put to it, because it was not at the Book at all, but only at the Abstract of Grammar annexed to which I would certainly wou’d not have admitted any other Name” (Hodgson Papers,23 unpublished draft of The Preface, f. 22v). In these pages, she says that her grammar was “the first that exhibited an Etymology on the same Plan & a System of Syntax Rules peculiarly adapted to the Genius & Idioms of the English Language”, and she complains that “all of which most Grammarians have since pirated or humbly imitated without anyone of them improving upon, or even allowing me the Originality of ^them the” (Hodgson Papers, unpublished draft of The Preface, f. 22r). She was not far from the truth when stating that her grammar and exercises of bad English were widely known in her lifetime. Her new type of exercise became popular as soon as it first appeared in print in the second edition of A New Grammar: “between 1750 and 1800 they appeared in about eighty texts” (Michael 1987: 327), some of which were as important as Ralph Harrison’s (1748–1810) Institutes of English 21

22

23

Cf. John Clarke (1687–1734): “Author of the Two Essays upon Education and Study, Introduction to the making of Latin, &c.” (1733: title-page); Thomas Dilworth (d. 1780): “author of the Schoolmasters assistant; Young book-keeper’s assistant, &c.” (1769: title-page); and Alexander Bicknell (d. 1796) (1790), who included at the end of the book a list of “works, by the same author”. Cf. the anonymous Pocket Dictionary (1753): “Books printed for, and Sold by J. Newbery, at the Bible and Sun, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard”; James Buchanan (1762), with a list of books “printed for and sold by A. Millar”; or William Perry (1747–?) (1795) “List of books printed for John Stockdale, Piccadilly”. Hodgson Papers, Add 50244, Vol. V. ff. 1–49b, in Add. 50240–50252. “Papers of Ann, Wife of Thomas Slack; Drafts, etc. relating to her Published Educational Works”; n.d. ff. 21–49b. British Library.

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Grammar … with Exercises of True and False Construction (1777) and Lindley Murray’s (1745–1826) English Grammar (1795). Her grammar was also mentioned by some contemporary grammarians such as Peter Walkden Fogg, who cited her book, although in order to criticise it, as one of the grammars he consulted for his discussion of the use of the indefinite article “a/an”: “To the common defective account of this matter, which is thus well expressed by Mr. Harrison, ‘A is used before a consonant, and an before a vowel, or h not sounded’, agree, almost verbatim, Buchanan, Shaw, Fisher, Hodgson, and Fenning. − Lowth is nearly the same in words …” (Fogg 1792–1796: 109–110). The Rev. Mr. Isaac Hodgson includes the examples of bad English in his grammar and acknowledges Ann Fisher, “to whom our Thanks are due” (Hodgson 1770: x), and mentions her work together with Buchanan’s: “The same may be observed with Respect to Syntax and Government, which if critically examined, we shall find the Difference between the English and Latin less than some may have imagined. As this has been taken notice of by Fisher, Buchanan, and others, I shall not here enlarge upon it” (1770: vi).

6.2.

Improvements in the second edition of A New Grammar: letter to the author and teaching method

The second edition of A New Grammar sings its own praises in the local press: “a great many new Observations are likewise interspersed, particularly the Examples of Bad English” (Newcastle Journal, 28 April 1750). Besides the obvious difference in the title from A New Grammar and Spelling book in 1745 to A New Grammar, in this edition there are several significant changes between the advertisements of the first and second editions: (i) the addition of exercises of bad English, “which, tho’ never made use of by any of our Grammarians before, will be found to conduce much more to a speedy and critical knowledge of the English Tongue than any Thing hitherto prescribed”; (ii) a letter to the author and a description of a method of teaching, “containing General Directions for teaching English in the most concise Manner, and in a Grammatical Way, so as to qualify an English Scholar to write as correctly as if acquainted with the Latin, or other Languages” ; (iii) it addresses not only schools, but also “the private instruction of young ladies and gentlemen”; (iv) whereas the first edition was advertised as being better, and cheaper, than Dyche’s The Spelling Dictionary (2nd ed. 1725) and William Loughton’s A Practical Grammar of the English Tongue (1734), this second edition asserts that “in compiling this, all the english grammars hitherto published in Great Britain or Ireland, have been carefully perused, and such useful Extracts made


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from them as, ’tis presum’d, contain the Quintessence of them all”. I will first briefly comment on the last two points and will return to the first two points in more detail below. Regarding the third improvement, it is revealing that the grammar is for the first time specifically addressed to a female audience. This clearly links in with Ann Fisher’s own school, whose pupils were exclusively female, as well as with her other educational writings in general, which conveyed the same concern for the education of women (Michael 1999: 19).24 Besides, the fact that A New Grammar now addressed not only individuals, but also schools and academies associates this grammar with Ann Fisher’s other books, which were also “designed for the use of schools, as well as the closet” (Ann Fisher 1756: titlepage). Both the intended readership and the scope of the work, therefore, point to Ann Fisher’s influence on this second edition. As for the last point raised above, I have discussed elsewhere that Ann Fisher widely read the work of fellow grammarians and that she kept up-to-date on socio-cultural issues (Rodríguez-Gil 2006). There are references in her work to contemporary authors such as John Clarke, who wrote A New Grammar of the Latin Tongue (1733) and An Introduction to the Making of Latin (1721), Nathaniel Bailey (d. 1742) and his English and Latin Exercises for SchoolBoys (1706), Ephraim Chambers (ca. 1680–1740) and his Cyclopaedia (1728), as well as to journals such as the Spectator and The Gentleman’s Magazine. Therefore, it seems also to her credit that this edition was improved by such extensive reading as is claimed in the Newcastle Journal advertisement, i.e. “all the english grammars hitherto published in Great Britain or Ireland” (Newcastle Journal, 28 April 1750), and it gives an idea of the high esteem in which she held herself as a scholar. Being a woman she must have worked hard to make a name for herself in a male-dominated world,25 but far from feeling 24 See § 7.1. below for further discussion of Ann Fisher’s concern for women’s education. 25 Ann Fisher was right in being cautious to reveal her name in the early editions of A New Grammar, since female authors were regarded with suspicion in eighteenthcentury society. As late as 1775, the following review was made of Ellin Devis’s grammar (1746–1820): “An English grammar written by a Lady, would formerly have been considered as a prodigy: but the improvements which have, of late, been made in the modes of female education, both in private families and schools, have given the young ladies of the present age advantages with which their grandmothers were unacquainted; so that, instead of collecting ill-written and ill-spelt receipts in cookery and quack-medicine, they are now able to carry on a correspondence with correctness and elegance, and perhaps to introduce works of sentiment, taste, and fancy” (William Enfield, 1775, Monthly Review 52, p. 464, quoted in

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inferior, she wrote her work as an equal among equals, thus achieving “some sort of academic authority with male grammarians” (Mitchell 1988). As regards the first improvement mentioned above, A New Grammar apparently owes the introduction of the examples of bad English to the author of the letter and teaching method which offered a general plan to be followed in presenting material for instruction. This becomes clear from the following passage in the preface to the second edition: “I am obliged to an ingenious Friend for the following letter, which I humbly recommend, and shall communicate it in his own Words; unwilling to rob him of any Applause that it may be thought to deserve. I make no Doubt, but that his Examples of bad English will be universally approved of” (Ann Fisher 1750: ii). I will return to the question of the authorship of the letter and the author and teaching method below. The writer of the letter, which is quoted in full, claims to be the first one to introduce this new type of exercise: “I have never observ’d this Method recommended or prescrib’d by others” (Ann Fisher 1750: 9) and he admits that he has transferred this skill from the teaching of Latin because if it was “the most expedient Method, to a thorough Knowledge of syntax” in that language, then it would be equally successful as a “requisite to a critical knowledge of our own” (Ann Fisher 1750: 9). That this new teaching device was highly regarded by the author of the grammar is clear when the letter-writer states that it “alone must give this the Advantage of all other Grammars, that do not contain any Thing to the same Purpose” (Ann Fisher 1750: ii), and this consideration took him to include it in the new edition of A New Grammar. It was even incorporated into the main title of the 1753 edition, thus becoming A New Grammar, with Exercises of Bad English, giving the innovation prominence and raising its importance in the public eye.26 The most interesting fact about these exercises is that they establish such a close link between the author of the teaching method and the part of syntax in A New Grammar that we may infer that they were written by the same person. The exercises of bad English are divided into two sections: (i) “Examples of bad English, under all the Rules of syntax” (Ann Fisher 1750: 127), which formulate the syntactical rules first and then provide the examples of false syntax under each rule separately, and (ii) “PromiscuPercy 2003: 51) The subtle antifeminism in this review still confines women’s writing to the private domain, i.e. collecting recipes and writing letters, though the author condescendingly notes that women can “perhaps” produce “works of sentiment, taste, and fancy”, like Devis’s grammar, but in no case can they produce any serious writings. 26 This change in the title was clearly another instance of the marketing devices used in the publication of grammars at the time as discussed by Tieken-Boon van Ostade (this volume).


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ous exercises: or, examples under all the rules” (Ann Fisher 1750: 129), in which the mistakes in the sentences may refer to any rule. It is most revealing that the same rules, given in exactly the same order, are formulated verbatim in the first section of the examples of bad English, provided by the Author of the teaching method, and under the heading “syntax” in A New Grammar. In addition to this, the vernacular metalanguage used to designate some grammatical terms is the same as that used throughout A New Grammar, i.e. “helping verbs” for “auxiliaries”, “names” for “nouns”, “quality” for “adjective”, “relative name” for “pronoun”, and “leading state” and “following state” for “subject” and “object case” respectively (cf. above § 4). The introduction of this new type of syntactic exercise is part of the new teaching method advocated in the introductory letter. The letter “to the author” and the section “on the method of teaching” following it appeared for the first time in the second edition of the grammar, and again in the 1751 edition, when the authors of A New Grammar were presented as “D. Fisher and others”. However, as soon as the name of Daniel Fisher disappeared from the title-page, in the 1753 edition, the letter was removed as an independent section and its content was incorporated into the preface, whilst the section on the teaching method remained, though with a slightly changed title, i.e. “A practical method of teaching English grammatically”. With these changes the author of the letter and of the section on the teaching method seems to be assuming the authorship of the grammar itself. The letter, dated November 1749 in Carlisle (Ann Fisher 1750: [iii]), is signed by “A. B.”, a conventional acronym used to indicate that the author pretended that the text had been written by someone else.27 This signature, therefore, gives support to ascribe the authorship of the grammar itself to the author of the letter and of the section on the teaching method. I will now provide more evidence to corroborate this claim by showing that the method and the grammar share the same teaching plan. In the “method of teaching”, which gives “the approach adopted by the individual master” (Robinson 1972: 329), the author proposes exactly the same scheme as the general set up of A New Grammar, namely orthography as “the first Part of Grammar” (Ann Fisher 1750: 7), to be followed by prosody, then by etymology, to learn “to what Parts of Speech each Word peculiarly belongs” (Ann Fisher 1750: 8), and to finish with “a thorough knowledge of syntax” through “making Exercises from false concord” (Ann Fisher 1750: 9). This fourfold division dates from the Middle Ages and can be found in over forty 27

I am grateful to Carol Percy for informing me about this eighteenth-century custom even among teachers; the information has helped me clarify certain aspects of Ann Fisher’s authorship.

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per cent of the English grammars (Michael 1970: 185–186), so it could be argued that the similarity between them was just a coincidence. However, there is evidence that this common division was adopted deliberately. In the teaching method, there are two references to the classification of the grammatical categories. The first one concerns the indeclinable parts of speech, i.e. adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections, which “are all, without Distinction, to go under the Denomination of Particles” (Ann Fisher 1750: 8). As already explained (see above § 4), this classification also appears in the main text of A New Grammar under the heading “etymology”: Q. What are Particles? A. Particles are little Words that express, or denote some Circumstance, Manner, or Quality of an Action, and join Sentences together. Q. How many sorts of Particles are there? A. Four: Adverbs, Conjunctions, Prepositions, and Interjections (Ann Fisher 1750: 96).

The second reference is found in a note explaining that the mistakes in the examples of bad English consist “chiefly in the Relative Names, Verbs, and Comparison of Qualities” (Ann Fisher 1750: 9n). The terms “relative names” instead of pronouns and “qualities” instead of adjectives, also used in A New Grammar as already explained (see above § 4), are also found with the so-called “reforming grammarians”, who tended to anglicise some of the grammatical terms for the ease of learning. The agreement in the fourfold classification and in the vernacular metalanguage between the teaching method and A New Grammar cannot be coincidental, for these are the two distinctive features of the “movement of reform” (Michael 1970: 509). In addition to this significant link, in the teaching method there are crossreferences to the main part of the grammar, which hints at the intimate relation between the teaching method and the contents of the grammar itself. For instance: The Adverbs, Conjunctions, Prepositions, and Interjections, are all, without Distinction, to go under the Denomination of Particles, till the Class be learn’d to know (after the Method of the following Praxis*) Number, Gender … (* See this Praxis, p. 113 [footnote]) (Ann Fisher 1750: 8).

In this quotation the author cross-references a parsing example that he himself has supplied and which is included in pages 113–115 of the grammar text. There is no doubt that the author of the teaching method was responsible for this praxis, as is acknowledged in the main text just before the praxis: “The following is the Praxis recommended by the Author of the Letter inserted at the Beginning, for the better perfecting a Scholar in Etymology; which must of


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Necessity be very expedient to a thorough Knowledge of the same” (Ann Fisher 1750: 112). It could be argued that cross-referencing may have been done by someone other than the author, e.g. the bookseller or the printer. Nevertheless, the excerpt quoted above shows that it was not only a question of mere page references, but also, and more importantly, of content.

7.

Ann Fisher’s authorship

The easiest way to demonstrate Ann Fisher’s authorship is to show the similarity between the curriculum offered in her ladies’ school and that of A New Grammar. This school was advertised twice in the Newcastle local press in 1745 and 1750. Both times the advertisement appeared in the column facing the announcement of the first and second editions of A New Grammar, thus reinforcing the connection between Ann Fisher and this grammar. The first time the advertisement took the form of just a brief notice (see above § 2), and the second time it provided a more detailed description of the curriculum taught, a curriculum that was “moulded around [Ann Fisher’s] theories of English teaching and her books” (Robinson 1972: 347n). Students could learn the following items at her school: (i) “the peculiar sounds of the several letters”, (ii) “to spell and divide by Rule”, (iii) reading “according to the Points, Cadence, and Emphasis”, (iv) the parts of speech, “with the comparing of Qualities, forming of Verbs, stating of Pronouns, &c.”, and (v) syntax “to concord and connect Words in a Sentence or Sentences together” (Newcastle Journal, 28 April 1750). The similarity in the wording of some phrases between the advertisement and the teaching method are crucial. For instance, in A New Grammar the author states that someone cannot write or speak with propriety “who has not a thorough knowledge of it [i.e. grammar]” (Ann Fisher 1750: 9; emphasis added), and we find the same idea and phrasing in the advertisement of the second edition of the grammar: “without a thorough knowledge of Grammar in all its Parts” (Newcastle Journal, 28 April 1750; emphasis added). A further example comes from the parts of speech, which are introduced in the teaching method as follows: “etymology is next to be run over in its most material points; i.e. such as are most essential in describing to what Part of Speech each Word peculiarly belongs. … the leading and following States of Pronouns, Comparison of Qualities, Formations of Verbs regular and irregular, &c.” (Ann Fisher 1750: 8). In the advertisement we read: “A critical knowledge of the various kinds of Words, and Parts of speech to which each Word particularly belongs; with the comparing of Qualities, forming of Verbs, stating of Pronouns, &c.”

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(Newcastle Journal, 28 April 1750; emphasis added). Ann Fisher uses the term “quality” to designate adjectives in the advertisement in the same way as it is used in both the teaching method and A New Grammar. This fact alone should suffice to prove that Ann Fisher was the author of the letter and of the teaching method, too. If we accept this premise, then we can safely argue that it was Ann Fisher who introduced the examples of bad English, one of the most important contributions of A New Grammar to the eighteenth-century English grammatical tradition, and also that Ann Fisher was responsible for the sections on the parts of speech and syntax. But there is even further evidence in support of Ann Fisher’s authorship of A New Grammar.

7.1.

Ann Fisher’s personal trademarks

In her analysis of A New Grammar, Cajka (2003: 60) has pointed out that “a trademark of [Ann Fisher’s] writing style in the Grammar is her constant, sometimes mock-modest but often blatant, references to other grammars and grammarians (as a class rather than specific individuals) as inferior to herself and her work”. This distinguishing characteristic is readily visible in the prefatory letter “to the Author” when Ann Fisher subtly criticises the work of preceding grammars as ineffective teaching tools: I cannot reflect upon the Pains many able Writers have taken towards the speaking and writing our Language aright, with what Improvements Grammarians, in a long Succession, have made one upon another, without wondering at its not being more universally taught; or, at least, taught to better Purpose than I have frequently observed it, in our common Schools (Ann Fisher 1750: [iii]).

We similarly find it in the section on the teaching method, when she accuses peer teachers of neglecting the grammatical categories in the teaching of the English language: Among many masters, who pretend to teach Grammar, I know Etymology is very much neglected, or at least taught to very little Purpose; tho’, in my Opinion, so very essential to polite Writing, that I cannot think any Person can be qualified to speak, write, or compose, with a happy Propriety, Clearness and Comprehensiveness of Expression, who has not a thorough knowledge of it (Ann Fisher 1750: 9).

This individual mark is not only found in A New Grammar, but it can easily be spotted in other writings of Ann Fisher’s, too. She wrote The New English Tutor (1762a) at the instigation of her bookseller and some neighbours who “wanted a Copy of [their] own” (Ann Fisher 1762a: iii), and not because she felt it her due to write on such a subject about which so much had been written


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before: “I was not at first induced to it from any Partiality for my own superior Abilities, nor from a Contempt for any one’s else [sic] who has wrote upon the Subject” (Ann Fisher 1762a: iii). She then proceeded to mention Thomas Dyche though only with the intention of censuring his work: But to teach a Scholar to spell and read at Random, and then by shewing him what he has been about, or rectifying his Errors, to put him to get off a long Table of Orthographical Remarks, by Way of Question and Answer, as the Second Part of HIS Book is frequently taught, is not, I presume, applying them at the most seasonable Time, or in the most useful or instructive Manner (Ann Fisher 1762a: v–vi).

In another work, A New English Exercise Book (1770), Ann Fisher treats with contempt William Ward’s (1708/9–1772) grammar (1765) for its Latinity and inconsistencies, producing some passages to illustrate her points which she hopes “will not be thought tedious, being curious and entertaining” (Ann Fisher 1770: v). She qualifies Ward’s work and its author as “Jumble”, criticising it for its “moodish Jargon” (Ann Fisher 1770: vi), and further claims that “The Grammarian is much to be pityd for his Misfortune” (Ann Fisher 1770: v). The pungent attack against Ward was grounded on personal reasons, as her grammar had been criticised by the author and some printers in the public press: “Consequently [I] should not have done Mr Ward this Particular Honour, but in Return for a very extraordinary Personal Compliment paid me in his Name about a Year ago, in the Newcastle and York Newspapers, from the professed and notable Policy of establishing his Grammar on the intended Ruins of mine” (Ann Fisher 1770: vii–viii). A second trademark that reveals her authorship is Ann Fisher’s stated “antilatinity”. In A New Grammar her refusal to have anything to do with Latinate grammars is evident in many excerpts that praise the features of the English tongue as worthy, or even more valuable than the classical language. For example, in her discussion of the Saxon genitive she writes: “These are, by some Grammarians, called Adjectives possessive; or, which is the same, possessive Qualities: By others, much better, they are called the English Genitive Case, and the only Case we have in English; whereby we are freed from a great deal of Trouble that is found in other Languages” (Ann Fisher 1750: 75). In later editions, when the name of Ann Fisher appears as the sole author, her refusal to make English grammar fit the Latin pattern became stronger and more explicit: “But how shall we find an Accusative Case in the Language? Such Zealots might as well contend that the English Language should be rendered conformable to all the Idioms peculiar to the Latin, as to this one, and so oblige us to throw away our valuable Prepositions and introduce in their Places, a Set of Cases with their various Endings” (Ann Fisher 1753: 119n). This same approach, which by now may be recognised as characteristic of Ann Fisher, is

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encountered in The Pleasing Instructor (1756), in which she keenly advocates the teaching of “true” English grammar and complains bitterly of its heavy dependence on the Latin model, owing this gross mistake to “Ignorance or Parade”, and “unsuccessful Pretence” (Ann Fisher 1756: viii). In her view, this dependence was such that current grammars “appear only Translations of them [i.e. Latin grammars], introducing many needless Perplexities; as superfluous Cases, Genders, Moods, Tenses, &c. Peculiarities which our Language is exempt from” (Ann Fisher 1756: vii). In her exercise book, she explicitly advised future grammarians to focus on the features of the English language proper and not on those of Latin, admitting that “this Advice will probably be laughed at by those who define our Language by the Construction of the Latin”, though she scornfully declared her perfect indifference of their opinion, showing thus her high self-esteem as a scholar: “which however will give me no Concern; for never having solicited the Approbation of the Learned, I have laboured only to render myself intelligible and useful to the mere English Scholar” (Ann Fisher 1770: iv–v). A last example can be adduced from her Spelling Dictionary of 1773, in which she included a brief summary of A New Grammar, boasting that this grammar was “the first that exhibited an Etymology, and a system of Syntax rules peculiarly adapted to the genius and idioms of the English language, independent of any other tongue, with Exercises of false English” (Ann Fisher 1773: iv). A third trademark is Ann Fisher’s evident interest in pedagogy, based on her teaching experience, as she herself acknowledged in the letter “to the Author” in the second edition: “I herewith send you the following Sketch, that I myself have long practis’d with uncommon Success” (Ann Fisher 1750: [iii]). She addressed matters of pedagogical interest in three of her books as follows: in A New Grammar in the section called “on the method of teaching”, in The Pleasing Instructor (1756) with the section “thoughts on education”, and in The New English Tutor (1762) with “an address to school-masters”. She believed that even when some grammars of English were “rendered plain and intelligible to the meanest Capacities”, the subject was not taught successfully in schools due “to the Want of Diligence, or a right Manner of Proceeding, in some Masters” (Ann Fisher 1750: [iii]). This opinion made her point out to would-be teachers again and again that knowledge and the ability to impart it did not always go hand in hand: Much Learning and great Abilities, (though material Articles) are not the only Essentials; he who has the most Learning does not always convey it in the best and clearest Manner to others; some cannot or will not be at the Pains to find out particular Methods (where general ones fail) to render what they would communicate intelligible to the various Capacities of their Pupils; nor do Learning and Knowledge always center [sic] in the same Person (Ann Fisher 1756: i–ii).


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She took advantage of every opportunity to explain her educational ideas and to provide detailed instructions as to how to teach. For instance, in A New Grammar she explained how to provide pupils with extra exercises to practise orthography: Next they should be employed for some Time in copying from Print; after which, let the Master or one of the Scholars read a Paragraph from the Spectator, News Papers, &c. and let all that are appointed to write, copy from his Reading; then, to create an Emulation, compare their Pieces, placing the Scholars according to the Desert of their Performances (Ann Fisher 1750: 7).

She did so even in those works which did not include a teaching method, such as The Young Scholar’s Delight (1802), in which she justified the use of dialogues “to convey instruction and knowledge to the minds of youth” as “not only the most natural, but also the most easy” teaching method (Ann Fisher 1802: v). She showed her pedagogical expertise when paying particular attention to the length of books because “there is nothing so ready to disgust a young reader, as a tiresome turning over a large volume” (Ann Fisher 1802: vii), and when omitting “such things as appeared rather more superfluous than necessary” to young pupils (Ann Fisher 1802: viii). In A New English Exercise Book (1770), Ann Fisher’s experience as a teacher also shows up, when she advised how to prevent pupils from cheating in their exercises: “I have not quoted the Authors from whom these exercises are taken; unwilling … to furnish the artful Scholar with Means of finding and copying them from Books” (Ann Fisher 1770: iv). Ann Fisher’s concern for female education is a further characteristic of her writings. In her school English grammar was taught to young ladies who could not “attend on school hours” (Newcastle Journal, 28 April 1750): “any young lady, of a tolerable Capacity, who can read pretty well, and write a legible Hand, may, in a few months, be completed in this Way” (Newcastle Journal, 28 April 1750). Her main interest in setting up this school was not to make money but, rather, to help these young ladies improve their education and to boost their working prospects; thus, she particularly advertised her lessons as being “at a reasonable Rate” (Newcastle Journal, 28 April 1750). This attitude towards female education is likewise evident in her works. Ann Fisher denounces the neglect of the teaching of English “especially among the Ladies” (Ann Fisher 1756: vii), and recommends the learning of English grammar to those who “are desirous of improving themselves in Spelling and Reading” (Ann Fisher 1753: vii), i.e. as a necessary tool for self-improvement, and she warns, somewhat exaggeratedly, of the evil consequences of its neglect: That many Women read much and yet not to Edification is, chiefly, because they are ignorant of these Connections and Dependencies [among words], and thereby apply Relatives to wrong Antecedents, Verbs to wrong Names, particularly when there is

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a Genitive Case between a Nominative Word and the Verb, mistake Things for Persons and Persons for Things, and are thereby misled in the Sense of what they are about to trace, especially in circumstantial Authors, or such as the Generality call dark and obscure Writers, meaning those who by Transposition, &c. deviate from the general Order of the Language. They feel an Entanglement, though they know not what or where, and are equally blind to the Beauties and Idioms of Language (Ann Fisher 1756: viii–ix).

Ann Fisher’s earnest plea for women’s education is also made evident when she referred to female teachers in her New English Tutor: “to assure my Readers, that there are Women Teachers in and about Newcastle, who will learn a Child to read better in six Months, by this Method, than any other Teacher can learn one in three Years, in the Old Way” (Ann Fisher 1774: v). Though she clearly promoted herself here, this quotation suggests that she regarded “women teachers” as particularly suitable for teaching children to read, with the help of her method of course, as against “teachers” in general, which could be interpreted as referring to “male teachers”, who would need as much as three years to do so. It seems that she intimated the idea of women’s superior ability and capacity as teachers of small children, as she openly declared: “And ’tis remarkable, that almost all female Writers write with Ease and Elegance, as they would talk, never turgid, or confined in the Trammels of Pedantry, which often fetter your over-learned Authors, the stiffest and most disagreeable Writers of all” (Ann Fisher 1770: 41). Without any doubt such a statement would have gone against the general conception of women’s style, which was considered “modest, easy, and sprightly”. None of these features, of course, apply to Ann Fisher’s own writing style, as is argued by Percy (2000): “‘Sprightly’ particularly evoked the old stereotype of women’s superficial speech. Evoking a woman writer’s physical presence effectively gendered what would otherwise be her disembodied printed word. Moreover, the connotations of ‘easy, sprightly’ language as artless, incorrect, and spoken, implicitly uncivilised the woman who had ventured into print” (Percy 2000: 329).

8.

Conclusion

When I first started my research, I felt inclined to think that Daniel Fisher had written this first edition, and that Ann Fisher joined in later, in the second edition. My supposition was based on the fact that the introductory letter and the teaching method first appeared in A New Grammar in 1750, since these parts were advertised as additions to this new edition. However, by 1745 Ann Fisher


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had established herself as a teacher in Newcastle, running her own school there for young ladies. It is precisely the advertisement of this school that now made me suspect that she had a hand in the publication of the first edition of the grammar, since it was significantly placed in the column facing the advertisement of A New Grammar. Whoever was the author of this first edition, Daniel Fisher seems to have contributed to A New Grammar in some ways at least, in any case with the spelling rules and probably also in the discussion of the use of the “double accent”. But his real role was of a different nature. By 1750 Daniel Fisher was the author of elementary works designed to teach reading and, above all, to inculcate religious principles in children of a tender age. Ann Fisher was at that time still an unknown teacher, who had never produced anything until A New Grammar came out; being very much aware of the disadvantage of being a female author, she must have thought, sensibly, that the book would stand a better chance of success if she did not reveal her gender and if it was presented as being co-written with a male author. She probably took advantage of her acquaintance with Daniel Fisher, and they must have arrived at some sort of agreement by which A New Grammar made use of the name of Daniel Fisher’s most successful book, The Child’s Christian Education, in the 1750 edition, and of Daniel Fisher’s name in the 1751 edition, as an effective sales stratagem on the title-page. And not only this: Daniel Fisher seems to have introduced Ann Fisher to the Newcastle and London printers of his own work. Daniel Fisher introduced Ann Fisher, so to speak, into the male-dominated world of scholars, thus acting as her patron. Then he withdrew and left the field open for her. And she indeed made the most of it: after A New Grammar was published and proved successful, she became a prolific writer who, far from feeling inferior to male peers, regarded herself not only as their equal but, by far, as their superior. In this article, I have put forward Ann Fisher’s major responsibility in writing A New Grammar. I have tried to demonstrate that she developed a systematic and professional approach to language teaching based on her extensive reading of the work of previous grammarians. This shows, for instance, in the additional information she introduced in the spelling rules, in the more detailed explanation of the punctuation marks, and in the references to contemporary grammarians and other scholars. Her most important contribution was to the treatment of the grammatical categories, in which she adopted an independent role, thus forming part of the “movement of reform” identified by Michael (1970: 507−518), and to the discussion of syntax with the formulation of rules based on characteristics of English rather than Latin. One of the most outstanding features of A New Grammar is the introduction of a new type of exercise,

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the examples of bad English, and these were also invented by Ann Fisher. To conclude, considering that her part in the writing of A New Grammar was more important than Daniel Fisher’s, it is not unreasonable to credit Ann Fisher with the authorship of this grammar. She herself clears all doubts when she assumed its authorship in the 1753 edition and in references to the grammar in her later work. The most definitive proof in all this is the fact that she was the copyright owner of A New Grammar, her own work.

Joseph Priestley’s two Rudiments of English Grammar: 1761 and 1768 Jane Hodson

1.

Introduction

Joseph Priestley first taught English grammar between 1758 and 1761, at a small school that he opened in Nantwich, in Cheshire. Here he wrote the text of his grammar book, The Rudiments of English Grammar; Adapted to the Use of Schools with Observations on Style, which was published in 1761, shortly after he had taken up a post at Warrington Academy in Warrington, Lancashire. At Warrington Academy, he was responsible for the teaching of languages and polite learning, and his workload included classes in Latin, Greek, French and English Grammar, as well as lectures in Logic, Universal Grammar, Oratory and Criticism, History, and Anatomy.1 During this time he expressed some doubts about the value of teaching English grammar in a letter to his friend, Caleb Rotheram: “My English Grammar was not ready time enough [while at Nantwich] for me to make trial of it. It has been out of print two or three years, and I shall not consent to its being reprinted. Lowth’s is much better, but I question whether it will signify much to teach any English Grammar” (18 May 1766; Works 1/1: 50, cited by Schofield 1997: 98). This letter suggests that Rudiments was not used by Priestley at Warrington, and that he felt that it had been superseded by Robert Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar, first published in 1762. Nevertheless, a change of heart is implied by the fact that a second edition of his own grammar was published in 1768 with the title The Rudiments of English Grammar, Adapted to the Use of Schools; with Notes and Observations for the Use of Those who have Made some Proficiency in the Language.2 Substantial alterations were made to the original text for this second edition: the Preface was lengthened considerably, numerous changes were made to the body of the text, two appended sections (“Observations on Style” and “Examples of English Composition”) were excised, and a lengthy 1

For an account of Priestley’s teaching during this period and the writing and publication of Rudiments, see Schofield (1997: Chapters 3 and 4). 2 A third revised edition was published in 1772, but did not include substantial changes to the second edition.

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new section, “Notes and Observations, for the use of those who have made some Proficiency in the Language”, was added. However, despite the fact that Priestley’s Rudiments of English Grammar has often received attention from modern scholars, there has been little recognition of the fact that it exists in two such different versions, and no detailed study has been made of these differences. For example, Sugg (1964) refers to the first edition of Rudiments, but, in taking his quotation from J. T. Rutt’s textually unreliable Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestley (1817–1831), inadvertently quotes material present only in later editions (1964: 248). Elledge confusingly gives the date of Rudiments as 1762, but also appears to be quoting from a later edition (1967: 283−284). Barrell, in his discussion of authority in Priestley’s grammar, refers only to the first edition of Rudiments (1983: 161−165). Michael notes that “Many changes are made in the early editions, especially in the syntax” (1970: 578) and is careful to distinguish between the editions when referencing quotations, but does not investigate the overall patterns of change. Similarly, Azad (1989), in his excellent study of the way in which the concept of “common usage” functioned in eighteenth-century grammars, does note the two editions when first introducing Priestley’s grammar and always makes it clear which edition he is quoting from. Nevertheless, he quotes indiscriminately from both versions in his discussion, treating the texts as a unified source of Priestley’s thinking. In this article, I explore the changes that Priestley made for the second edition of Rudiments, and consider to what extent they alter the nature of the text. I also address the question of why Priestley was motivated to make so many changes to his original text. Do these changes simply result from the development of his thinking about grammar? By the time of the second edition he had been teaching for an additional six years, and he had written both A Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language, and Universal Grammar (printed for private use in 1762 but not published during his lifetime)3 and A Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism (written in 1762 but not published until 1777). Or is it possible to detect the influence of external factors, most notably the publication of Lowth’s very successful grammar?

3 Note, however, that in the second edition of Rudiments of English Grammar Priestley declared his intention to “correct, and make public” these lectures (1768: xiv). Elledge suggests that these Lectures were available to later grammarians (1967: 286), but Schofield finds that “the only clear line of transmission of many of Priestley’s ideas on the nature of language in general is that in the 1768 preface to the Rudiments” (1997: 102−103).

Joseph Priestley’s two Rudiments of English Grammar: 1761 and 1768

2.

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The two prefaces

At approximately 4,000 words in length, the Preface of 1768 is over twice as long as the Preface of 1761 (approximately 1,800 words). Priestley included considerable additional material, altered some material, and deleted other material. Nevertheless, much of the original Preface remains, including the highly significant passage in which Priestley compared grammar to “a treatise of Natural Philosophy” (1761: vi), and the passage in which he argued that it is not necessary to establish an Academy to fix the English language because the processes of time will do the necessary work: “the best forms of speech will, in time, establish themselves by their own superior excellence”(1761: vii). (For an analysis of these passages, see Hodson 2006.) It is therefore important to recognise that, although there are substantial changes between the Preface of 1761 and that of 1768, which I discuss in this section, much also remained the same. In the Preface of 1761, Priestley discussed many of the decisions he made in writing his grammar, in each case offering a strong defence of that decision, either on the basis that it was appropriate to his audience, or on the basis that it was appropriate to the English language. He began with the declaration that “The following performance is intended to exhibit, A view of the genuine and established principles of the English language; adapted to the use of schools” (1761: iii). This declaration does, of course, contain the presupposition that there are “genuine and established principles” available to be so exhibited. Two sentences later he further proclaimed that “All the rules that relate to the modification and structure of words in the language are laid down in a methodical manner”, and he proceeded to justify the number of “technical terms” he introduced, as well as his decision to use “the method of Question and Answer” in his grammar (1761: iii). He acknowledged that he made use of other grammars, “particularly of Mr. Johnson’s”, i.e. the grammar prefixed to the Dictionary of 1755, but nevertheless declared that there is enough original work in his grammar to clear him of any charge of plagiarism (1761: iv).4 He defended his decision not to include “elaborate disquisitions concerning the origin and successive changes of the language” on the basis that this was appropriate in a work intended for the use of schools (1761: iv). He argued strongly that teaching English grammar in English schools is appropriate because “a competent knowledge of our own language [is] both useful and ornamental in every profession, and a critical knowledge of it [is] absolutely necessary to all 4 On this issue of plagiarism in the relationship between the grammars by Priestley and Lowth, see also Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume.

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persons of a liberal education” (1761: viii). He did acknowledge that “the best and most numerous authorities” are sometimes “contradictory”, but he nevertheless expressed a confidence that “all-governing custom” will eventually settle the matter, and that it is preferable to await “the decisions of Time” rather than to act precipitously through a “publick Academy” (1761: vii).5 In fact, he claimed, small variations between individual writers are not a problem: “As to the little varieties which the interposition of an academy might prevent, they appear to me very far from having a disagreeable effect in the style of different persons writing upon different subjects” (1761: vii−viii). Taken as a whole, Priestley’s tone in the 1761 Preface is markedly upbeat, both with regard to the state of the English language, and, in particular, with regard to the quality of his own text. For example, he wrote that: The author hath no higher views in what he now presents to the public, than to give the youth of our nation an insight into the fundamental principles of their own language; though the remarkable simplicity of its structure, when compared with that of most other languages, ancient or modern, hath enabled him to comprize, in so small a compass, every material observation that belongs to the grammar of it. That is, allowing a person, by the help of a dictionary, or any other means, to understand the meaning and force of English words, he will here meet with an account of all their inflections, and all the circumstances in which they are used: consequently, there is no error in writing, that is strictly speaking grammatical, but may be discovered and avoided by the help of it. (1761: v)

The opening of the first sentence strikes a note of modesty (he had “no higher views” than to give young people an “insight” into their own language), but the rest of the paragraph appears to be anything but modest. Although Priestley credited the simplicity of English with allowing him to compress the rules of the language into such a short space, the level of confidence that he expressed in his own grammatical text is very high. He wrote that the grammar contains “every material observation” that belongs to the grammar of English, and claimed that the reader, equipped with just his grammar and a suitable dictionary, would be able to recognise and avoid every “error in writing”. Towards the end of the Preface, he reviewed at length some of the mistakes made by earlier grammarians: If it hath been owing to any impropriety in the form or composition of the English grammars that have hitherto been presented to the public, that they have not met with so general a reception as the subject of them seemed to promise: if some of them be clogged with superfluous words, and superfluous matter: if the materials 5

For a discussion of Priestley’s belief in grammatical perfectibility, and its relationship to his purported descriptivism, see Hodson (2006).


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of them have not been regularly and thoroughly digested: if the definitions of terms have wanted perspicuity and precision: if the rules of some do not correspond with the present state of the language, as it is actually spoken and written; and those of others have followed the vulgar practice through all its temporary modes and inconsistencies: if the dress of some be too stiff, and that of others too loose and careless, unworthy of grammatical simplicity and correctness: if some grammars have been too minute, and others not sufficiently comprehensive: if some of them have been drawn up for the use of children, and others for critics only, the author of this attempt is not without hopes of better success (1761: x).

This litany of mistakes covers a wide range of areas: style, vocabulary, content, variety of English described, level of detail and audience. Nevertheless, Priestley believed that by identifying those mistakes he had gone a good way towards avoiding them himself, and he was optimistic that his own grammar would succeed in its aims: the author “flatters himself … that the faults of this performance are not so many, or so gross, as to render his design in it, which was to facilitate the knowledge of our native tongue, entirely abortive” (1761: x−xi). The Preface of 1768 does not share this breezy optimism. The change in tone may be attributable to the crisis of faith about the teaching of English grammar that Priestley expressed in his 1766 letter to Rotheram. Although he evidently recovered his confidence in the endeavour sufficiently to publish a revised edition, he was not able to recover the optimistic tone of the 1761 edition. In the second Preface, Priestley began by reflecting upon the first edition: “In the first composition of the Rudiments of English Grammar, I had no farther views than to the use of schools; and, therefore, contented myself with explaining the fundamental principles of the language, in as plain and familiar a manner as I could” (1768: v). He stated that, in aiming his grammar at the pedagogical market, he limited the scope of the work, and he implied that a work aimed at a different audience might have been both more ambitious and more wide ranging (presumably he wouldn’t have “contented” himself with explaining just the “fundamental principles”). Indeed, he wrote, he did later conceive of undertaking a more ambitious work: Afterwards, taking a more extensive view of language in general, and of the English language in particular, I began to collect materials for a much larger work upon this subject; and did not chuse to republish the former work, till I had executed the other; as I imagined, that this could not fail to suggest several improvements in the plan of it. However, being frequently importuned to republish the former grammar, and being so much employed in studies of a very different nature, that I cannot accomplish what I had proposed, I have, in this treatise, republished that work, with improvements, and so much of the materials I had collected for the larger, as may be of practical use to those who write the language. These materials, therefore, I have reduced into as good an order as I can, and have subjoined them to the former

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grammar, under the title of Notes and Observations, for the Use of those who have made some Proficiency in the Language (1768: v−vi).

What is intriguing here is that Priestley presented the second edition of his grammar as being an unsatisfactory amalgamation of two proposed projects: the “more extensive view of language” that he had intended to write, and the revised pedagogical grammar that he would have produced after that, incorporating the “several improvements” that his “more extensive view” would have suggested (this in itself, of course, reveals retrospective dissatisfaction with the 1761 edition). Lacking the time to complete either of these projects, Priestley adopted a compromise solution: republishing his original grammar “with improvements” and appending the materials he had collected in preparation for the larger work. The revised grammar is thus presented as being the best he could manage in the time available, and even the appended collection of materials is described as simply having been “reduced into as good an order as I can”. It is noticeable that the question of audience seems to have become problematic for Priestley by 1768. In the 1761 edition he did not consider the possibility that writing a pedagogical grammar might be incompatible with writing a scholarly grammar. He was, of course, aware that the age and abilities of his target audience might mean that some topics were inappropriate (for example, material on the origin of languages) and that certain modes of presentation were likely to be particularly successful (for example, the “Question and Answer” format). However, he referred to his text as simply being “adapted to the use of schools” (1761: iii), which implies that the underlying material would remain the same whoever the target audience was. Furthermore, it is one of his criticisms of other grammars that “some of them have been drawn up for the use of children, and others for critics only” (1761: x), seeming to imply that his own grammar was intended for both children and critics. By contrast, as I have discussed, from the very first paragraph of the 1768 Preface he suggested that his target audience limited the scope of his text and that his proposed “more extensive view” would have had a more specialised audience. His decision to split the text into the original grammar plus an appendix of his collected materials seems to envision two very different audiences for his revised grammar. This is signalled by the shift in title from The Rudiments of English Grammar, Adapted to the Use of Schools, with Observations on Style in 1761 to The Rudiments of English Grammar, Adapted to the Use of Schools; with Notes and Observations, for the Use of Those who have Made some Proficiency in the Language in 1768. Although this change may appear minor, reflecting as it does the change in the content of the appended material, it nevertheless divides the originally unified audience into two distinct groups: the school readers, and the advanced readers who “made some Proficiency in the Language”. It


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is not entirely clear from this title exactly who Priestley envisioned as being these more proficient readers: potentially they could be more advanced school students. However, the fact that they are described in the Preface as “those who write the language” perhaps implies a more advanced readership of authors or even other grammarians. It is also very noticeable that the pedagogically sensitive Priestley abandoned the “Question and Answer” format in the “Notes and Observations”, and did not offer any suggestions as to how this material could be effectively delivered in a classroom. Whoever the intended audience may have been, Priestley appears to have been considerably less optimistic about the whole project of grammar writing in 1768 than he had been in 1761. For example, he wrote that considerable work still needed to be undertaken in examining the “actual structure” of English, and that only when this was done would the “best forms of speech” be widely adopted and the language be written “with sufficient uniformity” (1768: xv). Not until then could “a complete grammar” of English be written. Although the Preface of 1761 argued that the processes of time would be required for the final fixing of the language, he nevertheless also expressed confidence that “genuine and established principles” already existed for the English language, and implied that he himself had written a reasonably complete grammar of English. It is also significant that he deleted the two passages in which he expressed strongest confidence in his grammar: both the paragraph in which he claimed that his grammar would enable readers to avoid all grammatical errors (1761: v) and the paragraph in which he listed all the problems with other grammars (1761: x) were removed from the 1768 edition. Instead he ended his Preface on a considerably humbler note: “The candid critic will, I hope, excuse, and point out to me, any mistakes he may think I have fallen into in this performance. In such a number of observations, most of them (with respect to myself, at least) original, it would be very extraordinary, if none of them should prove hasty or injudicious” (1768: xxiii). While there is still some claim to originality being made here (albeit tempered with the modest allowance that his observations may only be original to himself), there is also recognition that error is inevitable. Despite his greater awareness of the difficulty of his task and his own fallibility in 1768 it is not, however, the case that Priestley became more tolerant of the shortcomings of other grammarians in this edition: if anything, he became much more pointedly critical. For example, whereas in the 1761 Preface he simply observed that “[t]echnical terms have neither been affected nor avoided”, in the 1768 Preface he expressed his surprise at seeing “so much of the distribution, and technical terms of the Latin grammar, retained in the grammar of our tongue” (1768: vi−vii), and he complained that insufficient at-

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tention to “inflections” led to the grammar of a language becoming “clogged with superfluous terms and divisions” (1768: viii). In particular, he focused on the issue of the future tense:6 A little reflection may, I think, suffice to convince any person, that we have no more business with a future tense in our language, than we have with the whole system of Latin moods and tenses; because we have no modification of our verbs to correspond to it; and if we had never heard of a future tense in some other language, we should no more have given a particular name to the combination of the verb with the auxiliary shall or will, than to those that are made with the auxiliaries do, have, can, must, or any other (1768: vii).

Priestley did not name any names here, just referring to “several grammarians”, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Lowth was at least one of those being targeted. Lowth’s A Short Introduction to English Grammar had been first published in 1762 just about a month, it would seem, after Priestley’s Rudiments, and it rapidly went through further editions or reprints in 1763, 1764 (two editions), 1765 and 1767 (see Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume). Thus, even by 1768 it was already a notable success. In his Short Introduction, Lowth followed the grammatical tradition on the subject of tense, writing that “Time is Present, Past, or Future” and describing the role of auxiliaries as follows: “to express the Time of the Verb the English uses also the assistance of other Verbs, called therefore Auxiliaries, or Helpers; do, be, have, shall, will: as, “I do love, I did love; I am loved, I was loved; I have loved, I have been loved; I shall, or will, love, or be loved” (Lowth 1762: 47–48). This is precisely the kind of approach that Priestley attacked in his 1768 edition. As well as referring to other grammarians in general, Priestley did mention some by name, and again it is possible to see a more negative attitude emerging in 1768. In the 1761 Preface he simply noted that he had made use of Johnson’s grammar, but in the 1768 Preface he lamented the fact that, despite his “admirable dictionary”, Johnson “had not formed as just, and as extensive an idea of English grammar”, and he expressed a hope that Johnson may yet turn his “distinguished abilities” to the project (1768: xxii). Priestley also referred explicitly to Lowth’s recently published grammar, remarking that “our plans, definitions of terms, and opinions, differ very considerably”, while acknowledging that he had “taken a few of his examples” (1768: xxiii). Of course, the very fact that Priestley decided to go ahead with a second edition of Rudiments 6 See Michael (1970: 405−407) for a full discussion of Priestley’s handling of tense. Azad makes the point that one of the reasons why Priestley insists that English has only two tenses is because of his “general emphasis upon English’s simple structure” (1989: 148−149).


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implies that he changed his mind about the view expressed in his letter to Rotheram that Lowth’s Grammar was “much better” than his own. His emphasis on the differences between the two approaches in the grammars would also appear to suggest that by 1768 Priestley was dissatisfied with Lowth’s grammar, something in which he did not stand alone (Percy 1997a: 131; see also TiekenBoon van Ostade, this volume). Indeed, I would argue that acknowledging a few borrowed “examples” from Lowth, rather than suggesting that Lowth had any new ideas worth borrowing, is a case of damning with faint acknowledgement. Furthermore, the fact that Lowth’s grammar is mentioned immediately after the wish for a Johnsonian grammar implies that Priestley did not consider Lowth to have offered the last word on the subject (1768: xxiii). Taken as a whole, the Preface of 1768 marks a significant shift in Priestley’s attitudes. In 1761 he had expressed restrained confidence about the reasonably “fixed” nature of the English language, had believed it to be possible to write a grammar that will be suitable for both schoolchildren and scholars, and had been optimistic about the quality of his finished text. By 1768 he was rather more cautious about the current state of the English language, structured his book so as to appeal to two very different audiences, and expressed considerably more pessimism about the quality of his finished text. This pessimism was not reserved only for his own grammar: he also revised downward his opinion of the grammatical section of Johnson’s Dictionary, and he offered some veiled criticisms of Lowth’s popular grammar. Throughout this it is important to note that his ideas about language remain consistent: he retained his belief in the perfectibility of English, for example. What appears to have changed is his attitude towards the process of grammar writing.

3.

The two grammars

In the 1761 edition of Rudiments of English Grammar, Priestley launched straight into the question-and-answer format, posing the question “Q. What is Grammar?” and providing the response “A. Grammar is the art of using words properly” (1761: 1). Priestley then asked “Q. Of how many parts doth Grammar consist?” and provided the answer “Of four; Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody”. He defined Orthography and Etymology in turn, but did not define Syntax and Prosody. In a footnote he referred the reader to Dr Watt’s Art of Reading and Writing English for “a proper introduction” to Orthography, thereby implying that the subject would not be included in his own grammar (1761: 1). He then posed the question: “Q. How many Classes, or kinds of words are there?”, and provided the answer “Eight; nouns, adjec-

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tives, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections” (1761: 2), remarking in a footnote that he followed the practice of “most Grammarians” in adopting this number, although he innovated upon this practice in replacing the participle with the adjective “as more evidently a distinct part of speech” (1761: 1). According to Michael (1970: 231) Priestley was indeed the first English grammarian to have adopted this system of parts of speech. Tieken-Boon van Ostade (1992: 168) argues that he may well have adopted this system from the grammarian John Kirkby (c. 1705–1754), who had been one of Priestley’s teachers. Although Kirkby, whose grammar was published in 1746, advocated a threefold system of parts of speech (Michael 1970: 263), consisting of substantive, adjunctive and particle, in actual practice the system he treated was the one we also find in Priestley’s grammar. It is not hard to see why Priestley found this original introduction rather unsatisfactory. The initial definition of “Grammar” is simple but limited: the emphasis is on “words” rather than broader structures of language, and the adverb “properly” is vague. No indication is given of how the text will be structured, although in fact Priestley used the grammatical parts of speech as a structuring principle, and also dealt with them in the order given in his list. His failure to provide a definition of “Syntax” or “Prosody” would surely have been confusing for the readership he envisioned. The fact that he stated definitively that there are eight parts of speech in the main body of the text, but then problematised this statement in a footnote, gives the impression of an author undermining his own certainty and complicating the issue. Indeed, the use of footnotes in this way throughout the text, to justify his decisions and provide more advanced explanations, indicates that he was already catering for a split audience: the information provided in the main body of the text is often a good working answer for the beginner, but the footnote offers more information for the more informed reader (on the use of footnotes to different purposes in grammars from the early part of the century, see Buschmann-Göbels, this volume).7 In the 1768 edition, Priestley did not start to employ the question-and-answer format until page 4. Instead, he began with the general statement that “Language is a method of conveying our ideas to the minds of other persons; and the grammar of any language is a collection of observations on the structure of it, and a system of rules for the proper use of it” (1768: 1). This alternative formulation is much more sophisticated than the original version. By defining 7 See also Tieken-Boon van Ostade (1996: 89–90), who argues that Lindley Murray’s grammar of 1795 presented its material in graded form, the main text for the general learner, and the additional material in smaller print for the more advanced student.


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language first (in line with John Locke’s writings on the subject), Priestley was able to differentiate clearly between language itself, and grammar as the study of language. He offered two different understandings of “grammar”: it is both “a collection of observations on the structure of it” (presumably with the aim of enhancing the general knowledge about language) and “a system of rules for the proper use of it” (presumably with the aim of transmitting this knowledge to beginners). As such, this double definition further acknowledges the fact that he envisaged two very different audiences for his text. Priestley then briefly surveyed the letters of the English alphabet, presumably instead of referring the reader to Dr Watt, and then explicitly outlined the rest of the grammar. He also stated: “I shall adopt the usual distribution of words into eight classes, viz. Nouns, Adjectives, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections”, adding “I do this in compliance with the practice of most Grammarians; and because, if any number, in a thing so arbitrary, must be fixed upon, this seems to be as comprehensive and distinct as any” (1768: 3), and he again made the point that he had replaced the participle with the adjective. This is of course virtually the same wording as he had used in the 1761 edition, but the fact that he introduced his list of parts of speech with the phrase “I shall adopt” (instead of the blunt “A. Eight”), and justified his decision in the main body of the text, gives the impression of someone offering a considered opinion on a controversial issue, rather than someone giving a straightforward response to a simple question and then complicating the matter. The main body of the two versions of the grammar is substantially the same: Priestley used the same basic structure, and on most occasions offered exactly the same wording. There are, however, a few notable alterations (see also Yañez-Bouza, this volume). Some of these arose because of Priestley’s decision to abandon the footnotes that offer a running commentary on the main text in the first edition: some of these are incorporated into the main text, and others were moved into the “Notes and Observations” section. Other decisions suggest a development in Priestley’s thinking. For example, in the 1761 edition articles are discussed in the section on nouns (1761: 6−7) and auxiliary verbs are discussed in the section on verbs (1761: 16−23). In the 1768 edition a whole new section has been created, entitled “Part II. Of the grammatical Use and Signification of certain Words, especially such as the paucity of inflections obliges us to make use of, in order to express what, in other languages, is effected by a change of termination” (1768: 35−40). All the material on articles, plus the material on how auxiliary verbs are used, was moved into this new section, although the material describing what auxiliary verbs are and how they inflect remained in the verb section. This new section comes between “Part I. Of the Inflections of Words” and “Part III. Of Syntax; comprising the Order

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of Words in a Sentence, and the Correspondence of one Word to another”. Its creation implies that Priestley felt that the peculiarities of the English language meant that an account that discusses only the inflections of the different parts of speech and syntax is inadequate. He therefore created a new intermediate level of analysis to deal with the fact that English does not fit neatly into the grammatical model offered by languages such as Latin and Greek. As a modern reader, it is possible to see that many of his problems would be solved by recognising articles as a separate part of speech (as Lowth, for example, did). It might further be observed that the newly created section is rather thin and miscellaneous, and that the division of the material on auxiliary verbs makes the discussion of the topic unnecessarily disjointed. Nevertheless, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Priestley made a specific point about the structure of English through this rearrangement, as well as indicating a willingness to reconceptualise the framework of grammar in order to produce an account that better describes the English language.

4.

Conclusion

Modern critics have often been keen to identify Priestley as an early descriptivist, as someone who brought the rigour of his scientific investigations to bear upon his linguistic investigations (see Hodson 2006). Poldauf, for example, has commented upon “the scientific character of his [Priestley’s] attitude towards language” (1948: 128, cited by Schofield 1997: 101), and Elledge has observed of Priestley’s A Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language, and Universal Grammar that “The mind and method of a scientist mark these lectures” (1967: 206). It is therefore perhaps surprising that so little attention has been paid to tracing the development of Priestley’s grammatical thought: surely the hallmark of good scientific practice is the willingness to keep an open mind, and to revisit ideas in the light of new evidence. There is therefore much more work to be done tracing the way in which Priestley’s treatment of various aspects of English grammar changed across the different editions of his grammar, and how his thinking related to that of his contemporaries. As Yáñez-Bouza’s research on preposition stranding (this volume) suggests, the detailed analysis of controversial issues can significantly complicate preconceived ideas about the contributions of individual grammarians. On the basis of my own preliminary investigation, however, what I would like to suggest is that the 1768 edition of Rudiments shows Priestley both revisiting the grammatical decisions he made in 1761, and developing a much more ambitious and far-reaching conception of the role of the grammarian.


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In the edition of 1761, his primary focus was pedagogical: he was concerned to communicate knowledge about grammar to his readers, and he did not see this as being fundamentally incompatible with the responsibility of advancing the state of knowledge about English. By 1768 he seems to have become aware that the task he had set himself was much more complex than he had originally conceived: the principles of the English language were not as well-established as he had imagined, and it is difficult simultaneously to educate beginners and to discuss complex issues. The alteration is perhaps most clearly marked in the changes that he made to the appended materials. In the 1761 edition the short “Observations on Style” and “Examples of English Composition” nicely round out a classroom text, potentially allowing the schoolteacher to move beyond the basics of grammar to the practice of good writing. In the 1768 edition the very lengthy “Notes and Observations” section (three times as long as the grammar it follows) offers a wealth of material illustrating the many ways in which the spoken and written language fails to fit neatly with the grammatical model that Priestley just described. It is difficult to imagine what a schoolteacher would have done with this material. It must be borne in mind, of course, that, as Priestley himself made clear in the 1768 Preface, his revised text was a compromise between the two texts that he wished to write, and what he actually had time for. It is, inevitably, tantalising to imagine what he might have done had he found time to complete the “much larger work” on grammar that he had originally projected. By the same token, however, it is also tempting to speculate that he was unable to complete the proposed project because he found it too difficult to reduce the mass of material he had collected into satisfactory order. Nevertheless, what a close reading of the two editions of Rudiments reveals is a grammarian gradually coming to recognise that, far from already being completed, much of the serious work in establishing the principles of English still remained to be done.

Eighteenth-century teacher-grammarians and the education of “proper” women Karen Cajka

1.

Introduction

Late in the eighteenth century, six grammar books were published by women who were mistresses of their own schools. The authors were Ellin Devis, Mrs. M. C. Edwards, Mrs. Eves, Jane Gardiner, Mrs. Taylor and Blanch Mercy. Ellin Devis (1746–1820) spent her long career educating young upwardly-mobile women in the most fashionable areas of London, while Mrs. M. C. Edwards (fl. 1796) set up her school nine miles west of London, near Kew in the town of Brentford Butts. The other four grammarians ran schools in provincial cities and towns: Mrs. Eves (fl. 1800–1809) was from Birmingham and Mrs. Taylor (fl. 1796) from Manchester; further afield, Jane Gardiner (1758–1840) was from Beverley on the coast of the North Sea, and Blanch Mercy (fl. 1799–1803) was possibly from Carlisle, near the western end of England’s border with Scotland. What all six women have in common is their position of teacher-grammarian; their frustration that, as Edwards put it, “the progress of Children is too generally impeded by the extreme Prolixity and Difficulties of their Grammars” (Edwards 1796: vi–vii) inspired them to develop their own methodologies, delineated in textbooks initially designed for use in their own schools and secondarily offered for public sale. Profit motives must be discounted, since four of the six texts authored by these women saw only one printing (see Alston 1965); the exceptions are Devis’s grammar, which was published regularly from the first edition in 1775, continuing even seven years after her death (the eighteenth edition of 1827) (see Percy 2003 for a detailed account of Devis’s work), and Gardiner’s grammar, which appeared in three editions in the decade spanning 1799–1809. Rather, the teacher-grammarians wanted to train other female teachers knowing that they and the “young ladies” in their schools were likely to be experiencing the same difficulties with the Latin-based grammars favoured by male grammarians. This trend culminates in Blanch Mercy’s Short Introduction to English Grammar (1799), which she divides into two separate volumes, “The Scholar’s Book” and “The Instructress’s Book”, forerunners of the separate student textbooks and teacher’s guides common in classrooms today. “Short”, while appropriate for the 84-page “Scholar’s Book”, is really

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a misnomer for “The Instructress’s Book”, which is nearly double the length. Because it is “designed for the use of those who are not in the habit of teaching” (Mercy 1801: v), Mercy elaborates in painstaking detail a virtually foolproof script (what we would now call lesson plans, classroom activities, quizzes and homework assignments) supplemented with the precise words the teacher is to say as well as the supposed answer given by the scholar. All of the teacher-grammarians became active in the 1790s (judging by the dates of their publications and, where information is known, by the creation of their schools) and carried on their educational efforts well into the nineteenth century. Thus, the six teacher-grammarians form an important link between earlier female grammatical pioneers and innovators like Ann Fisher and Ellenor Fenn (cf. Rodríguez-Gil, this volume; Navest, this volume), and the fastincreasing number of women educators and grammarians who followed in the nineteenth century and on into the twentieth (see Michael 1997: 42–61; Cajka 2003: 267–269). Indeed, the contemporary, well-ingrained image of the grammar expert as a demanding female schoolteacher traces its roots back to some of the instructional methodologies employed by the teacher-grammarians. In what follows I will consider the educational philosophies which are embedded in these six authors’ grammars. These philosophies emerge most clearly through the teaching methodologies they advocate, as well as the illustrative examples they include in their grammar texts. All of the teacher-grammarians were explicitly concerned with instilling into their pupils the appropriate types and amounts of academic, moral and social knowledge; in other words, they all sought to teach girls to be proper young women.

2.

Jane Gardiner

Running a school is a difficult but worthy enterprise, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) warned her friend Jane Arden (Jane Gardiner after her marriage in 1797) when she learned that Jane and her sister, Ann, were planning to open a school for girls in Bath (Cameron 1961: 972). In the Spring of 1780, Wollstonecraft wrote: I have ever approved of your plan, and it would give me great pleasure to find that you and your sister could contrive it together; − let not some small difficulties intimidate you, I beseech you; − struggle with any obstacles rather than go into a state of dependance [sic]: − I speak feelingly. − I have felt the weight, and wod have you by all means avoid it. − Your employmt tho a troublesome one, is very necessary, and you have an opportunity of doing much good, by instilling good principles into the good young and ignorant, and at the close of life you’ll have the pleasure to

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think that you have not lived in vain, and, believe me, this reflection is worth a life of care (as quoted by Cameron 1961: 975–976).

The Arden sisters would have been well-qualified to teach, since they themselves had received an unconventionally wide-ranging education from their father, the scientist John Arden. He himself had, according to Roberts (1998), begun “as a young schoolmaster at Heath Academy near Wakefield, in West Yorkshire’s industrial Midlands [where] he taught a range of subjects, including natural philosophy (physics)” before taking up William Constable’s offer to become a “‘demonstrator’ of his static electricity apparatus” (1998: 17). Arden was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and constructed his own scientific apparatus, notably an “electric orrery”, which he used in lectures for the public, as well as lessons at home for all of his children, boys and girls alike (and, at times, Jane’s friend Mary Wollstonecraft; see Sunstein 1975; Gordon 2005). The Arden sisters’ school at Bath never got off the ground, so Jane spent three more years as a governess before returning in 1784 to her hometown of Beverley to open a school for girls (Gardiner 1842: 3). This establishment thrived for thirteen years under Jane’s sole management.1 Her daughter Everilda, in her mother’s biography, attributed its success to her mother’s unremitting attention not only to her pupils’ intellectual attainment, but also to their physical and emotional well-being: My mother spared no expense, to promote the pleasure and improvement of her pupils. She was continually adding to her library the best and most approved books for young people, in English, French, and Italian.2 These, when she relinquished her school, amounted to two thousand eight hundred volumes. She took so lively and perpetual an interest in the welfare of all the young people who were placed under her fostering care, that I could narrate various affecting instances, in which they continued in after-life to look up to her with fond attachment. Many of them have since confided to her every secret of their hearts, every trouble and every joy; know1

2

The source for this is Everilda Gardiner (1842), which is supported by Cameron’s citation of a 1792 Beverley directory listing “Arden, J. & A., ladies boarding school, Eastgate” (Cameron 1961: 937). Boulter (1870) avers that Gardiner first moved to nearby Hull, and did not arrive in Beverly proper until 1799, noting that “In 1796 Mrs. Jane Gardiner kept a ladies’ school at 50, Mytongate, Hull; in 1797 at Manor House, Hull; in 1799 at Beverley, and in 1801 at Elsham, Lincolnshire” (1870: 341), but does not state the source of his information. Gardiner’s English grammar names four specific books which would have been part of her library: “Thomson’s Seasons”, “Rollin’s Ancient History”, “Enfield’s Speaker” (Gardiner 1799: 93), and the works of “The Emperor Antoninus” (Gardiner 1799: 5).

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ing that they possessed, in the kind instructress of their youth, a friend who had identified herself with their welfare, and who would give them her tender sympathy and parental counsel (Gardiner 1842: 26).

Jane Arden married in 1797 (Gardiner 1842: 7) but, as “marriage did not always curtail a woman’s teaching career or remove its necessity” (Skedd 1997: 117), she continued running her school for nearly thirty more years. Significantly, unlike more well-known schoolmistresses like Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743–1825), who bore the responsibility for running schools nominally under their husbands’ leadership, Gardiner maintained supremacy in her own academy, receiving “support for her teaching in her husband” (Skedd 1997: 119). Mr. Gardiner was undoubtedly well educated; “a friend of her youngest brother” James Arden (Gardiner 1842: 7), he may have attended Trinity College, Oxford, where James studied and taught from 1774 through the mid 1780s (Gardiner 1842: 5; Cameron 1961: 937). Yet, in her memoir Recollections of a Beloved Mother, Gardiner’s daughter Everilda inadvertently underscores her father’s comparative obscurity: she never once mentions his first name. Gardiner’s school remained open until 1836, when, “having spent sixtyone years in the education of youth, [she] gave up her long and arduous work. The number of her pupils, during that period, had amounted to upwards of six hundred” (Gardiner 1842: 43−44). Certainly Gardiner’s career as a schoolmistress met with the economic, intellectual and moral success which her girlhood friend Mary Wollstonecraft had predicted fifty-five years earlier when she wrote that “at the close of life you’ll have the pleasure to think that you have not lived in vain and, believe me, this reflection is worth a life of care” (Cameron 1961: 976). When she was well established in teaching, Gardiner published her Young Ladies’ English Grammar (1799), a “small Performance, which was drawn up at first for the use of my own School, and is now made public, in hopes of its proving useful to others”, as she wrote in her Preface. This work is unique among grammars of the period; whereas most contemporary grammars either explicitly accepted or rejected the Latin model (Michael 1970: 421), Gardiner makes hers “conformable to the French Grammars” (Gardiner 1799: iii). The theory, if not the practice, is sensible: boys learned Latin and “it was assumed [at this time] that English grammar was good preparation for Latin” (Michael 1987: 319); girls learned French, so Gardiner undertook a parallel project, employing English grammar as a preparation for French. In the introduction to her grammar, she characterised this connection as “obvious” because she believed “that after a great deal of time has been spent in learning one Grammar, that time may not be lost, by the Learner’s being puzzled with different names of cases, tenses, &c.; and in short, by having entirely to learn a new Gram-


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mar” (Gardiner 1799: iii). She asserted that her method would “both assist and prepare the Learner to attain with ease what is now gained with so much labour” (Gardiner 1799: iv). Publishers at least must have been interested in the sales potential of this singular system; the first edition (1799) was published locally by Wilson & Spence of York, but the second (1808) and third (1809) editions were published by the prominent London firm Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, Paternoster-Row. Percy (1994: 135) notes that Longman’s sales ledgers show that the third edition of Gardiner’s grammar languished; perhaps this surfeit of books is what prompted Gardiner to give copies to her pupils as prizes. The two inscriptions in my private copy of the third edition illustrate Gardiner’s curricular priorities: “A Reward to Miss E. Whitehead for Improvement in Reading French. Ashby House June 1816” is written opposite a card, pasted in, which reads “December 1819. Miss E. Whitehead deserves commendation for Improvement in English & French Grammar, English & French Reading, Geography, & for general good behaviour. J. Gardiner. Ashby House”. Michael, however, believes that Gardiner’s French-based system “can hardly have helped the young ladies of York in their English studies” (1970: 421), and as no later grammarians followed Gardiner’s approach it is likely that other teachers found the system impracticable. No copy of Gardiner’s other grammatical work, An Easy French Grammar (1808), seems to be extant. It may have been designed as a French complement to her Young Ladies English Grammar; were a copy to be located, it might shed more light on Gardiner’s grammatical thinking. An Easy French Grammar was, according to Gardiner’s daughter Everilda, “the last of her writings that appeared in print” but it was not the end of her writing career: she subsequently prepared for the press “A Key” to her “Exercises”. Almost every branch of female education occupied her pen to a considerable extent. Indefatigable were her efforts to benefit her pupils: even her English, French, and Italian games, which she wrote for their instruction and amusement, amounted to about a hundred. The MS. journals of her travels and summer excursions, in which she describes the places she visited, the rich and varied scenery through which she passed, and in fact every thing that she thought worthy of notice, are exceedingly numerous (Gardiner 1842: 9–10).

Gardiner’s English Grammar clearly demonstrates the interest in travel and geography highlighted by her daughter, as well as her religious and moral convictions. These two areas of concern are neatly bound together in one succinct example: “a globe, an Infidel” (Gardiner 1799: 68); as the example is intended to illustrate the singular indefinite article, Gardiner’s choice of nouns is telling. London, the Humber river and, interestingly, the Alps are the place-names mentioned most frequently in Gardiner’s text. But local areas are not neglected

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in favour of those farther afield; rather, they are equated: “She lives in Italy, in London, in York. She lives at Clifton, at Rome, at Berlin” (Gardiner 1799: 87). Some places are associated with their famous denizens and some with their geographic or economic attributes, while others stand on their own: the Humber, Beverley, Yorkshire, England (Gardiner 1799: 4) The Atlantic, the Severn, the Thames, the Royal George, the Alps, the West Indies (1799: 69) Socrates and Plato were wise; they were the most eminent philosophers of Greece (1799: 69) Charles XII. King of Sweden, was one of the greatest madmen that the world ever saw (1799: 78) Bath, the Circus, the Alps, the Humber (1799: 93).

Most of the places named in the grammar were familiar to Gardiner. As the young Jane Arden she had lived in Beverley, Yorkshire and Bath (yet places associated with her governessing career, such as Houghton and Norfolk, are conspicuously absent), and after her marriage she published An Excursion from London to Dover, “a travel book filled with botanical observation and reflections on the lives of purposeful women” (Gordon 2005: 47). Whether Gardiner embarked from Dover to the Continent to visit places like Sweden, Greece or the Alps is not known. Pedagogically, this attention to the familiar and concrete reflects back to her own hands-on scientific education with her father. In her introduction, Gardiner uses words like “progressive” and “rational” to describe her aims: “in the progressive developement [sic] of the different articles which this volume contains, a particular regard has been paid to such arrangement, connection, and brevity, as might give a clear and easy conception of them, and lead the Scholar into a rational and speedy method of study” (Gardiner 1799: iv). Her assumption is that girls can best learn English grammar by following the highly structured and logical method outlined in her text. Gardiner earned some criticism for this method; one former student acknowledged the criticism but took issue with it: “I have heard it said, ‘Her school arrangements partook too much of by-gone education plans.’ I believe I may say, that out of no school was there ever sent forth a greater number of solidly educated Christian women” (Gardiner 1842: 28). Gardiner interspersed religious references and moral aphorisms throughout the text of her grammar, unlike Ellin Devis or Ann Fisher, both of whom kept such references together in sections separated from the grammar proper. Rather than self-consciously separating the students’ efforts into two discrete lessons, one on language study and the other on moral improvement, Gardiner’s method naturally blends religious and linguistic instruction. In this way, she led


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her young charges “insensibly to goodness”, as Ellenor Fenn would say (Fenn 1783: x; see also Navest, this volume). Gardiner copied many of her examples from George Neville Ussher’s 1785 work The Elements of English Grammar … Designed Particularly for the Use of Ladies Boarding Schools, as well as from Lindley Murray’s popular grammar (1795);3 occasionally she turned to Joseph Robertson’s Essay on Punctuation (1785) for examples as well. In fact, like Murray before her, Gardiner quite candidly remarked in her introduction that “This initiatory book may properly be termed an extract, or rather a select compendium of the most approved English Grammars; from which I have endeavoured to select what experience has taught me to be most useful, to attain a thorough knowledge of the English Language” (Gardiner 1799: iii). While gendered moral strictures such as “Drawing and music afford an innocent entertainment” and “Virtue and modesty become young women” (Gardiner 1799: 69) are some of the first aphorisms encountered in the text, Gardiner does not limit her counsel to women only; men, for example, are admonished that only “[l]ibertines call religion bigotry or superstition” (Gardiner 1799: 94). The rest of the considerable number of moral axioms are phrased as advice for all. A few examples are “Choose wisdom rather than folly; that will make thee honourable, but this contemptible” (Gardiner 1799: 77); “Candour is to be approved and practised” (1799: 90); “Plain, honest truth, wants no artificial covering” (1799: 95). In fact, most of Gardiner’s revisions of the first edition of the text reinforce this universalist position (see also Percy 1994). She adds examples with “he” and “boys” to balance out those with “she” or “girls”. She also changes other sentences to be gender neutral, as displayed in Table 1 below: Table 1. Gender-neutral changes to sample sentences in Jane Gardiner’s grammar. First Edition, 1799 My frock is white (13) Our doll is pretty (13) Her frock is the whitest (13) The needle that (or which) you lent me (20) Ah! What a nice doll! (66) A new frock (73)

Third Edition, 1809 My shirt is white (13) Our kite is pretty (13) His shirt is the whitest (13) The pen that (or which) you lent me (20) Ah! What a nice top! (66) A new ball (73)

Gardiner also employs grammatical examples which are explicitly religious. Many are familiar Biblical phrases such as “The wages of sin is death” (Gardiner 1799: 72; Romans 6: 23), “Fear God. Honour the king” (1799: 100; 1 Peter 2: 17) and “The Scriptures give us an amiable representation of the Deity, 3

Percy (1994: 133) notes that Murray is also a source for her syntax rules.

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in these words: ‘God is love’” (1799: 99; 1 John 4: 8), or descriptive phrases and sentences such as “an excellent sermon” (1799: 74) and “The clergy is or are a large body of men” (1799: 83). A perhaps unexpected phrase Gardiner included is a reference to Catholicism, particularly intriguing in its ambiguity: “He was totally dependent on the papal crown” (1799: 89). Percy (1994: 132), however, notes that though John Arden was a protestant, his family had been Roman Catholic and had disowned him since his conversion. This is not to say that Gardiner made use of every grammatical example to teach a moral lesson. Some simply refer to flora and fauna: “The garden, the gardens; the flower, the flowers” (Gardiner 1799: 69); “It was the strangest bird I ever saw” (1799: 74); “I neither love hunting nor fishing” (1799: 91); “The greyhound is not so fierce as the mastiff” (1799: 91). Of course many deal with learning English grammar. To write and to read are favoured for exemplifying verb forms, and sample sentences such as “She writes very correctly” (Gardiner 1799: 63) and “Harriet and I read together” (1799: 75) abound. Girls are encouraged to “[l]earn your lesson” (1799: 27) because “[t]oday’s lesson is more difficult than yesterday’s, but to-morrow’s will be more so than either” (1799: 86), yet such reminders are probably unnecessary as “These ladies were attentive, industrious, and obedient to their governess, and by these means acquired knowledge” (1799: 73). The final example Gardiner includes in the Young Ladies English Grammar, intended to exemplify the proper use of quotation marks, is a strong reiteration of her convictions regarding English education: “The utility of grounding children well, in the grammatical knowledge of their native tongue, as a principal branch of education, being more and more perceived, and I believe generally acknowledged; an attempt to accelerate the attainment of such knowledge, cannot prove unacceptable” (1799: 102).

3.

Ellin Devis

The humble, devout lives Jane Gardiner imagined for her students form a significant contrast to the advantaged ones which Ellin Devis’s examples illustrate in The Accidence, or First Rudiments of English Grammar (1775). Time is considered well-spent on “Poetry, painting, and music, [which] afford an innocent and noble entertainment” (Devis 1775: 78); girls know that they “shall or will go to Paris” (1775: 34), even though − or perhaps precisely because − “The English are less volatile than the French” (1775: 72). Together, these improving studies and travels result in the schoolgirl blossoming into “A most accomplished woman” (Devis 1775: 65). The status of the men in the same socio-economic class is not forgotten either. It is reflected positively in an ex-


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ample of irregular plurals, “Footman, Footmen. Statesman, Statesmen” (Devis 1775: 11) but more negatively in the section on conjunctions: “As with the servant, so with his master” (Devis 1775: 77). Perhaps this is why the young women under Devis’s charge learnt that “She is wiser than he” (Devis 1775: 82–83). Ellin Devis was spectacularly successful as a schoolmistress. The schools she ran were as thoroughly urban and worldly as Gardiner’s was sheltered and secluded (see Cobbe 1894: 23, 58–60; Butler 1972: 71–75; Borer 1976: 185–189; Percy 2003: 73–75). Born into a family of successful society portrait artists, Devis was likely already well-connected when she began teaching in the fashionable London area of Kensington (see Hudson 1949: 4; Pavière 1954). Her first published work, The Accidence; Or First Rudiments of English Grammar (1775) was dedicated “To Mrs. Terry, of Campden-House, Kensington”, and though the title page identified her only as “a Lady”, William Enfield, in his review of the grammar published in May 1775, refers to her specifically as “Mrs. Davis [sic], a teacher at Cambden-house [sic] school” (1775: 52). Percy (2003: 73) speculates that Devis started her own school in 1775, “since Devis’s testamentary disposition of her ‘plan of education’ to her sisters, niece, and friend Martha Morison identifies 1775 as the year since which Morison had ‘constantly resided with me’”. As this is the same year in which The Accidence was published, it seems likely to me that the publication of that work might have given Devis the funds necessary to establish her own school. Like Gardiner, Devis moved her school at least twice after striking out on her own. Devis dates the Preface of the third edition of The Accidence from “HollesStreet, Cavendish Square, Dec. 1, 1777” while her later book Miscellaneous Lessons, Designed for the Use of Young Ladies (1782) was prefaced “Upper Wimpole-Street, March 1. 1782” (and also advertises the fourth edition of The Accidence). Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) was famously miserable at Devis’s school in Upper Wimpole Street, which she attended in 1781–1782 (Butler 1972: 73–75). There “[h]er schoolfellows were suspicious of her intellectuality”, and worse, “there was nothing about her appearance to lend her confidence … Ugliness was not a joke at Mrs. Devis’s, where fashionable girls were being educated to make good marriages. This was one race where the competitive Maria could not make the running” (Butler 1972: 73). By the 1790s Devis had taken over a famous and “fashionable London boarding school … in Queen Square, Bloomsbury”, whose pupils had included Mrs. Thrale and later her daughter Cecilia, as well as Frances and Susannah Burney (Borer 1976: 185–186). She remained proprietress until her death in 1820, and during those years the Queen’s Square school “was maintaining its prestige and was known as the Young Ladies Eton” (Borer 1976: 188). Unlike Eton, however, Devis’s school seems to have limited academic study to English (reading

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and writing grammatically, using Devis’s Accidence), Geography (which also incorporated what we would now call Earth Science and Social Studies, again learned from a textbook by Devis), and “a very fair share of history (‘Ancient’ derived from Rollin, and ‘Sacred’ from Mrs. Trimmer)” (Cobbe 1894: 59). Education at Queen’s Square emphasised polite accomplishments as much as, if not more than, intellectual ones. The fashionable education Devis offered was accessible only to daughters from affluent families because “[t]he seminary was … expensive … an item in the ‘Farington Diary’ records that ‘Miss Dalrymple’s expenses at Mrs Devis’s School for the last year [1793] amounted to £ 284’” (Hudson 1949: 4). This significant sum paid for a “a great deal of careful training in what may be called the great Art of Society; the art of properly paying and receiving visits, of saluting acquaintances in the street and drawing room; and of writing letters of compliment” (Cobbe 1894: 60) as well as lessons enabling girls “to play the harpsichord with taste, if not with a very learned appreciation of ‘severe’ music” (Cobbe 1894: 58). Devis’s formula for female education led to phenomenal financial success. At her death, she owned not only the school, but also a townhouse in Devonshire Place where she and other members of her family resided, as well as the family home in Albury (Hudson 1949: 4–5). Devis left everything to her favourite niece, her sister Frances’s daughter Ellin Devis Marris. Marris’s son, the Victorian writer Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–1889), said simply that “my mother … was rich, as the sole heiress and adopted daughter of her aunt Ellin Devis of Devonshire Place” (quoted by Paviere 1954). But the school she built could not withstand the loss of its guiding force, and “[a]fter Mrs. Devis died the school became less fashionable and with diminishing numbers occupied only one house again, but it did not close until the 1850s” (Borer 1976: 188–189). Devis herself was extremely well-educated, as would be expected of a leading London schoolmistress. Her grammar demonstrates her familiarity with current linguistic authorities such as Harris (1751), Johnson (1755), Ash (1760), Priestley (1761), Lowth (1762) and Ward (1765); she also quotes from numerous classic and contemporary literary figures, sometimes in grammatical examples and more often in the morally-improving “Maxims and Reflections”, intended for practice in parsing, which end the volume and demonstrate how Devis understands the interrelation of virtue, study, and social acquirements in a proper and complete female education. This curious, but successful, conjunction of morality and worldliness may be explained by Devis’s upbringing. Percy (2003: 73) points out that “As the daughter of a once-fashionable portrait painter, she would have been raised to mix easily with social superiors who were patrons or potential patrons”. Yet this influence must have been balanced by her mother, whom Devis depicted as devoutly religious. She described her mother’s death


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as occurring “almost immediately after her evening devotions” and noted that “The book in which she was reading just before she went to bed and died in her sleep is entitled ‘The devout soul’s daily exercises in prayer contemplation and praises’ dated 1698 and the paper mark she placed in it has never been removed” (quoted by Ellin Isabelle Tupper, recorded by Pavière 1954). Eighteen excerpts from poetry appear in the Accidence. Milton takes the lead with six examples and Shakespeare follows with five; Lord Lyttelton has two; then Alexander Pope, George Sandys, William Shenstone, James Thomson and Edward Young merit one quotation each (although two quotations from Shenstone’s Essays on Men and Manners appear in the “Maxims”). All of the examples from Milton come from Paradise Lost; Shakespeare is represented in his tragedies Hamlet, Othello, and Henry IV Part I, as well as in his comedies All’s Well that Ends Well and the Taming of the Shrew. The briefer excerpts are from Pope’s Essay on Man, Sandys’ translation of the Metamorphoses, Shenstone’s “Elegy 11: He Complains How Soon the Pleasing Novelty of Life is Over, to Mr. Jago”, Thomson’s Seasons, Lyttelton’s “To the Memory of a Lady lately Deceased. A Monody” and Young’s The Complaint, or Night Thoughts. Interestingly, Devis cites the title of the source for the first poetic excerpt only, which is from Paradise Lost. Poetry was of course one of the areas of polite study Devis advocated for young women, so presumably she expected that students would recognise, or would read to discover, the works from which the lines were taken. Devis’s favouring of Paradise Lost as a source for quotations illustrates that, despite her tendency towards worldliness and fashionable accomplishments, she did not neglect the Bible entirely. She cited familiar phrases such as “Blessed is the man who feareth the Lord, and keepeth his commandments” (Psalm 112, cited twice, Devis 1775: 75 and 83); “It is much more blessed to give than to receive” (Devis 1775: 73, Acts 20: 35); and an example mentioned at the beginning of this section, “As with the servant, so with his master” which is from Isaiah 24: 2 (Devis 1775: 77). Other quotations are from Acts 20: 35 (Devis 1775: 82), Exodus 19: 4 (1775: 14), Psalms 37: 24 and 123: 1 (1775: 84) and Proverbs 17: 1 (1775: 95). Added to these are morally-improving prose excerpts included in the “Examples Wherein the Method of supplying the Elliptical Words, and of analysing Sentences, are pointed out”, and the immediately following “Maxims and Reflections”. Both sections include excerpts from poetry as well, as discussed above. In these two concluding sections, Devis includes three prose excerpts each from Hester Chapone and Lord Chesterfield, two each from Mason, Stretch, Shenstone and the Spectator (one Spectator excerpt is from a commentary on Horace and the other is attributed to Swift), and one each from Marcus Aurelius, Jeremy Collier, Fulke Greville, Hannah More, Jeremiah Seed and Nicholas Rowe.

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As with the poetry, Devis does not cite the title of the work from which she is quoting,4 again suggesting that she would expect her students to know the sources or discover them on their own. Devis takes the greatest number of excerpts from two of the most widely-read conduct books of the time, Chesterfield’s conservative Letters to His Son and the Bluestocking Hester Chapone’s more progressive Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773). The three brief, admonitory quotations from Chesterfield, on “Aukwardness” (Devis 1775: 105), the “Art of Pleasing” (1775: 106) and “Inattention” (1775: 109), focus on superficial, social qualities, which may be illustrated by the following quotations: Aukwardness is a more real disadvantage than it is generally thought to be; it often occasions ridicule, it always lessens dignity (Devis 1775: 105) Most arts require long study and application, but the most useful art of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire (1775: 106) Inattention to the present business, be it what it will; the doing one thing, and thinking at the same time of another, or the attempting to do two things at once; are the never-failing signs of a little frivolous mind (1775: 109).

By contrast, the much longer quotations from Chapone on “Application”, “Politeness and Accomplishment” and “Pride and Vanity”, though the headings might make them seem similarly superficial, in fact thoughtfully attend to young women’s intellectual and moral growth: A moderate understanding, with diligent and well directed application, will go much farther than a more lively genius, if attended with that impatience and inattention, which too often accompanies quick parts (Devis 1775: 105; from Chapone’s chapter “On the Manner and Course of Reading History”, Chapone 1773) Politeness of behavior, and the attainment of such branches of knowledge and such arts and accomplishments as are proper to your sex, capacity, and station, will prove so valuable to yourself through life, and will make you so desirable a companion, that the neglect of them may reasonably be deemed a neglect of duty; since it is undoubtedly our duty to cultivate the powers entrusted to us, and to render ourselves as perfect as we can (Devis 1775: 111; from Chapone’s chapter “On Politeness and Accomplishments, Chapone 1773) There are no virtues more insisted on, as necessary to our future happiness, than humility, and sincerity, or uprightness of heart; yet none more difficult and rare. Pride and vanity, the vices opposite to humility, are the sources of almost all the worst faults, both of men and women (Devis 1775: 111; from Chapone’s chapter “On the Regulation of the Heart and Affections”, Chapone 1773). 4

Twice her citations are incomplete in the opposite manner: she does give a title but not an author.


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The much greater length of the excerpts from Chapone, compared with those from Chesterfield, seems to tip the balance of Devis’s pedagogy a bit more towards intellectual rather than fashionable attainments, while still clearly demonstrating the inextricability and necessity of both areas of expertise for the girls she was educating. Most notable in Devis’s grammar is the commanding tone of the sample sentences, a tone which is fitting given the privileged world inhabited by her students. The grammar lessons inculcate the sense of assurance and independence of mind expected of young women preparing to enter the upper echelons of society. For example, the subjunctive form of the verb, as it expresses ideas contrary to reality, often takes the form of futile wishing, as in “If I were to win the lottery, I would never have to work again”. Devis’s examples of the subjunctive, by contrast, focus entirely on “the authority of the Person” speaking, thus showing that the reality of her will overrides the wishes of some weaker person: Were it my pleasure, I would do it. If it were convenient to me, thou shouldst go. Did it suit me, he should set out (Devis 1775: 45).

Her explanation of the function of the auxiliary verbs do and did conjures up a similar sense of powerful certainty. Following Lowth (1762: 57–58), she points out that these words “are used to mark the action itself, or the time of it with greater force and distinction” and then offers the following examples: “I do applaud thee. I did love him, but I scorn him now. Help me, do! … I like her, but I do not love her” (Devis 1775: 40), sample sentences which she appears to have copied from Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755), both from the preceding grammar (sig. b2v) and from the dictionary itself (s.v. do).5 Percy (2003: 48) notes that Devis’s stylistic choices are innovative but potentially pernicious, since the cumulative effect of conjoining the scholarly and worldly undermines the seriousness of the intellectual pursuit. This is precisely what Frances Powers Cobbe celebrated and Maria Edgeworth deplored about Devis’s school: that the dictates of fashionable society superseded academic pursuits. Whether from personal conviction or a shrewd marketing mind, Devis seems to have made some attempt, at least in her published works, to redress this imbalance, as Percy explains: “while revisions to the grammar sustain this emphasis, her revision of some examples and her selection of some moral extracts from works recently written by women at least acknowledge women’s intellectual capacities and the possibility of their limited participation in print 5

I am grateful to Ingrid Tieken Boon van Ostade (pers. com.) for pointing out to me Devis’s reliance here on Lowth and Johnson.

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culture and public life – as producers as well as fashionable consumers” (Percy 2003: 48). Though from a modern perspective, where Edgeworth and Wollstonecraft serve as the standard for radical eighteenth-century perspectives on female education, Devis comes up short, her contemporaries praised her grammar precisely for its intellectual worthiness and promotion of serious study for young men as well as young women. William Enfield, writing for The Monthly Review, assessed the first edition of The Accidence as a judicious selection from the best writers on the subject of English grammar: the rules of which are given with great perspicuity and simplicity, and illustrated by well chosen examples. It enters into the particulars of grammar sufficiently to give children something more than a superficial knowledge of the subject; and at the same time avoids that minute and scientific investigation which would have raised it above their comprehension. It therefore, in our opinion, deserves to be considered as one of the best introductions to the knowledge of English grammar which has appeared; and may be very advantageously made use of to give young persons of both sexes an acquaintance with the fundamental principles of the subject, while they are too young to understand or relish larger and more philosophical works (Enfield 1775: 464).

Worth noting as well is the assumption at the end of the review that both girls and boys, schooled by Devis’s grammar, would later turn to those difficult “larger and more philosophical works” on grammar, that is, those which Devis herself read and digested in The Accidence. The Critical Review had actually preceded the Monthly Review in praising Devis as “an ingenious lady”, whose grammar had been “drawn up with perspicuity” (Anon. 1775: 343). This review also asserted that no other contemporary grammar was better qualified to serve as a precursor to Lowth’s. Such praise is significant given the number of grammarians who traded on Lowth’s name by positioning their works as comments on, extensions of, or introductions to his popular and influential text (see Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000c); some of those grammarians, like Ellenor Fenn (see Navest, this volume) and Blanch Mercy (see below), were also women who felt that Lowth’s grammar was too difficult for children and adolescents. The reviewer then goes on to applaud Devis and other women promoting the study of English for young girls, in opposition to useless “fashionable accomplishments”: On this occasion we cannot but observe, that it reflects great honour on the present age to find the ladies considering the study of their own language, as a necessary part of their education. To be able to speak their mother-tongue with propriety, and write it with elegance, is a qualification a thousand times more useful and ornamental, than to draw a paultry [sic] landscape, to murder a tune on the harpsichord, to sing a song, or to chatter a little barbarous French. And yet these have hitherto been the principal objects of attention in the education of young ladies, the fashionable accomplishments, the furniture of the female mind! (Anon. 1775: 343).


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Perhaps Devis would have argued that the instruction offered at her academy was sufficiently rigorous to produce more proficient artists, musicians and linguists than the Critical Review imagined possible. Or perhaps she would not have felt it necessary to answer the reviewer’s charges, since, in the words of one of her own grammatical examples, “Those who are the most learned, are in general the least conceited” (Devis 1775: 72).

4.

Lesser-known teacher-grammarians

The works published by the four lesser-known teacher-grammarians provide the only evidence of their educational philosophies and attitudes about English language learning. Both Mrs. Eves and Blanch Mercy, for example, come out against drilling students on grammar rules, Eves by prefacing her grammar with the familiar quotation from John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) “that learning might be made a play and recreation to children” (Eves 1800: iv) and Mercy by stating baldly in the Scholar’s Book that she has “given the pupil little to learn by heart, but much to put in practice … I have given but few examples, in order to prevent young people from learning by rote” (Mercy 1799: iii–iv). Yet, turning the pages of their texts, it seems that their methodologies do, to greater or lesser degrees, depend upon memorisation.

4.1.

Mrs. Eves

Mrs. Eves’s book The Grammatical Play-thing (1800) describes a group of boarding-school girls and their schoolmistress playing a grammar game which seems to promise fun and the potential to engage students’ imaginations. Published by John Marshall, the purveyor of Ellenor Fenn’s educational games (see Immel 1997; Shefrin 1999), the book was sold together “with a box of counters, &c” all for six shillings (Anon. 1801a: 202). Counters are cards printed with the game’s questions; the text mentions “three little boxes” (Eves 1800: viii). What constitutes the “&c” mentioned in the review is not known, as no surviving example of this game has been identified. The grammar text mentions a game board that was handpainted by Mrs. Friendly, Eves’s stand-in as the fictional headmistress of a school for girls (Eves 1800: vi), as well as “fish” (Eves 1800: viii), or game pieces in the manner of poker chips. The book actually offers ten separate games: nine parts-of-speech games (articles, substantives, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections) and one game of “forfeits”. All of the parts-of-speech

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games (or “pools”, as Mrs Eves calls them) are played in the same manner. Points are awarded for correct answers to increasingly challenging tasks: first girls are asked to recite definitions, then to identify specific elements in sample sentences, and finally, to make up example sentences of their own. The book opens with an eight-page prefatory “dialogue, containing Directions for playing the Grammatical Game” (Eves 1800: v), meant to illustrate the method of play. This dialogue purports to record the actual conversation of the schoolgirls and Mrs. Friendly as they play each game; although “Mrs. Friendly” is clearly a pseudonym, at least two of the girls’ names – Caroline and Maria – refer to some of Mrs. Eves’s actual pupils (see below). After the dialogic directions, Eves alternates sections of grammatical rules and examples, arranged by part of speech, with questions to be asked in the game. For example, she begins with articles, first defining them, then explaining the use of the definite and indefinite; she follows this with twelve sample phrases (e.g. “the children’s friend, an hour”), and then a threesentence paragraph incorporating those phrases (Eves 1800: 2–3). The game question for this section reads: “Point out the articles definite and indefinite, and make several other phrases, introducing both”. Thus, the game could be played without the boxes of counters, using only the prompts included in the text. Eves likened her grammatical game to “Monsieur l’Abbe Gaultier’s French Grammar Game” (Eves 1800: vi) as well as commerce, the popular card game. Mrs. Friendly explains the scoring and the prizes: They who cannot explain the counters they draw lose their fish, and must sit out like at commerce. Whoever has the most fish at last wins the pool, and besides having that pleasure, she will have the honour of being marked extremely well upon my list. When you are capable of going through the whole game with accuracy, I will put half a crown in the pool, which I think the winner will deserve. You may then proceed to Mrs. Devis’s, or Lowth’s grammar, with great pleasure (Eves 1800: xii).

The game of “forfeits” which concludes the book is quite different from the games based on the parts of speech. In forfeits, each student is to attempt to “puzzle her neighbour” into committing linguistic “vulgarisms” and “barbarisms”. The ultimate goal of this game seems merely to discover which girl’s speech will betray her as socially inferior to the others (Eves 1800: 59–60). For Eves, the eradication of vulgarity must have been a primary goal. Mrs. Friendly’s students were well aware that she regarded card playing as highly improper for young women, because she told them that “none but the old and near sighted should play at cards, who cannot see to read and work” (Eves 1800: vi). Thus, she encouraged her students to engage in more polite leisure time activities appropriate to their station. The name of Mrs. Eves’s academy, “CrescentSchool” (as noted on the title page of The Grammatical Play-thing), certainly recalls the Royal Crescent, Bath’s most fashionable address; in fact, her students


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were drawn from better Birmingham society. For example, students listed as prize-winners in the 1800 and 1801 volumes of The Juvenile Library (Anon. 1800; Anon. 1801) include Caroline Field, age 14, the daughter of a surgeon from Evesham, as well as Maria Aston, age 15, whose father was the squire of “New Hall, near Sutton Colfield, Warwickshire” (Eves 1800: 208). (Altogether eleven girls, ranging in age from ten to fifteen, were named prize-winners.) Further, Eves’s explicit reference to Ellin Devis in her introduction (noted above), serves not only to connect the two women in a tradition of grammar writing, as Percy (1994: 136) suggests, but also to link her school to the well-known and fashionable London girls academy over which Devis presided. The primary drawback to the games offered in The Grammatical Play-thing is that they are impossible to play without first having memorized numerous rules regarding the parts of speech. In fact, the game does not foster any grammatical learning; at best it is a recitation and review, as the schoolgirls’ correct answers take the form of perfectly-phrased textbook definitions, as this section from the dialogic directions illustrates: Mrs. Friendly. … Miss Caroline is the eldest, let her draw first. What have you got, my dear? Miss Caroline. A pronoun, ma’am. Mrs. Friendly. What is a pronoun? Miss Caroline. Pronouns are used to avoid the repetition of substantives; there are six sorts, viz. personal, possessive, relative, demonstrative, distributive, and definitive. Mrs. Friendly. Very well answered, you save your life this time; place the counter on the corresponding pronoun in the grammar board, and take up the sugar plum. Now, Miss Maria, it is your turn to draw. Miss Maria. I have drawn an adjective. Mrs. Friendly. Explain it, if you please. Miss Maria. An adjective is a word that cannot subsist by itself, but always refers to some substantive expressed or understood, to denote the quality, form, or number of the substantive. Mrs. Friendly. Very well, my dear, place your counter on the adjective in the grammar board (Eves 1800: ix–x).

An example later in the grammar emphasises Eves’s reliance on memorisation as her primary teaching method: “I will mark you extremely well, if you will say four pages in your grammar without missing a word, and make phrases to exemplify the rules” (Eves 1800: 38). Outspoken student Miss Henrietta underscores the method’s lack of appeal, objecting that the girls “have enough of dull grammar rules all day” (1800: vi). This potential difficulty in Mrs. Eves’s teaching philosophy did not go unremarked by her contemporaries. The Monthly Review for June 1801 warned that

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In boarding-schools, and in families in which there are several young children under a governess, this game may form a pleasing recreation: but it is necessary that the person who performs the part of Mrs. Friendly should be well instructed, and that she should possess some patience; for, though this be represented as an amusement, it cannot become so without knowledge; and the pupil must learn to distinguish one part of speech, and one gender, person, case, mood, and tense, from another, before a grammatical pool can be played with ease (Anon.1801a: 202).

Requiring memorisation from young scholars playing the game necessitates the same effort to be made by the adult running it, a task unappealing, this reviewer suggests, to virtually everyone including professional educators. Despite its superficial similarity to Ellenor Fenn’s educational games and its supposed inspiration by Locke, The Grammatical Play-thing does not support the idea of learning by amusement. Worse, Mrs. Friendly’s interaction with her recalcitrant student, Miss Henrietta, reveals a tendency to rely on implicit threats and humiliation to induce students to learn. Miss Henrietta tries to beg off playing the grammar game, complaining that “grammar is so very hard, I cannot remember a word of it” (Eves 1800: ix), to which Mrs. Friendly at first responds kindly: “Don’t be alarmed, my dear. I will help you a little at first. In this book you will find the grammar rules appropriated to the game; which I have selected from some of our best grammarians for that purpose” (1800: x). Henrietta, however, politely declines the offer of assistance, prompting Mrs. Friendly to employ increasingly coercive measures. Thus, the teacher warns Henrietta that, although the girl believes herself immune to obvious “grammatical blunders” (Eves 1800: x), she will not be able to “speak elegantly without a knowledge of grammar” (1800: xi). She further points out that “people will judge of your abilities in other respects by the purity of your language” and asks whether Henrietta would prefer “to be thought a vulgar untaught young lady; inferior to all your friends and companions”, to which the girl understandably responds, “No, I assure you, ma’am; I should like to be thought very clever” (Eves 1800: xi). Yet when Henrietta still proves recalcitrant, Mrs. Friendly turns to the younger girls for answers in an attempt to embarrass Miss Henrietta into compliance: Mrs. Friendly. Little Fanny, tell Miss Henrietta what a substantive is! Miss Fanny. A substantive is the name of everything I can see, feel, smell, or taste. I can tell you a great many substantives, a table, a chair, a window, a doll, a cat, a mouse. Mrs. Friendly. Make a phrase, Miss Marianne, consisting of an article, an adjective, and a substantive. Miss Marianne. A good girl, a pretty doll. Mrs. Friendly. There are six plums for you, Fanny, and the same for Marianne. You will find Miss Henrietta, grammar is not so difficult as you imagine,


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if you take care to understand one part of speech before you proceed to another. In this little book are examples that even little Fanny may understand; and if you will accustom yourself to make phrases as you go on, you may render the study very amusing. Miss Henrietta. I am much obliged to you, ma’am, and I will endeavour to win the pool the next time you are so good as to invite me to the parlour (Eves x–xii).

After being threatened with the labels “vulgar”, “untaught” and “inferior”, made to look foolish not only by Marianne (only a year younger than Henrietta at eight) but worse, by four-year old “little Fanny” (who, though a child small enough to “sit upon [Mrs. Friendly’s] lap”, Eves 1800: vii, mastered a text which stumped Henrietta), and finally taunted by no fewer than twelve sugar plums, the once-lively Miss Henrietta now glumly surrenders to her grammatical fate. Mitigating the severity of Eves’s pedagogy is the extremely high ratio of sample sentences to grammatical definitions to be memorised. Well over three hundred examples appear in fifty-seven sections. A number of the examples are clearly inspired by Eves’s real school and the actual pupils, thus giving some insight into their studies (English Grammar, Reading and Writing, as well as French, Music and Dancing) and school practices (“merit-money” and vacation time), or relating to local places and events, as the following selection demonstrates: Miss Penelope dances a good minuet (Eves 1800: 11) Every lady in the class must study her grammar (1800: 25) I may play upon the harpsichord for an hour (1800: 35) I am reading the Tales of the Castle, and she is writing her scripture exercise (1800: 36) They shall have a holiday when the French master is gone (1800: 38) I have read Homer’s Iliad (1800: 38) You shall go home at Midsummer, if you gain merit-money enough to pay the expences of the journey (1800: 38).

Typical of educational works and conduct books of the period, Eves includes a substantial number of examples emphasizing good morals and behaviour. In her introduction, she admits that her grammar rules were “selected from some of our best grammarians” (Eves 1800: x). Similarly, some of her morallyimproving sample sentences are selected from the Bible (for example, “I must love my neighbor as myself”, Eves 1800: 54, from Leviticus 19: 18 and “Fear the Lord, ye that are his saints; for they that fear him lack nothing”, Eves 1800: 55, from Psalm 34: 9), while quite a few others appeared in Joseph Robertson’s An Essay on Punctuation (1785). These sentences appear in precisely the same order in both texts: “There is a charm in modest diffidence above the force of

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words. Youth is the proper season for cultivating the humane and benevolent affections. Many people gratify their eyes and ears, instead of their understanding. Religion is a perpetual force of consolation under all the calamities of life” (Robertson 1785: 46–48; Eves 1800: 51–52).6 Most of the examples, however, exhibit a style consonant with the preceding examples crafted by the author. Some examples are the following: I have often told you the disgraceful consequences of lying … She is a good girl, she seldom requires correction (Eves 1800: 47) Miss Rebecca entered the room very gracefully, and behaved politely to the whole company (1800: 48) She is certainly a deserving young lady who acknowledges her faults (1800: 49) You must not spend your precious hours in trifling (1800: 50).

Interspersed among the behaviorally descriptive and prescriptive examples are a few which hint at women’s potential independence of mind and life (with attendant dangers): I admire an industrious young lady. … She provides for all her family (Eves 1800: 30) I leave you, my dear children, to the care of Providence (1800: 33) Though he write submissively, I will not grant his request (1800: 35) Were I obliged to beg my bread (1800: 35) We have refused to profit by their proposal. (1800: 41) She has lived here these two years, but I have little acquaintance with her; her apartments are above, and mine below (1800: 48) No, Madam, I cannot grant your request (1800: 50).

The tenor of the examples in this final list connects back to the imperative, manipulative tone which simmers under Mrs. Friendly’s kindly exterior. Taken as a whole, The Grammatical Play-thing evokes an image of Mrs. Eves as an able but commanding schoolmistress; it is easy to imagine her issuing the final statement above – “No, Madam, I cannot grant your request” – to schoolgirls asking for some favour or for bending the rules of her establishment.

4.2.

Mrs. M. C. Edwards

In contrast to the richness of examples in Mrs. Eves’s grammar, Mrs. Edwards’s Short Compendium of English Grammar (1796) is utterly barren. She offers exactly seven sample sentences, which, aside from commonplace sentiments 6

Jane Gardiner also offered the first of the four from Robertson as an example in her own grammar (1799: 98).


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on schooling and patriotism, reveal little about her educational philosophy or method of teaching: “I do love” and “I may learn” (Edwards 1796: 11) “I was speaking”, “I have finished” and “I had ended” (1796: 12) “The King is loved by his People” (1796: 29) “I dare say, – I ought to read” (1796: 34).

Of the thirty-eight pages in which, according to Edwards’s title page, “The several parts of speech are clearly explained and defined”, more than half are devoted to, as she puts it, the “Declension of Verbs” (Edwards 1796: 14). Edwards’s intentions for her text are brevity, simplicity and utility. She relies on tried-and-true pedagogy, as she explains in the “Address to the Public” with which she prefaces her work: The Authoress of this short Grammar has studiously endeavoured to render an Explanation of the English Parts of Speech, as simple and easy as possible; and has there-fore chosen the more familiar, tho’ perhaps less common mode, of defining Grammatical Rudiments, in the Style of Question and Answer. In so small a Work, it can hardly be expected that any other than the necessary General Rules should be allowed a Place. Such will be found to be sufficient for the narrow comprehension of Infant Minds; and will serve, after the Primmer [sic] and Spelling Book, to afford a just Insight into the Principles of the English Tongue (Edwards 1796: v–vi).

The description of her students as “infant minds” progressing from primer to spelling book to elementary grammar defines Mrs. Edwards’s establishment as an elementary-level tuition school, one of “the many small schools chosen by parents who could not afford a governess but wanted something better than the dame school” (Michael 1987: 184). Yet Brentford, where Mrs. Edwards’s school was located, despite being the home of the conservative educationalist Sarah Trimmer (Percy 1994: 130), was also the haunt of aristocrats who brought with them their London pretensions and vices. In his wildly popular satirical poem, “An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers” (1773), Mason wrote that in Brentford “at one glance, the royal eye shall meet / Each varied beauty of St James’s Street”, while the typical immoral aristocrat “Who ne’er before at sermon showed his face” would nonetheless be quick to punish any petty crime of the lower classes: See Jemmy Twitcher shambles; stop! stop thief! He’s stoln the E’* of D*nb*gh’s handkerchief. Let B*rr*t*n arrest him in mock fury, And M**d hang the knave without a jury (Mason 1773: 15).

Nevertheless, Edwards’s establishment was clearly far humbler than either Ellin Devis’s or Mrs. Eves’s academies, apparently concentrating on the basics of

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reading, writing and arithmetic. The Short Compendium includes thirty-eight pages of English grammar, together with eight pages of Pence Tables and Multiplication Tables, making it a handy all-in-one textbook for schoolchildren with modest educational ambitions.

4.3.

Mrs. Taylor

As its title, An Easy Introduction to General Knowledge and Liberal Education (1791), announces, Mrs. Taylor’s work is intended as an all-in-one textbook. As Mrs. Edwards’s Short Compendium (1796) was to do later, it gives pride of place to the grammar which occupies the first, and largest (thirty-five of ninety-nine pages), portion of the work. Taylor’s text goes well beyond the triumvirate of basics Mrs. Edwards offered; the sixty-four pages following the grammar offer brief definitions or explanations under a wide variety of subjects, as is illustrated in Table 2. Table 2. Number of pages devoted to different subjects in Mrs Taylor’s Easy Introduction. Grammar and Language Rules Mythology and Classics History, Geography, Geology, Politics “The Seven Liberal Arts” Heroes Heraldry Theology, Philosophy, Morality Poetic Forms Math, Optics, Mechanics Sculpture, Architecture, Painting Chemistry, Pharmacy, Surgery total

35 27 12 8 6 4 2 2 1 1 1 99

That Taylor intended this work solely as a school text is evident from the book’s lack of any type of prefatory material such as introductions, dedications, advertisements or notices to the public. It is not known whether the book was used in schools other than her own school at Strangeways Hall in Manchester. The single edition of Taylor’s book, with surviving copies held only in the British Library and the Warrington Public Library, suggests that it was not widely circulated. Taylor does not announce her reasons for writing her grammar, nor does she describe her teaching methodology as do some of the other teacher-grammari-


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ans; rather, the material itself suggests her educational priorities. The grammar is straightforward and succinct, reading more like a dictionary of grammatical terms than a student text. (Perhaps this was no accident, as Taylor twice in her book refers to the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the only linguistic authority she mentions by name.) After defining “Orthography”, “Etymology”, “Syntax”, “Prosody” and “Syllables” (Taylor 1791: 3–6), she moves quickly through the parts of speech. Nouns, for example, are covered in only three and a half pages, adverbs in one and a half, and all of the others (except for verbs) in fractions of a page. Verbs get a more thorough treatment, thanks to eleven pages of definitions and conjugations. Many of the sample sentences (or, more frequently, phrases) Taylor offered to illustrate the elements of grammar are unremarkable in their emphasis on learning and writing: if I go I cannot write; if she were wise she would study; although we eat and drink, yet we shall die (Taylor 1791: 14) dearly beloved son, diligently studying her lesson, it is very correctly drawn (1791: 23) writing is useful, a well written letter, she is writing (1791: 24).

She did, however, supply a solitary literary example, three lines from the littleknown poem “Grongar Hill” by John Dyer (1726): The town and village, dome and farm, Each give a double charm, As pearls upon an Ethiop’s arm (Taylor 1791: 30).

Most interesting is Taylor’s inclusion of Latin definitions of cases in the grammar, particularly because she admitted that “strictly speaking, it is not a distinction observed essential to English grammar, yet the following examples will give a clearer idea of grammatical construction” (1791: 9). Perhaps Latin was a subject learned by the young ladies of Strangeways Hall. Classical mythology and antiquities are, after all, the second largest subject area in An Easy Introduction to General Knowledge and Liberal Education (see Table 2) and elicit Taylor’s only explicit justification of an element of her educational plan: Mythology, As Johnson correctly defines it, is “a system of fables,” yet the knowledge of it is, in some measure, a necessary part of polite education; for without it the ancient poets cannot be comprehended. It tends also to elucidate the historical paintings, which are often the subject of conversation, and the theme of our most elegant writers of travels. The conformity of their fabulous accounts with the Old Testament certainly renders them doubly interesting; and points out, in the most striking manner, the inventive talents of their poets, and the non-existence of those deities the vulgar were taught to worship (Taylor 1791: 67).

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Taylor’s serious-mindedness is evidenced here by her subordination of mythology to the Bible, as well as by the unusual breadth of subjects covered in the text. Further, her explicit mention of the requirements of “polite education” reflects back to the closing pages of the grammar portion of the text, where Taylor highlights three socially-ordained prescriptive rules: Prepositions ending a sentence are always inelegant, and should be studiously avoided. The preposition of should not be used after participles present, as, a man deserving of honour, for a man deserving honour; a child learning of her lesson, for a child learning her lesson. Two negatives destroy each other, and mean (if they mean any thing) an affirmative (1791: 34).

Mrs. Taylor’s text, taken as a whole, suggests that the education she provided for girls at her school was uniquely practical and intellectual.

4.4. Blanch Mercy Of the schoolteacher-grammarians discussed here, the one with the most fully elaborated pedagogy is, without a doubt, Blanch Mercy. Over the course of nearly 250 pages of text – 84 pages in Volume I, “The Scholar’s Book” (1799) and 164 pages in Volume II, “The Instructress’s Book” (1801) – in her so-called Short Introduction to English Grammar (1799 & 1801),7 she lays out a very clear, detailed, and to today’s reader strikingly modern method of language instruction. She has taken such pains, she notes in the Preface to “The Scholar’s Book”, because “[t]hough there are some excellent Grammars of the English Language, there are few young ladies (comparatively speaking) who reap any advantage from them; and, with regret, I have frequently been witness to children’s toiling through three different Grammars, without even knowing how to make the verb agree with the nominative case” (1799: iv). Yet Mercy is also careful not to insult experienced teachers, assuring them “that I do not pretend to dictate to those whose experience has already formed one, (every method being equally good, when it attains the end for which it is designed); but to those who have not yet adopted any plan, I address myself” (1799: iv–v). Strangely, though, the book seems initially to offer a less progressive pedagogy, as the very first lines of “The Instructress’s Book” imply that there will be enormous amounts of memorisation to be undertaken by the scholar. These are Mercy’s opening instructions: 7 The title, as Percy (1994: 130) notes, is a direct reference to Lowth’s grammar (see also Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000c). Michael (1970: 225) shows that Mercy and Lowth share the same system of parts of speech.


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First begin by giving the Pupil Lesson I. to learn by heart and, before you hear her say it, peruse Lesson I. in this book; afterwards interrogate the learner as there advised; but do not cease making suchlike interrogations till the matter in question be perfectly comprehended, in every shape. The same method is to be pursued throughout, for which purpose certain portions are either marked or numbered alike in both books (1801: iii).

This teaching advice is somewhat misleading, however, since a good portion of Mercy’s “questioning” consists of fill-in-the-blank style quizzes which require real learning rather than memorisation. The first lesson concludes with this exercise, setting the pattern for those which follow: Exercise 1.—On nouns. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

This is a pretty (------------). (----------) is a good (----------). The ( horse ) head is handsome. A sweet (----------). The ( book ) leaves are turned down. (---------) is a naughty (----------). ( Bell ) hat is faded (Mercy 1799: 10).

Mercy’s meticulous instructions on teaching this exercise support her contention in the Preface to “The Scholar’s Book” that her “motive in publishing this book, is, to remedy the evil, by giving the pupil little to learn by heart, but much to put in practice” (1799: iii). Because this is the first such exercise of many in the grammar course, Mercy also takes the time to explain the pedagogical philosophy underlying them: For the better comprehending of the parts of speech, I add an exercise on each, in which the scholar is to supply the words omitted; as experience has taught me, that learners will discover the use of a word by the want of it, when they cannot do it otherwise; I point out these different methods, because children of the dullest capacities might be made to seize a thing by some means or other. In the exercise in the scholar’s book you will see that the nouns are omitted; as, in the 1st phrase, “This is a pretty ( book ).” Supposing she fills up the space in the crotchets with the noun, book, or table, or any other, make her give her reasons for so doing, then ask in what case that noun is … (1801: 18–19).

Mercy often scripted elaborate teacher-student dialogues based on the exercises she included in the texts to illustrate precisely the manner in which teachers are to elicit progressively more detailed responses from students. Unlike Mrs. Eves, who prefaced her Grammatical Play-thing with humorous dialogic instructions for playing her grammar game (see § 4.1. above), Mercy constructed dialogues which are far more serious and didactic. For example, continuing

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from the paragraph above, the instructor quizzes her student regarding the noun book before moving on to other items in the exercise: Q. Is it in the genitive. A. No. Q. Why? A. Because book has here no relation with another noun, but is simply named as being pretty; therefore it must be in the nominative case. 2. ( John ) is a good ( boy ). These nouns are to be accounted for in the same manner. 3. The ( horse’s ) head is handsome. Now let us suppose that the learner retains her noun in the nominative case here, then make her repeat her cases, and assist her thus: Q. What is the thing you simply name, or are talking about? A. The head – Then that must be a noun in the nominative case. Q. Whose head do you speak of? A. The horse’s. Q. What is the difference between these two nouns? A. Head is the nominative case, and horse’s is the genitive, because it does not simply name the animal, but shews the relation it has with something else, namely, the head. Q. What is the relation between these two nouns? – And how is it marked? … [All] nouns are to be accounted for in the same way, till, by frequent repetition, the use of the two cases become familiar. Let all the genitives be likewise rendered by the preposition of, and make the most of every sentence, by asking as many questions as possible upon it (Mercy 1799: 19–20).

Each of Mercy’s lessons follows roughly the same method: first, the teacher is to impart necessary information in a clear and systematic way; next, teacher and student discuss illustrative examples; and finally, the student completes an exercise (verbally, and as she progresses in skill, in writing) which the student and teacher together review, item by item. Thus, it is not sufficient for the teacher merely to grade student work and hand it back because students “will, in all probability, commit some faults, which ought to be corrected by the learner”; this can only be accomplished “with the assistance of the instructress, who must represent the propriety or impropriety of what is written” (Mercy 1801: 74). Mercy believed that repetition is “absolutely necessary in teaching” (1801: 119) and this belief shaped her pedagogy. Scholars must review and practise previously learned material during each lesson before moving on because “[i]t is impossible to insist too much upon the pupil’s being well grounded in these parts of speech, ere she proceeds farther; therefore never omit interrogating her at each lesson, in the manner prescribed” (1801: 11). In the introduction to “The Instructress’s Book”, Mercy exhorted teachers to make it a rule to exercise the scholars in a portion only, at a time, of what they have learned; and when you come to the place they are actually learning at, begin the repetition again, and thus proceed till the whole be acquired together, when they will have nothing more to do but to put it in practice by parsing. It would even be


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less disadvantageous to neglect the new lesson, than the exercise on former ones; because, if the learners are not made, by continual repetition, to retain the nature of the different words, and their variations, &c. how will they comprehend more minute circumstances concerning them …? (1801: iv–v)

Though Mercy wrote extremely detailed lesson plans and activities, she still emphasised that teachers must reach beyond what she prescribed. It is the teacher’s responsibility to discover alternative methods to help “children of the dullest capacities” (1801: 19) as well as to provide variety when exercises are repeated. In fact, Mercy felt so strongly about the benefits of varying the lessons that she offered this advice twice, on pages 38 and 91: “You will observe, that sometimes I am supposed to interrogate the pupil on her exercises previous to her doing them, and at other times after she has written them. To some capacities both may be necessary; but that must be left to the judgment of the instructress” (1801: 38, 91). In fact, the Monthly Review recognised and approved of Mercy’s directive yet personalisable teaching methodology: “Works of this nature multiply, perhaps, too rapidly; yet we think that the present performance, if used with attention and thought, is likely to prove beneficial” (Anon. 1799b: 404). What we now call “modelling” is a critical part of Mercy’s pedagogy. Quite early in the text, while laying out the basic tenets of her teaching method, she showed the teacher how to respond to a student who cannot answer the question, “Can you tell me any words which shew a property, or what belongs to a noun?” (Mercy 1801: 4): If she be at a loss, assist her, by remarking that every thing in the room is distinguished by some property; as, for example, “the table is round or square;” that, then, is a property – it is brown; which is another property – it is pretty or ugly – in short, every epithet you can add must be the part of speech in question (Mercy 1801: 4).

She also points out the ways in which a savvy teacher can prevent “embarrassing” the learner (1801: 162), and potentially undermining any progress she has made, or turning her away from grammatical study altogether; the teacher should, for example, value correct usage over correct labelling: “it is often very immaterial (when the distinction is not absolutely essential to grammar) by what name we call a word, provided the nature and use of it be comprehended; … this I hint, to prevent an useless solicitude about the appellation of a word of little importance” (1801: 34). Such concern for students does not mean that teachers should allow students to shirk their lessons. She reminded them that “when the scholar cannot give a proper answer, never fail to refer her to her lessons on the subject” (1801: 83); the important point here, again, is to eschew criticism and punishment in favor of encouragement, to seek out that teaching moment which “turns the faults she commits to advantage” (1801: 9).

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Mercy also advocated a form of cooperative learning, in which older or more advanced students work with younger or less knowledgeable ones. “Where there are elder scholars,” she advised, “it would be a good lesson for them to prepare more exercises for the younger, as it would make them apply their rules” (1801: 20); presumably, the students would check the exercises together as well. Such self-directed learning is as important to Mercy’s pedagogy as her insistence on teacher-led lessons and reviews. Elsewhere, for example, she said that although the teacher might “explain the meaning of the words”, she might also ask her students to “look them out in a Dictionary, which is a very useful exercise for children, as it improves them in spelling, by making them take more notice of words than they otherwise would” (1801: 18); similarly, she advocated helping students discover meanings on their own by developing “a habit of seeking and trying to catch the meaning of words from the resemblance they bear to others” (1801: 46). Another way in which Mercy kept lessons focused on students and their interests is by insisting that instructors should look to their immediate surroundings, or to students’ current daily experiences, for lesson materials. “Whenever you can teach by sensible objects, always prefer it, as it cannot fail making a greater impression” (1801: 22), she commented; indeed, as Percy (1994: 131–132) has noted, Mercy’s examples are filled with the types of domestic objects which would have been accessible to girls, such as pins, hats, and muslin; apples, cakes, cows, flowers and trees; pens, pencils and books. Yet this domestic emphasis is balanced by other examples, such as this list of regular verbs from “The Scholar’s Book”: To move To rove To poke To dance

To turn To burn To charm To sneeze

To cough To pull To gather To stitch (Mercy 1799: 25).

Feminine or domestic-sphere words such as “dance”, “charm” and “stitch” in this list are balanced by words which denote activity (“move”, “turn”) or even decidedly un-ladylike behaviour (“rove”, “poke” and “burn”). Another point in this regard comes from the Errata for “The Scholar’s Book”. There, the printer’s error “she cooks for thou”, is corrected to “she looks for thou” (emphasis added), significant because the change makes absolutely no difference to correct completion of the exercise “on Personal and Relative Pronouns” (Mercy 1799: 46) in which the example appears, and serves only to lessen slightly the domestic tone. This type of student-generated education of course has the added benefit of offering the teacher some relief, no doubt welcome in Mercy’s extremely


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demanding curriculum. In fact, Mercy anticipates some objections to the effort required by teachers to realise fully her pedagogy and offers an extended justification of her methods, as is clear from the following: This way of teaching might at first be thought laborious; but let it be considered, that it is not less trouble to urge children to get by heart long tasks they do not comprehend, than to question and exercise them, half an hour in the day, on a small portion, till they understand it; besides, that, in the first case they never reap the benefit of their labour, but grow disgusted with learning so many dull pages to no purpose; in the second, they gain some knowledge every day, and are delighted with being able to give an account and make use of what they learn; therefore it is much to be wished that Instructors in general would render learning less irksome, and more advantageous to children, by teaching them to employ their understanding, and how to direct their application, by which method the time and labour that would be saved both to the teacher and learner, are inconceivable, as well as the advantage it would be of in all their pursuits; for those who are taught to exercise their understanding and perception in one thing, will be easily made to direct them in others; and, surely, beginning with their native language is laying the properest foundation, being what we have incessantly occasion to make use of (Mercy 1801: 11–12).

Mercy’s use of the term “Instructors” here is quite telling, as she consistently employed the term “Instructress” when addressing her female readers. By identifying male teachers as inadequate, inefficient and tiresome, she implied that female teachers – or at least those who chose to employ Mercy’s methods – would be qualified, resourceful, and interesting to their students. Mercy also advocated lightening the teaching load by insisting that teachers do not need to know every particular of English grammar before commencing lessons. Rather, they need only keep one step ahead of their students: “I would advise the instructress not to perplex herself with examining more pages at a time, than what concern the scholar’s task, as one thing gradually leads on to another, and the thorough attainment of the first lesson will greatly facilitate that of the second, and so forth” (Mercy 1801: v–vi). All lessons would thus be fresh in the mind, enabling both novice and seasoned educators to instruct with alacrity. Mercy’s faith in teachers’ innate capacity to understand and teach English grammar is also evident in her “Method of Discovering the Parts of Speech”, which she included “[b]y way of assistance … to be referred to occasionally” (1801: vi). In this brief section, Mercy outlined nine concrete ways through which any English speaker can deduce the specific part of speech by its relation to other parts of the sentence. The second contains the familiar dictum that “[t]he noun may be known by seeing if you can put either of the articles before it” (1801: 12), while Number 6 points out that “[t]he adverb may be known by interrogating with the adverb how” (1801: 13) and Number 9 that “[t]he interjection, being thrown in a sentence, to express some emotion, is

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quite unconnected with the other parts of it” (1801: 14). Students, similarly, are invited to use their reasoning powers to determine the difference between “a pin” and “the pin” (1801: 5), and thus to come to an understanding of articles intuitively, rather than by reading and memorisation. Finally, Mercy’s Short Introduction to English Grammar is notable for how few of its copious example and exercise sentences are quotations from familiar works, particularly considering her title’s invocation of Lowth. She does employ the occasional line from the Bible, such as Psalm 37: 24, “Though I were to fall, I should not be hurt” (1799: 69 and 1801: 115) and Proverbs 1: 17, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (1799: 71 and 1801: 120). At the end of the text, two literary excerpts are also included as parsing and transposition exercises. The first is the opening verse of Dr. Fordyce’s 1786 poem “Virtue and Ornament: An Ode. To the Young Ladies”: The diamond’s and the ruby’s rays Shine with a milder, finer flame, And more attract our love and praise Than beauty’s self, if lost to fame (Mercy 1799: 83).

The second is Cardinal Wolsey’s famous soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, in which he laments his fall and comments on “the state of man” … To-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him; The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And (when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening) nips his shoot; And then he falls, as I do … (Mercy 1799: 83–84).

Mercy, like the other schoolteacher-grammarians, cannot resist including some morally-improving advice, reminding girls in no uncertain terms to behave honestly and to protect their virtue and reputations, to say along with Wolsey, “Vain pomp and glory of the world, I hate ye!” (1799: 84).

5. Conclusion The grammars written by Jane Gardiner, Ellin Devis, Mrs. Eves, Mrs. Edwards, Mrs. Taylor and Blanch Mercy add much to our knowledge of the changing face of female education in England at the end of the eighteenth century. As some of them quite explicitly acknowledged, their educational goal was the education of girls into “proper” women; the foregoing examination of the teaching


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methodologies and illustrative examples they provide in their grammars shows that such an education involved the acquirement of academic, moral and social knowledge. However, in contrast to prevailing philosophies of female education espoused by popular writers like Rousseau (1762) and Dr. Gregory (1774), which encouraged women to develop their sentiments and beauty to the detriment of their minds, the teacher-grammarians’ philosophies emphasised the primacy of intellectual development, particularly through the study of English grammar.

“Borrowing a few passages”: Lady Ellenor Fenn and her use of sources1 Karlijn Navest

1.

Introduction

On 1 March 1799, the Reverend Henry St. John Bullen, author of Rudiments of English Grammar, for the Use of Schools (1797),2 and first assistant master at the Grammar School in Bury St. Edmunds, dedicated his Elements of Geography, Expressly Designed for the Use of Schools (1799) “to Lady Fenn” (1744–1813): Madam, To you, who have made the rising generation the object of your constant care, I am convinced that every thing which concerns their mental improvement will be interesting; no other motive should have induced meto [sic] inscribe to you a mere geographical compilation. It is allowed that there never was a time in which so many useful and intelligent books were published for the information of children: but among all the promoters of juvenile learning, none holds a more distinguished place than your Ladyship – to adapt the rules of grammar to their tender capacities, and to teach them to express the “young idea” in pure and accurate language, have been the peculiar happiness and success of your pen … I ought to beg pardon for making this bold discovery of your name, but whether you choose to vary the mode of concealment under the title of a Teachwell, or a Lovechild, the praise of such merit as their’s [sic] has already been appropriated by a discerning public to it’s [sic] right owner; and every parent or tutor, who has at heart the improvement of his child or pupil, feels a due sense of gratitude to Lady Fenn, for having greatly facilitated the means of instruction … (1799: iii–iv).3

1 The research for this paper was carried out in the context of the NWO research project The Codifiers and the English Language: Tracing the Norms of Standard English. 2 The title of Bullen’s grammar echoes that of Joseph Priestley’s whose Rudiments of English Grammar; Adapted to the Use of Schools. With Observations on Style had been published in 1761. For Bullen’s discussion of preposition stranding, see Yáñez-Bouza, this volume. 3 Most of the primary sources of this paper have been consulted with the help of Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

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Lady Ellenor Fenn’s “valuable little treatises” (Bullen 1799: iv) on grammar, written under the pseudonyms of Mrs Teachwell and Mrs Lovechild, sold extremely well during her lifetime. At the time when Bullen was writing the above-mentioned dedication, the following books for teaching the rudiments of grammar could be purchased at Elizabeth Newbery’s (1745/6–1821) bookshop at the Corner of St. Paul’s Church-Yard in London:4 The Infant’s Friend – Part I (1797) The Infant’s Friend – Part II (1797) The Mother’s Grammar (1798) Parsing Lessons for Young Children (1798) Parsing Lessons for Elder Pupils (1798) The Child’s Grammar (1799).5

According to Fenn, Parsing Lessons for Young Children and Parsing Lessons for Elder Pupils were written as companions “to The Child’s Grammar; in which the little people study: and The Mother’s Grammar; which consists of extracts from our best writers on the subject, arranged in such a manner as to facilitate the task of teaching, to such Mothers as have themselves neglected attending to Grammar, by sparing them the labour of seeking in various books for their own information” (1798b: viii).6 The two volumes of Parsing Lessons were well received. The Monthly Review stated that In former years, not very distant, our youth knew little or nothing grammatically of their own language, unless they were taught the Latin or the French, and even then they too often became very imperfectly acquainted with grammar. Considerable care has been manifested of late (judging at least by the productions of the press) to correct this error. The little tracts before us are parts of a series of books for this purpose … The four sets of lessons in each appear to be suitably directed, both to engage the attention and to employ the capacity of the young scholar. – The good old Dame designs well; her method is amusing; and she has already, we are told, had the satisfaction of finding that her labours have been acceptable (March 1799, quoted from Cajka 2003: 185).

However, it was The Child’s Grammar. Designed to Enable Ladies who May not have Attended to the Subject Themselves to Instruct their Children, which See the advertisement called A Series of Books for Teaching, by Mrs Lovechild: Sold by E. Newbery, Corner of St. Paul’s Church-Yard, London (Anon. 1798?). 5 According to Alston (1965: 105), “This is the earliest dated edition of this popular little grammar located”. Because The Mother’s Grammar (1798) was advertised as “Being a continuation of the child’s grammar”, the first edition of The Child’s Grammar was probably published in 1798 as well, or maybe even earlier. 6 For a discussion on mothers’ anxiety about teaching grammar, see Percy (2006: 116–120). 4

Lady Ellenor Fenn and her use of sources

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turned out to be the most popular of Fenn’s grammatical works. Alston lists 26 numbered editions of this “popular little grammar” until 1820 (1965: 105). In 1800 The Child’s Grammar was one of the tiny books issued in John Marshall’s Juvenile; or Child’s Library, a complete library for children which was housed in its own bookcase (Laws 2002). That the work remained popular, even after Fenn’s death, was shown by the bookseller John Harris, who in 1816 described the grammar in one of his advertisements: “This is certainly the best introduction to English grammar ever printed; and, as proof of its excellence, the publisher can assure the public that ten thousands are sold annually” (St. John et al. 1975: 117).7 By about 1830, 200,000 copies of the grammar had been sold, and a 50th edition of The Child’s Grammar was advertised in the 1876 edition of Morell’s Essentials (Michael 1987: 453). The Mother’s Grammar. Being a Continuation of the Child’s Grammar (1798a) was also a great success. Alston lists 21 numbered editions of this grammar until 1820 (1965: 104). In 1803, when Fenn had established a professional relationship with Elizabeth Newbery’s successor John Harris, The Child’s Grammar, The Mother’s Grammar and the two volumes of Parsing Lessons were reprinted as parts of “Mrs Lovechild’s Series of Grammatical Knowledge”.8 Despite the fact that The Infant’s Friend – Part I was a spelling book, and that the second volume consisted of reading lessons, both books could be used for teaching grammar as well. In Parsing Lessons for Young Children Fenn stated that: For early Lessons; to give variety, and to multiply the very easy ones, a Lady who may choose to attend so far, can produce The Infant’s Friend, Part I – She will say – “Find the nouns in this set of words as you read them. – Now find the verbs,” &c – Part II. affords very easy Parsing Lessons in the Short Sentences; the Reading Lessons in Part II. may be used too, by those who are more advanced, as Parsing Lessons (1798b: x–xi).

Bullen admired Fenn for adapting the rules of grammar to the tender capacities of children (1799: iv). In the preface to Parsing Lessons for Young Children Fenn noted that in the case of grammar there is need “of a Dame, to conduct 7 It is hard to decide whether this spectacular number was the actual number of copies Harris sold each year or whether he was simply exaggerating in order to sell as many copies as possible. (In the case of Lowth, only 1000 copies appear to have been produced each year, see Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume). When trying to produce an estimate of the reading public in Britain between 1790 and 1830, Jackson notes that “[w]e tend to rely on figures occasionally reported by publishers, booksellers, or authors, but these are in the nature of things exceptional cases, and the figures are often unsubstantiated” (2005: 6). 8 I am grateful to David Stoker for supplying me with his list of Lady Ellenor Fenn’s publications.

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young Students, till a Superior shall deign to take them by the hand” (1798b: ix) since these “Men of learning are incapable of stooping sufficiently low to conduct those who are but entering the paths” (1798b: vi). Nevertheless, a perusal of Fenn’s grammars immediately shows that she borrowed information from these superiors while writing her own “small publications” (1798b: x). Before revealing the names of these “Men of learning” (1798b: vi) and showing instances of Fenn’s indebtedness to them, I will first provide some information about Fenn’s life and her works.

2.

Background

The children’s writer and educationist Ellenor Frere was born in Westhorpe, Suffolk, on 12 March 1744. She was the daughter of Sheppard Frere (1712–1780) and Susanna Hatley (1709/10–1779) (ODNB, s.v. “Ellenor Fenn”). Her marriage to John Fenn (1739–94), on 1 January 1766, brought her to live at Hill House, East Dereham, Norfolk (Todd 1984: 122–123; ODNB, s.v. “Ellenor Fenn”). John Fenn was an antiquarian who published an edition of the Paston letters in 1787. Apart from being the wife of John Fenn, Ellenor was well-known in East Dereham as a propagating philanthropist (Darton 1982: 163). Because she was concerned for the welfare of others, Ellenor set up Sunday schools and revived the cottage spinning industry (Darton 1982: 163–164). Although Fenn and her husband did not have any children themselves, they did raise a girl called Mary Andrews, “who had been left orphaned at the age of eleven” (Cajka 2003: 130), and in 1778 they decided to adopt Ellenor’s two-and-a-half-year-old nephew William Frere (Stoker 2005a). Stoker states that it was because of her nephews and nieces that Fenn started to write children’s books in the 1770s (2004: 292). According to Darton, these books “were actually made by her, binding and all” (1982: 163–164). They were later published by the London publishers John Marshall, Elizabeth Newbery, and John Harris under the pseudonyms Mrs Teachwell, or Mrs Lovechild (Darton 1982: 164). All in all Fenn wrote 48 books for children (Stoker 2005b). Three of these books, Cobwebs to Catch Flies (1783), The Rational Dame (1786) and School Occurrences (1783), were read by the children of King George III (1738–1820) and Queen Charlotte (1744–1818) (Shefrin 2003: 57). On 3 July 1784 Fenn wrote to Horace Walpole: “I am gratified with the hope that my works may have afforded a few hours’ innocent amusement in the Royal Nursery, as I ventured to send them to Lady C. Finch and was honoured with a polite letter in return” (ed. Lewis 1980: 106). Walpole was familiar with Fenn’s work because earlier that year she had sent him a copy of her School Dialogues for Boys (1783), which, in a letter to her


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husband, he described as a “very, useful, lively and engaging present on education” (ed. Lewis 1980: 101). Cobwebs to Catch Flies; Or Dialogues in Short Sentences, Adapted to Children from the Age of Three to Eight Years (1783) was Fenn’s most popular book. It continued to be published in Britain and America until the 1870s (ODNB, s.v. “Ellenor Fenn”). It was influenced by Anna Letitia Barbauld’s (1743–1825) Lessons for Children (1778) (Todd 1984: 122–123). In 1874 Fenn’s great-nephew, Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere (1815–1884), stated that “there are many now living who can recollect receiving their first reading-lessons in Cobwebs to Catch Flies” (1874: 11n1). The stories in Cobwebs to Catch Flies were divided according to the complexity of the language used. For children aged three to five the first volume contained stories written in words of one, two, three, four, five and six letters. For children aged five to eight, the second volume contained stories written in words of one, two, three and four syllables (Pickering 1981: 192). Apart from writing children’s books, Fenn also designed educational games. According to Shefrin (2003: 56), the Royal Governess Lady Charlotte Finch (1725–1813) might also have used Fenn’s Set of Toys (ca. 1780–1785), which consisted of a Spelling, Grammar and Figure Box, in order to teach the royal children spelling, grammar and arithmetic. The above quotation from Fenn’s letter to Walpole confirms this. The Grammar Box, which could be used for “rendering the distinction of the parts of speech easy to a child” (1785: 33), contained “Twelve Cards, containing a compendious Set of Grammar Lessons, to be learned by Rote in small Portions; designed for little People to study as they walk, and numbered in order as they should be learned” and “The Parts of Speech, in little Packets”. There were “Four Packets of Nouns, with a Cut [i.e. a picture] on the Back of each”, “Two Packets of Verbs”, and one packet of articles, adjectives, pronouns, helping verbs, participles, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, interjections and terminations (Immel 1997: 224). According to Immel (1997: 227), Fenn also designed a simpler version of the Grammar Box called Grammatical Amusements in a Box [1798?] which is also listed by Alston (1965: 109). Fenn died on 1 November 1813, and was buried at Finningham church, Suffolk (ODNB, s.v. “Ellenor Fenn”).

3.

Fenn’s use of sources

According to Vorlat, eighteenth-century grammarians usually copied “without any mention of their sources” (1959: 125). The question whether or not Fenn was guilty of unacknowledged copying, too, will be addressed in what follows. In doing so, I will pay particular attention to Fenn’s definitions of the parts of

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speech in The Child’s Grammar, The Mother’s Grammar and the two volumes of Parsing Lessons. Just like John Ash (1724–1779), who in 1763 reissued his Grammatical Institutes as “an easy Introduction to Dr. Lowth’s English grammar”9 and three years later as “The easiest Introduction to Dr. Lowth’s English grammar” (1766), and Ellin Devis (1775) (cf. Percy 2003), Fenn decided to offer her grammar as an introduction to Lowth’s: Dr. Lowth speaks of his introduction to English Grammar as being calculated for the Use of the Learner, even of the lowest class: but Perusal of it will convince any Person conversant with such Learners, that the Doctor was much mistaken in his calculation. It is a delightful Work! Highly entertaining to a young Person of Taste and Abilities, who is already initiated: and perhaps in the private and domestic Use for which it was designed; his Lordship’s Commentary might render it intelligible to those of his own family; but for general and public Use there is certainly Need of an Introduction to it (1799: vi).10

According to Fenn, Lowth was thus a man of learning who was “incapable of stooping sufficiently low” (1798: vi) to teach those who were not initiated yet. Though it was designed as an introduction to Lowth’s grammar, TiekenBoon van Ostade (2000c) believed that The Child’s Grammar used Lindley Murray’s (1745–1826) popular English Grammar (1795) as its source. She based this on the similarity of the definitions of the parts of speech between both grammars, such as: Murray: A verb is a word which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer (1795: 37) A Pronoun is a word used instead of a noun, to avoid the too frequent repetition of the same word (1795: 29) Fenn: A Verb is a word that signifies to do, suffer or to be (1799: 6) A Pronoun is a word used instead of a Noun, to avoid the too frequent repetition of the same word (1799: 4).

Murray’s definition of the verb, however, is not original but seems to have been copied from Lowth’s A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762: 44) (“A Verb is a word that signifies to be, to do, or to suffer”), a work which Murray 9 10

That Alston (1965: 33) made a mistake in dating this edition of Ash’s grammar will be discussed in Navest (forthc.). I am grateful to Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade for allowing me to consult her own copy of The Child’s Grammar (1799).


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used as one of his sources (Vorlat 1959: 108). This suggests the possibility that Fenn may have based herself on Lowth’s grammar rather than Murray’s. In The Mother’s Grammar, Fenn’s indebtedness to Lowth is even clearer when she states: “A Verb is a word that signifies to do, to suffer, or to be: as John reads. John is loved; I am” (1798a: 10). The example sentence “John is loved” echoes Lowth’s example “Thomas is loved” (1762: 96). Later on in the grammar Fenn decided to replace “John” with “Mary”, giving example sentences such as: “I love Mary”, which can also be found in The Child’s Grammar (1799a: 5), and “Mary is loved by me” (1798a: 33). Here again, Fenn seems to have been indebted to Lowth rather than Murray, as he has the example sentences “I love Thomas” and “Thomas is loved by me” (1762: 44). According to Vorlat (1959), Lindley Murray resorted to different methods to vary examples he borrowed from his sources, one of these being to substitute “one proper name by another” (1959: 121), and she shows that “Lowth has I love Thomas, but M[urray]. I love Penelope” (1959: 121). In her “little Grammars” (1798b: xiii) Fenn thus seems to have used the same device as Murray. Cajka (2003: 174) points out that the girl Mary who features in Fenn’s grammars is probably Fenn’s ward Mary Andrews. Particularly in The Child’s Grammar we find many references to Mary, such as “Mary came to me” (1799a: 18). According to Cajka, this sentence could be read biographically since Mary had indeed gone to live with Fenn by the time the grammar came out (2003: 174–175). Cajka (2003: 175) also observes that Fenn must have taught Mary grammar herself, but I believe that at the age of eleven Mary was already too old to be studying The Child’s Grammar, which, judging from its contents, was aimed at a much younger audience. The example sentences are nevertheless interesting because they are very similar to the ones we find in Lowth’s grammar. That Lowth originally wrote his grammar for his son, Thomas Henry Lowth (1753–1778), who was only about four years old at the time (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000a: 25−26; 2003: 43), is made clear by example sentences such as: “‘Thomas’s book:’ that is, ‘Thomasis book;’ not ‘Thomas his book,’ as it is commonly supposed” (1762: 26). That Fenn was a great admirer of Lowth is not only made clear by her praise of his work in the preface to The Child’s Grammar but also in The Female Guardian (1784), where she advised girls to read Lowth’s grammar. For the definition of the pronoun Fenn cannot have based herself on Murray either, since we already find the same definitions in one of her earlier works The Art of Teaching in Sport (1785) and A Spelling Book (1787), i.e. well before Murray’s grammar would have been available to her. I believe that it was neither Murray’s grammar, nor Lowth’s but the one by Ash which Fenn appears

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to have used while writing the above-mentioned books. My reasons for this are the following. In The Art of Teaching in Sport, the book accompanying the Set of Toys, Fenn gives the following definition of the pronoun: “A pronoun is a word used instead of a noun, to avoid the too frequent repetition of the same word” (1785: 44). To illustrate the use of the pronoun he she provides her young readers with the examples “John is merry; he jumps, he laughs, and he chatters; you would not say John is merry; John jumps; John laughs, and John chatters” (1785: 44). When we compare Fenn’s definition of the pronoun in The Art of Teaching in Sport and A Spelling Book with that of Ash in his Grammatical Institutes: Or Grammar, Adapted to the Genius of the English Tongue (1760), it becomes quite clear that she must have consulted this work when writing her own. In Ash’s grammar the pronoun is defined as “a Word us’d instead of a Noun to avoid the too frequent repetition of the same Word: as, ‘The Man is merry, he laughs, he sings.’” (1760: 15), while in The Child’s Grammar we see that Fenn slightly varied the example sentence: “Not John is merry; John jumps; John laughs, and sings – this would be very awkward – we say – John is merry; he jumps, he laughs, and he sings” (1799a: 5). Not only Fenn’s definition of the pronoun, but also her definitions of the noun, the adjective and the verb in The Art of Teaching in Sport (in this work she does not quote Lowth, in contrast to The Mother’s Grammar and The Child’s Grammar) seem to have been copied from Ash’s grammar. In the case of the article Fenn composed a definition herself: “And when you have learned the line which explains the noun, and that which explains these little words which are placed before them, you will be able to play” (1785: 40). Because The Art of Teaching in Sport was an elementary grammar, or as Fenn put it, a grammar “for babies”, “all real explanation of the article is deferred” (1785: 40). This is probably also the reason why the work only contains five parts of speech, and why Fenn tells mothers that “the five parts of speech which are here named, are sufficient for them to be allowed to play with at present; and in them I should not advise any further distinction to be made, till the little people are perfect in their comprehension of the former parts” (1785: 46). Fenn’s Spelling Book, which, just like the two volumes of The Infant’s Friend, could be used for teaching grammar as well, also contains definitions of the noun and the adjective which echo those of Ash. Although the Spelling Book lists six parts of speech, Fenn doesn’t provide her audience with definitions of the article or the preposition, and in the case of the verb, she provides a definition of her own: “Whatever you do is a verb”, because, as she explains, “This is easily exemplified to the little one” (1787: 113). That Fenn relied on Ash’s grammar doesn’t seem strange, since they both had the same intention, i.e. offering an introduction to Lowth’s grammar. She was clearly familiar with Ash’s work, as


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is shown by the reference to his grammar in The Female Guardian. Just like Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar, Ash’s grammar was part of “Mrs Teachwell’s Library for her young ladies”, a list of books mentioned at the back of The Female Guardian. Fenn’s definitions of the article, noun, pronoun, adjective, participle, adverb, conjunction and preposition in The Child’s Grammar, The Mother’s Grammar, Parsing Lessons for Young Children and Parsing Lessons for Elder Pupils seem to have been borrowed from Ash’s grammar, too. In the case of the verb, however, we do find Lowth’s definition in The Child’s Grammar and The Mother’s Grammar, but the two volumes of Parsing Lessons contain the definition from Ash. While giving a definition of the adjective in The Mother’s Grammar, Fenn not only copied Ash’s definition but also his examples “a good Man” and “a great City” (1760: 13). She did, however, substitute Ash’s “a fine House” by “a neat church” (1798: 10). An even clearer instance of Fenn’s indebtedness to Ash we can see in her definition of the adverb: Ash: An Adverb, is a Part of Speech join’d to a Verb, an Adjective, a Participle, and sometimes to another Adverb, to express the Quality, or Circumstance of it: as, He reads well, a truly good Man, a very loving Friend. He writes very correctly (1760: 34). Fenn’s The Mother’s Grammar: An Adverb is a part of speech joined to a verb, an adjective, a participle, and sometimes another adverb, to express the quality or circumstance of it: as, Mary reads well; she is very good; she is a truly loving sister; you work very neatly (1798a: 10–11).

In The Child’s Grammar Fenn uses the following example sentences to illustrate the use of the adverb: “You read well”, “I write ill or badly” and “A truly good girl” (1799a: 17). Probably because the two volumes of the Parsing Lessons were written as companions to The Child’s Grammar and The Mother’s Grammar, they only give the definitions of the parts of speech and don’t provide any examples. Fenn’s definition of the interjection is also of interest. Instead of relying on either Lowth (“The interjection, thrown in to express the affection of the speaker, though unnecessary with respect to the construction of the sentence”, Lowth 1762: 9) or Ash (“An Interjection is a Word that expresses any sudden Motion of the Mind, transported with the Sensation of Pleasure, or Pain; as, O! Oh! Alas! lo! &c.”, Ash 1760: 36), she decided to use a bit of each of their definitions: “An Interjection is a word thrown in to express any sudden emotion of the mind but not necessary to the sense. Mary is a good girl; oh! how I love her. Ah! What a nice doll” (1799a: 20).

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Though it could be used by older children, The Mother’s Grammar was not really a children’s grammar but a grammar specifically designed for mothers, as, indeed, the title suggests. This is made clear by Fenn in her Parsing Lessons for Elder Pupils (1798c) when she advised mothers who had not had the opportunity of studying grammar “to read over, carefully, the Mother’s Grammar, whilst their Pupils are going through the Child’s” (1798c: ix), and again in The Mother’s Grammar itself when she stated that the book “is designed to remain for some time in the possession of the teacher, for her own occasional use” (1798a: iv). The Mother’s Grammar is also a compilation. In the preface Fenn stated: The substance is professedly borrowed; but being extracted from the works of our best writers upon English Grammar, it is hoped that it will not be unacceptable to those ladies who are engaged in tuition, and consequently have not much leisure to turn over various authors in search of further information upon any subject than is immediately required, as being suited to the capacities of their younger pupils: such it is meant to supply; and to enable the teacher to express and enlarge: therefore sometimes two or three passages are quoted much to the same effect (1798a: iii).

The Mother’s Grammar includes references to the following authors: John Ash (1763), Grammatical Institutes; or An Easy Introduction to Dr. Lowth’s English Grammar (1) James Beattie (1788), The Theory of Language. In Two Parts. Part I. Of Origin and General Nature of Speech. Part II. Of Universal Grammar (1) Abel Boyer (1694), The Complete French Master, For Ladies and Gentlemen (a translation of Guy Miège’s Grammaire Angloise-François, 1688) (1) John Clarke (1733), A New Grammar of the Latin Tongue and An Essay upon the Education of Youth in Grammar-Schools (2) The Eton grammar (2) Samuel Johnson (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language (2) Robert Lowth (1762), A Short Introduction to English Grammar (4).

Fenn thus informed her audience when she had consulted a work of her predecessors. An illustration of this is the following acknowledgement in The Mother’s Grammar: “The Participle is often an adjective derived of a verb; as from the verb to love we derive the participles loved and loving. Ash” (1798a: 48). A comparison with the alleged source reveals that Fenn is summarising Ash’s definition here. While discussing the participle in his grammar, Ash observed that 82. A Participle is an Adjective deriv’d of a Verb. 83. There are two Participles pertaining to most Verbs; the active, which always ends in ing; and the passive, which for the most part, ends in ed; as, from the Verb, love, are deriv’d the participles loving and, loved (Ash 1760: 27).

At the same time, if we compare The Mother’s Grammar with Ash’s Grammatical Institutes: Or Grammar, Adapted to the Genius of the English Tongue


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(1760), it immediately becomes clear that Fenn relied more on Ash than her single reference to him suggests. Fenn’s discussion of gender, for instance, seems to have been lifted straight from Ash’s grammar, though without acknowledging his work as a source: Fenn: Nouns have two genders, the masculine and the feminine: the masculine denotes the he-kind, the feminine denotes the she kind [sic]. Nouns signifying things without life are of no gender; they are sometimes called of the neuter gender (1798a: 15). Ash: 11. There are two Genders; the Masculine and the Feminine. 12. The Masculine denotes the He-Kind; as, a Man, a Prince. 13. The Feminine denotes the She-Kind; as, a Woman, a Princess. 14. Nouns signifying Things without Life, are of no Gender; as, a Pen, a Table (1760: 9–10).

While comparing Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar with The Mother’s Grammar, I also came across many instances of unacknowledged copying. Apart from some differences in capitalisation and punctuation and some minor editorial changes, Fenn’s discussions of the participle and conjunction are the same as Lowth’s: The participle frequently becomes altogether an adjective when it is joined to a substantive, merely to denote the [Lowth: its] quality, without any regard [Lowth: respect] to time; expressing, not an action, but an habit, and, as such, it admits of the degrees of comparison; as, a learned, a more learned; a most learned man: a loving; a more loving; a most loving father (1798a: 48–49; cf. Lowth 1762: 114–115). The Conjunction connects or joins together sentences, so as out of two to make one sentence. Thus, You and I and Peter rode to London, is one sentence made up of these three by the conjunction and twice employed. You rode to London; I wrote [Lowth: rode]11 to London; Peter wrote [Lowth: rode] to London. Again: You and I rode to London; but Peter staid at home, is one sentence made up of three by the conjunctions and and but, both of which equally connect the sentences, but the latter expresses an opposition in the sense (1798a: 54; cf. Lowth 1762: 92–93).

Fenn was not the first nor the only one to provide a compilation which was extracted from the works of the “best writers upon English Grammar” as she noted herself (1798a: iii). In the preface to The Accidence or First Rudiments of English Grammar (1775), Ellin Devis stated that “The following Pages are not offered as entirely new; the greatest Part is selected from the Works of our best Grammarians” (1775: v), while in Mrs Eves’s Grammatical Play-Thing, 11

According to the errata at the end of The Mother’s Grammar “wrote” should be read as “rode”.

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Or, Winter Evening’s Recreation, for Young Ladies from Four to Twelve Years Old (1800), Mrs Friendly tells her pupil Miss Henrietta that in her book she will find selected grammar rules “from some of our best grammarians” (1800: x). That it was indeed quite common for eighteenth-century grammarians to borrow from other authors is shown by the following grammars, which are all mentioned in Alston (1965: 69; 76; 90; 92): [A., M.] (1785) The Elementary Principles of English Grammar, Collected from Various Authors; but Chiefly from Dr. Priestley, and Printed for Private Use. Egelsham, Wells (1781) A Short Sketch of English Grammar; Intended for the Use of such as Study that Language Only: Consisting of a Few Rules Abstracted Chiefly from Johnson, Lowth, Ash, etc. Mennye, J. (1785) An English Grammar; Being a Compilation from the Works of such Grammarians as have Acquired the Approbation of the Public. Miller, Alexander (1795) A Concise Grammar of the English Language. With an Appendix Chiefly Extracted from Dr. Lowth’s Critical Notes. Scott, William (1793) A Short System of English Grammar; with Examples of Improper and Inelegant Construction, and Scotticisms: Selected Chiefly from Lowth’s Introduction to English Grammar.

The practice of dropping names of popular grammarians in the titles of grammars appears to have been a selling device at the time (cf. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume). On the other hand there were also grammarians who acknowledged their sources in the prefaces to their work. In the preface to his Rudiments of English Grammar; Adapted to the Use of Schools. With Observations on Style (1761), Priestley, for instance, informed us that It is not denied that use hath been made of other Grammars, and particularly of Mr. Johnson’s, in compiling this: But it is apprehended, that there is so much that is properly original, both in the materials and the disposition of them in this, as is more than sufficient to clear a work of such a nature from the charge of plagiarism (1761: iv).

Priestley probably decided to add this information because he did not want to run the risk of being accused of plagiarism. His remark is exceptional because many of his contemporaries were less careful when writing their grammars. They all borrowed a great deal from the works of their predecessors without acknowledging their sources (Vorlat (1959: 125). Lindley Murray is a good example of such a grammarian, who in the preface to his English Grammar (1795) stated that “little can be expected from a new compilation, besides a careful selection of the most useful matter, and some degree of improvement in the mode of adapting it to the understanding, and the gradual progress of learners. In these respects something, perhaps, may yet be done, for the ease and advantage of young persons” (1795: iii). Despite the fact that Murray had


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stated that his grammar was not original, people thought of him as a plagiarist because he had not taken sufficient care to acknowledge his sources (see Vorlat 1959: 109; Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1996: 88). Being accused of plagiarism affected Murray so much that in the 1798 edition of his grammar he noted: In a work which professes itself to be a compilation, and which, from the nature and design of it, must consist of materials selected from the writing of others, it is scarcely necessary to apologize for the use which the Compiler has made of his predecessors’ labours; or for omitting to insert their names … But if this could have been generally done, a work of this nature would derive no advantage from it, equal to the inconvenience of crowding the pages with a repetition of names and references. It is, however, proper to acknowledge in general terms that the authors to whom the grammatical part of this compilation is principally indebted for its materials, are Harris, Johnson, Lowth, Priestley, Beattie, Sheridan, and Walker (1798: 6–7).

Murray’s main reason for not acknowledging his sources was that he did not want to crowd the pages of his grammar “with a repetition of names and references” (1798: 7). Fenn probably did not want to do so either. This could be the reason why she chose not to acknowledge her dependence on her predecessors.12 That plagiarism was common among eighteenth-century writers is also shown by Johnson. In his Dictionary of the English Language (1755) the word plagiarism is defined as “Theft; literary adoption of the thoughts or works of another”, while in the Rambler Johnson gave an even fuller explanation: “No writer can be fully convicted of imitation except there is a concurrence of more resemblance than can be imagined to have happened by chance; as where the same ideas are conjoined without any natural series or necessary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied” (Rambler 143, 30 July 1751). Johnson even wrote An Apology for Apparent Plagiarism (1753),13 in which he described plagiarism as “the most reproachful, though, perhaps not the most atrocious of literary crimes” (quoted from Chalmers 1817: 21); for all that, Johnson, too, was guilty of plagiarism. According to Sledd and Kolb (1955: 17–18), “under the heading ‘Of Irregular Verbs’ [in the grammar prefixed to his Dictionary], he gives a good deal of direct translation, but not directly acknowledged translation, from Wallis’ ‘De verbis anomalis’”. TiekenBoon van Ostade, however, has shown that Sledd and Kolb’s claim is not exactly true, since “immediately before the section taken from Wallis, Johnson refers, somewhat cynically perhaps, to his source” (1996: 82), i.e. Wallis.

12 13

In The Mother’s Grammar, however, Fenn does acknowledge her dependence on her predecessors. I am grateful to Anita Auer for providing me with this source.

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In Parsing Lessons for Elder Pupils (1798c) Fenn used the same way of acknowledging her source. After giving a list of pronouns she mentions that “Mr. Bullen calls these pronouns substantive; and remarks that, like other substantives, they declare their own meaning, without the help of any other word. The pronouns adjective, he adds, are, my, thy, our, your, and their; – which, like other adjectives, have no meaning, unless they are joined to a substantive” (1798c: 47). That Fenn is actually citing Bullen here becomes clear when we look at his description of “The Pronouns Substantive” (1797: 22): The Pronouns Substantive are I, thou, he, she, it, we, ye, they, and these like other Substantives, declare their own meaning without the help of any other word, as He said it, and we believe him. The Pronouns Adjective are my, thy, our, your, and their, which, like other Adjectives have no meaning unless they are joined to a Substantive as My courage and her beauty (1797: 22).

Fenn’s reliance on Bullen is evident when we read the preface to her Parsing Lessons for Elder Pupils: Long since the first printing of that little volume [i.e. The Mother’s Grammar], the Rudiments of English Grammar appeared; of that publication the writer of this has taken the liberty to avail herself, upon the same plan as that she followed in Mother’s Grammar [sic], by borrowing a few passages; yet, not wishing to preclude the admittance of the book itself to the maternal and school library (1798c: x).

In the case of The Mother’s Grammar I have already shown that instead of borrowing a few passages, Fenn copied large parts of the grammars of Ash and Lowth. In Parsing Lessons for Elder Pupils, Fenn also relied much more on Bullen’s grammar than the three references to his work suggest. Apart from three sets of parsing lessons, Parsing Lessons for Elder Pupils also contains a “Prelude”, an overview of the rules of English grammar with many references to specific parts in The Child’s Grammar and The Mother’s Grammar. Pupils had to read this prelude before looking at the lessons, which were “calculated for full examination” (1798c: 38). Although Fenn borrowed passages from Bullen’s grammar, while writing this “Prelude” she did not always acknowledge him as a source. Apart from some slight editorial changes, including differences in capitalisation and punctuation, Fenn’s discussion of the conjunction can be found in Bullen’s Rudiments of English Grammar as well: Fenn: The conjunction than requires the same case after it as that which goes before it; as, He is wiser than I. I love her better than him. Which elliptical sentences are thus completed: He is wiser than I am. I love her better than I love him (1798c: 60).


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Bullen: The Conjunction than requires the same case after it as that which goes before it, as He is wiser than I I loved you better than him Which elliptical sentences are thus completed: He is wiser than I am I loved you better than I loved him (1797: 85).

Apparently, Bullen did not mind Fenn copying most of his Rudiments of English Grammar. In his dedication to Lady Fenn in his Elements of Geography (1799) he even expressed his gratitude to her: Permit me also individually to make my sincere acknowledgements for the very polite notice which you have been pleased to take, in several of your late works, of a small publication of mine, entitled “The Rudiments of English Grammar:” be it’s [sic] merits ever so disproportionate to your praise, it is at least no small advantage to have had the recommendation of such a Patroness (1799: v).

Possibly Bullen’s grammar was not so well known at the time, and Fenn might have been one of the first to notice his work. In 1797, the year when Rudiments of English Grammar was first published, Fenn already referred to the work in the two volumes of her Infant’s Friend, which were published later that year. A year later, she even advised mothers to use Bullen’s grammar while teaching their little sons in Parsing Lessons for Young Children: Respecting Boys, a fresh difficulty arises to a Mother: she is apprehensive that the little volume which enables her to instruct her Daughter, may not accord with the Grammar which will be put into the hands of her little Son, at his entrance into School: but this difficulty is now happily removed, by the very recent appearance of a small Publication; namely, “Rudiments of English Grammar, for the Use of Schools:” its Author is the Rev. H. S. I. Bullen (1798b: ix).

It is noteworthy that Fenn and Bullen both referred to the Rudiments of English Grammar as “a small publication” (1799: v), especially since the work was not physically small at all. Whereas Fenn’s grammars were published in sextodecimo (16°), Alston (1965: 98) informs us that Bullen’s grammar was printed in duodecimo (12°), as was Lowth’s (see Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume). If it hadn’t been for Fenn, many Georgian mothers would probably never have been aware of the existence of Bullen’s grammar. Alston (1965: 98) lists only three editions of the grammar down to 1813. It may have been due to Fenn’s references to the work that it was reprinted at all. Apparently Fenn’s choice of Bullen’s grammar as her main source was a good one, since Thomas Martin in his Philological Grammar of the English Language (1824) described the grammar as follows: “The plan of Mr Bullen’s Grammar is entirely original and comprehensive; and where he has found a disputed point, he has endeav-

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oured to found his opinion on the best authority. Each lesson is attended by a brief Analysis, and the notes inserted in the appendix are suitably arranged” (quoted from Görlach 1998: 71). Another reason why Fenn might have chosen Bullen’s grammar is that Bullen, just like Fenn, had written a grammar specifically for children: If any Grammarian should feel disconcerted at hearing that there are ten parts of speech,14 let him remember that I write for children, not for critics. Properly speaking, perhaps, there are but three, the Substantive, the Adjective, and the Verb; but if we exclude all the other names what account are we to give of them which would be intelligible to young minds? It is therefore thought preferable to multiply terms a little, than to take advantage of a simplicity which would be altogether obscure (1797: 115).

It could also be that Fenn knew Bullen personally. Bury St. Edmunds, the place where Bullen was first assistant master at a grammar school, was not too far from East Dereham where Fenn lived. From Fenn’s correspondence we also know that she had friends who lived in Bury St. Edmunds (see Navest 2006). In a letter to the London bookseller Benjamin Tabart, written around 1807, Fenn informed him that she would leave “Town tomorrow morning & shall be a day or two at The Revd E. Mills’s Bury Suffolk” (Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books, Toronto). Between 1792 and 1818 Edward Mills (1753–1820) was a preacher at St Mary’s, Bury St. Edmunds (Lewis 1951: 246n.1). In 1783, Fenn had dedicated her Fables in Monosyllables (1783) to his daughter Miss Mills, and the “Morals, in dialogues, between a mother and children” that were added to the work, to his wife Mrs Mills (MS. Norfolk Record Office, SO 50/4/13). Fenn’s Fairy Spectator (1789) was also dedicated to Miss Mills, as “a token of affection” (1789: iii). It might have been during one of her visits to Bury St. Edmunds that Fenn had the opportunity of meeting Bullen and of learning about the English grammar he had written. Edward Mills could well have been the one who introduced Fenn to Bullen. As a preacher he probably knew many of the people belonging to his congregation. The fact that Bullen disclosed Fenn’s anonymity in the preface to his Elements of Geography, Expressly Designed for the Use of Schools (1799) also suggests that he was acquainted with her. All of Fenn’s books were published anonymously or under the pseudonyms of “Mrs Teachwell” or “Mrs Lovechild”. In School Dialogues for Boys (1783), which according to the title-page was written “By a Lady”, Fenn tells us that she is “romping behind the scenes, but do[es] not choose 14

In her Parsing Lessons for Elder Pupils (1798) Fenn “quotes, but does not adopt, Bullen’s system as an alternative to System 9”, i.e. one that comprised ten parts of speech (Michael 1970: 273).


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to appear on the stage” (1783b: xxiv). Despite Bullen’s disclosure of Fenn’s identity in Elements of Geography, Fenn apparently managed to maintain her anonymity in the eyes of the general public until her death in 1813. Three years later, in 1816, her publisher John Harris finally disclosed her anonymity in one of his book-lists: As the lady who wrote these little works, (which were done purely with a view of informing the rising Generation) is now gone to another and better world, to receive the reward of her labours, the Publisher cannot resist this opportunity of saying, that the feigned names of Mrs Lovechild and Mrs Teachwell, were united in Lady Fenn, of Dereham, in Norfolk (Moon 1992: 51).

If Bullen did indeed belong to Fenn’s social network, he and Fenn might have formed a “community of practice” (see Watts, this volume). Not only did the two of them share a joint enterprise (both of them wrote an English grammar for children, so that these, too, could acquire what Watts refers to as “polite language”), their grammars (and their prefaces in which they refer to each other’s work) also show a shared repertoire.

4.

The originality of Fenn’s grammars

Despite the fact that Fenn engaged in unacknowledged copying, she nevertheless deserves credit for picking out good sources for her works. In addition, her grammars contain much innovative material (see also Percy 2006). Although the originality of Fenn’s grammars will be discussed elsewhere, I will briefly give some reasons why Fenn’s works are worth studying. While reading Fenn’s treatises on English grammar, it immediately becomes clear that unlike her predecessors, Fenn offers a graded approach to grammar.15 In The Art of Teaching in Sport Fenn described her motto in teaching as “Peu à peu” (1785: 21), and in The Infant’s Friend, Part II she refers to “An Author” (1797b: v), who, “writing upon education, very aptly compares the mind of a child to a vessel with a very narrow neck: – If you attempt to pour into it, all the liquor will be lost: but if you instill drop by drop, the whole may be infused” (1797b: v–vi). Fenn expressed more or less the same idea in Parsing Lessons for Young Children when noting that “[t]his book being designed for Children of different ages, examples are given of every part of speech; but it cannot be too often inculcated, that beginners must long be kept to the five first; of which they may 15

As to the extent to which Fenn’s grammars can be considered more graded than Ash’s grammar, see Navest (forthc.).

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be led to conceive a clear idea; and in them should enter upon no distinction the first time of going through them” (1798b: 15). Fenn realised that some of the parts of speech may be difficult for young children to comprehend. For instance, in the case of the noun, she gave mothers the following advice: “Young grammarians will not readily conceive an idea of any noun which is not an object of sense: it is therefore expedient to confine ourselves to such at the beginning” (1798a: 12–13). To help mothers explain the idea of a noun to their children Fenn provided the following example: “The room is full of nouns; you cannot turn your head but you see one – the table, the chair, &c. – these you see; they are therefore nouns … I can shew you these, or pictures of them – we can have no pictures of any words but nouns” (1798b: 6). The use of pictures, or cuts, is also mentioned in The Art of Teaching in Sport, where Fenn, tells mothers: “It is needless to remark, that a very young child can have little idea of any noun, but such as you can represent by a cut; and this will render the distinction familiar to him” (1785: 35). Cuts were Fenn’s favourite learning aid (ODNB, s.v. “Ellenor Fenn”), and she continued to design different sets of cuts until the end of her life (Immel 1997: 222–223). Another important feature of Fenn’s grammars was that they could be used by children of different ages. For instance, in Parsing Lessons for Young Children Fenn provided an example in which two siblings had to parse the sentence “Lambs bleat”: A young Child. Lambs – noun, we see them, &c. An elder one Lambs – plural nominative – going before the verb answering the question what. A young Child Bleat – verb – it is something which they do. An elder. Plural agreeing with the nominative Lambs. Third person – Indicative mode, as it declares something – Present tense; it means now, at this time (1798b: xii).

In addition to grammars Fenn had also written a number of books on natural history: Lilliputian Spectacle de la Nature, or Nature Delineated (1786) The Rational Dame (1786) A Short History of Insects (1796) A Short History of Quadrupeds (1798).

This might be the reason why the parsing lessons in Fenn’s grammars are also full of flowers, trees, insects and farm animals (Cajka 2003: 162). Fenn believed that “[p]arsing Lessons, too must be adapted to the tender age of the Pupil: if a sentence be not perfectly level to the capacity of our young grammarian, how is it possible that he should resolve it into the elements of which it is composed?


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No; Parsing Lessons for a Child must be in the most easy and simple language” (1798b: vii). Because of this Fenn’s parsing lessons are much more suitable for children than those found in the grammars of Lowth and Ash. The parsing lessons in Lowth’s grammar consist of passages from the Bible (i.e. Matthew 3: 4, and the Gospel of St Luke). The same goes for Ash’s grammar (i.e. Samuel 17: 45; 46), which, in addition, also contains parsing lessons taken from Pope’s translation of the Iliad and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Apart from trying to make children “delight in the paths of learning” (1798b: vii), Fenn also helped mothers in educating themselves and their offspring. In Parsing Lessons for Young Children Fenn noted that in the case of grammar “Ladies view it as an arduous undertaking, and are fearful of engaging in it; and those who enter upon it proceed with timidity, losing all that heart-felt satisfaction which should attend a Mother who is conscious she is fulfilling her duty to a darling Child” (1798b: v). An example of such a lady was Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806), who, when writing to her mother in September 1788, was about to teach her five-year-old daughter “little G” (1783–1858) the rudiments of English grammar: “Tomorrow I shall write you my idea of grammar, and what each part of speech is, that I may see if I am fit to instruct my G. I am asham’d of my own ignorance but I must learn for and with her” (ed. Bessborough 1955: 134). Georgiana was thus in great need of a grammar like Fenn’s, which was to be “Designed to enable ladies who may not have attended to the Subject themselves to instruct their Children” (1799a: iii). In her grammars Fenn gave mothers hints such as: the word for; to a very young grammarian it is named particle; to one who is conversant with all the parts of speech, preposition, or conjunction, according as it is used. – “For her young: ” – You remind your elder pupil, that for here shews the relation of the two nouns – the bird and her nestlings. Remark to all, that young is a noun, because it means young ones, or young birds: it would be an adjective, if the word birds were added (1798b: 36–37).

Mothers in similar positions could also profit from the dialogues which Fenn provided in most of her works: M. What do we do with a drum? C. We beat it M. Beat then is something which we do; so it is – what? C. Is it a verb, mamma? M. Look in page 114 [where one can find a list of 70 verbs] and inform yourself. “Oh yes!” (cries the happy child) “it is the first word among the verbs” (1787: x).

As far as I know, Fenn was the first to write grammars which were addressed to mothers as well as to children. Her Mother’s Grammar gave ladies the “op-

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portunity to study grammar on their own, saving them from the potential shame and embarrassment of buying, using, or even being discovered studying a book at a child’s level of learning” (Cajka 2003: 169). Because of her graded approach to grammar and her focus on women’s self-education, I agree with Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2000c) that Fenn deserves to be included in any next edition of the Lexicon Grammaticorum.

5. Conclusion According to Lafollette (1992: 46, as quoted by Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1996), one of the reasons why people plagiarise is because of money. That making any money was not one of the reasons why Fenn relied so heavily on the work of her predecessors is made clear by her in Parsing Lessons for Elder Pupils when she states that: “The purchase of the two Grammars is so small, and the Writer so entirely uninterested in the sale of them (except as her wish to assist both Teachers and Pupils is concerned) that she will offer no further apology on the subject, but trust to the candour of her Readers” (1798c: 38). Stoker (2005a) points out that Fenn never received any payment for her books and that she gave away valuable copyrights in exchange for free copies to present to friends. Fenn’s obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine, too, stated that “her labours (and great they must have been), were all gratuitous, and consequently no idea of emolument ever entered her mind” (1813: 508). What we have to keep in mind, however, is that “it was unusual in the eighteenth century for relatively well-to-do women to have a profession” (TiekenBoon van Ostade 1991: 245n.3). Tieken-Boon van Ostade notes, for instance, that while Richard Sheridan was able to earn his own income, his sister Betsy was financially dependent on her relatives before she got married (1991: 245n.3). Only women who had financial problems were forced to work in eighteenthcentury Britain. An example of such a woman was Elizabeth Montagu’s sister Sarah Scott (1720–1795),16 whose separation from her husband had caused considerable financial problems (Myers 1990: 187). As a result Sarah had to earn money herself and started writing romances and French translations (Myers 1990: 187). Since Fenn and her husband lived in the only “half-aristocratic mansion” that was to be found in East Dereham (Borrow 1851: 29–30), she belonged to an entirely different class of women than the ones discussed here. Because she did not need to earn money, Fenn devoted her spare time to charity. According to her obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine Fenn’s “whole 16

I am grateful to Anni Sairio for providing me with this information.


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life had been spent in doing good” (1813: 508). This is indeed how the writer and traveller George Borrow (1803–1881) remembered her, as a lady from his childhood days. In his novel Lavengro (1851) he described Fenn as the “Lady Bountiful [of East Dereham] – she, the generous and kind, who loved to visit the sick” (Borrow 1851: 29–30). Because the only reason why Fenn decided to write her works on grammar was her “great love for Children, and affection for such Mothers as I see attentive to their offspring” (1798b: vi), her “little productions for the benefit of the rising generation” should also be regarded as “lasting monuments of her philanthropy” (1813: 508). Nevertheless, Fenn’s philanthropy does not excuse her from unacknowledged copying. Although I have shown that Fenn heavily relied on the works of her predecessors while writing her grammars, I believe that she, just like Murray, never intended to plagiarise. When Fenn and Murray were writing their grammars in the 1790s, unacknowledged copying “seems to have been the rule rather than the exception” among grammarians (Rodríguez Gil 2002: 205n1; see also Vorlat 1959). According to Smith (1998: 453), at that time “the prime moving force in grammar writing was not finding a new theory, or even a set of grammatical rules, but rather new, better, and simpler methods of teaching the basic grammatical principles of the vernacular: the rules of grammar were a given factor”. Despite her practice of unacknowledged copying, Fenn thus deserves credit for picking out good sources and handling them well when writing her works. As a result, Fenn’s grammars did indeed offer a “new, better, and simpler” method of teaching English grammar. Rather than as a plagiarist, Fenn was regarded by her contemporaries as an “amiable author, who, though possessing rank and title”, did not “think it below her to employ a leisure hour in composing books for children and in teaching mothers how they may best succeed” in the education of their children. This, indeed, was to her “the most delightful and praiseworthy of all employments” (Anon. 1799a: 53–54).

Part 4. The grammars

The grammars: Introduction Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade

“To prescribe and to proscribe,” according to Baugh and Cable (2002 [1951]: 278), “seem to have been coordinate aims of the grammarians.” Though this approach to grammar is the main reason why the normative grammarians are today held in disdain by modern linguists such as Aitchison, who considers Lowth’s linguistic strictures to be “pseudo-rules” and “artificial” (1981: 27), and many others (Pullum 1974), this was indeed the kind of approach that the normative grammarians were expected to take at the time (see the Introduction to the present volume). Modern linguists require a strictly descriptive approach to language instead, and though they prefer to see the eighteenthcentury grammarians as prescriptive − with Priestley (1761) being the token exception (though see Hodson 2006) − many grammars, including Lowth’s, are now increasingly recognised as presenting their rules also from a descriptive perspective (Vorlat 1979: 129; Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1987: 221, 230; Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000: 877; Rodríguez-Gil 2003; Tieken-Boon van Ostade forthc.a). An example of the fact that eighteenth-century grammatical rules may have a firm basis in usage is the case of periphrastic do (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1987: 221). In deciding upon a particular stricture, which usually aimed at getting rid of an undesirable variant, the grammarians usually applied one of the following three principles, i.e. “reason, etymology, and the example of Latin and Greek” (Baugh and Cable 2002 [1951]: 280). An example of the application of reason is the stricture against double negation that “Two Negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an Affirmative” (Lowth 1763: 139), which is an argument taken from logic or mathematics (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1982). The rule against preposition stranding is an example of the application of the principle of etymology, as may be illustrated, again, from Lowth’s grammar which states that “Prepositions, so called because they are commonly put before the words to which they are applied, serve to connect words with one another, and to shew the relation between them” (1762: 91; see also Beal 2004: 110). And the stricture against the split infinitive, which, however, is not found in any eighteenth-century grammar of English yet, would be an example of the application of Latin. See for instance Beal (2004: 11) who quotes Burchfield (1996: 736) saying that “in Latin such a construction could not arise because an

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infinitive (amare ‘to love’, crescere ‘to grow) is indivisible and is not preceded by a grammatical particle”. An overview of the different approaches to one particular grammatical problem, that of the formation of comparative and superlative forms of adjectives and adverbs, is offered by Bax in his paper below. In doing so, he detects a shift away from the original focus on Latin as the model for grammatical description, and he argues that this was due to the fact that grammarians came to consider the needs of a changed readership. As was also evident from the rise of the teacher-grammarians dealt with in the previous section, women came to be an important target group for grammars in the course of the century. Bax also notes that this development is evidence of the fact that English came to be looked upon as a subject worth being studied in its own right, not by way of preparation for the study of Latin. These two issues, of course, go hand in hand, for it was still unusual for women to study Latin in school. Even in 1781, Latin was considered as being “too Masculine for Misses”, as Fanny Burney’s father reputedly said when Dr Johnson offered to teach her the rudiments of this language (ed. Troide and Cooke 1994: 452n). Preposition stranding is likewise a grammatical item that underwent an interesting development in the grammars of the period, as Yañez-Bouza shows in her contribution to this section. While the stricture against preposition stranding is usually cited as a typical example of a normative grammar rule, with its origin being at the same time associated with Lowth’s grammar, Yañez-Bouza demonstrates that it is both older than Lowth’s grammar and not necessarily associated with the writing of grammars to begin with. Her corpus includes many more text types, such as dictionaries, rhetorical treatises and letter-writing manuals. All these offer normative linguistic comments as well, including the stricture against preposition stranding, which confirms the point made by Percy in her paper in Part 2 above that normative attitudes to language were of much more general concern at the time. Lowth, according to Yañez-Bouza, had a significant influence on subsequent grammarians, as has been discussed by several other papers in this volume, but it is only due to his immense popularity at the time that the stricture came to be associated with him. Lowth’s formulation of the stricture cannot even be said to be either prescriptive or proscriptive, and more research on the relationship between grammatical strictures and actual usage will demonstrate that this is more generally so than is usually thought to be the case. Another common − if largely unfounded − belief is that the prescriptive grammarians had an enormous influence on the development of the English language. Examples of such influence can indeed be quoted, such as the use of sex-indefinite he (Bodine 1975) and the use of the double perfect construc-

The grammars: Introduction

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tion, as in I would have loved to have settled down (Molencki 2003). Normative grammarians were not fond of “double” constructions, and the stricture against double negation is a frequently cited example (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1982; forthc.b). A similar issue is the double marking of degree, dealt with by González-Díaz in the final paper of the present volume. Focussing on the double forms worser and lesser, she shows, however, that almost all eighteenth-century grammars she analysed condemn these forms, but that the forms had already been on the way out before the Late Modern English period. The same is true for the disappearing process of double negation (Nevalainen 1998; Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 2003: 71–72; see also Tieken-Boon van Ostade forthc.c). The impact of the grammars merely served to reinforce what was already going on. González-Díaz also discovered that the development of worser and lesser was not a uniform process, which is partly due to the fact that lesser developed a different meaning in the course of its history, something which was not always recognised at the time. What the paper by GonzálezDíaz shows is that more research should be carried out on the actual impact of the normative grammarians on the development of the language (see also Auer and González-Díaz 2005). As this is very likely to be a more complicated issue than it would seem to be at first sight (see e.g. Auer and Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2007), this promises to be a very fruitful line of research to conduct in the future (see Auer in preparation).

Preposition stranding in the eighteenth century: Something to talk about1 Nuria Yáñez-Bouza

1.

Introduction

The rule against ending a sentence with a preposition, as in (1), (1)

Veronica has found the book which you were looking for,

is usually cited as a typical example of the kind of prescriptive comment that emanated from eighteenth-century normative grammar writing. As such, preposition stranding is one of the grammatical features commonly criticised along with, for instance, double negation or double comparatives (e.g. Nist 1966: 281; Görlach 1991: 124–125; Sundby et al. 1991: 426–428). As pointed out by Görlach (2001: 113), “the preposition at the end of a sentence was a particularly controversial point with grammarians and literati from the 17th to the 19th centuries”. The writer John Dryden (1631–1700) and the influential grammarian Robert Lowth (1710–1787) are representative figures of the general discontent with this idiom, the former being held responsible for “inventing” the rule in the late seventeenth century, the latter for “propagating” the shibboleth in the eighteenth century.2 This traditional account is echoed over and over again in the literature on the subject, and yet the phenomenon of preposition stranding has not been looked at in great depth. There are a few studies on the subject. For instance, Bately (1964: 268–276) investigated Dryden’s revisions in his own writings, showing how he altered end-placed prepositions by taking recourse to alternative strategies such as fronting of the preposition and the use of transitive verbs; more recently, Tieken-Boon van Ostade (1997: 458; 2005: 149–150; 2006b: 545–553) examined Lowth’s usage of stranded prepositions in his letters; for their part, Sundby et al. (1991: 426–428) provided valuable information about eighteenth-century pro1

The research for this paper was made possible by a grant from the British Arts and Humanities Research Council (2004/110850/University of Manchester) as well as the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (reference HUM2005-02351/FILO). 2 See, for instance, Leonard (1929: § VI.22, Appendix I § 11.24); Görlach (2001: 117–118); Crystal (1995: 79); or Beal (2004: 84–85, 110–111).

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scriptive grammars which condemned the use of “deferred” prepositions; and in previous papers I have also traced the close relationship between the process of stigmatisation of stranded prepositions and the development of the prescriptive ideals of correctness and politeness (e.g. Yáñez-Bouza 2004; 2006). And yet, this is neither the whole story nor the only one. The aim of the present paper is to analyse the various ways in which preposition stranding was understood and commented upon within the eighteenthcentury normative grammatical tradition. First, I will describe the material examined for the purposes of this investigation, a self-compiled corpus of observations made on the use of end-placed prepositions in the course of that century (1700–1800). Next, I will analyse the context in which preposition stranding was discussed in the various types of primary sources collected, by which I will show that this construction was not only described as a syntactic feature characteristic of colloquial and informal language, but that there was far more to it than we can gather from the traditional account in current literature on the subject. One of the things I will show is that preposition stranding was indeed criticised, but that it was also occasionally advocated. This study will also shed new light on the nature of the origins of the criticism: it is not only a matter of grammatical correctness, rhetorical treatises also turn out to be an unexpected source of pronouncements on what they call “harmonious” place of prepositions, something which has hitherto gone completely unrecognised. 2.

A corpus of preposition stranding

As part of my investigation of the phenomenon of preposition stranding in the Modern English period (Yáñez-Bouza 2007), I have paid special attention to the prescriptive movement during the eighteenth century, not only as a social and cultural trend but also as a grammatical tradition with potential influence on the usage of this construction in this period. The relationship between prescriptivism and preposition stranding has been hinted at in the literature, if only from a negative perspective within the ‘Thou Shalt Not’ tradition (Crystal 1995: 194): the stricture against ending a sentence with a preposition. In order to provide a detailed systematic account of this once “cherished superstition” (Fowler 1965: 473), I have carried out a thorough investigation of a variety of primary sources from the eighteenth century which all somehow or other deal with the phenomenon, comprising altogether a selection of 285 works written by 149 different authors.3 3

The list of bibliographical references for this collection was primarily drawn from Leonard (1929), Michael (1970), Vorlat (1975), Sundby et al. (1991) and Görlach (2001).

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In an attempt to unearth what was actually said at the time in criticism of this usage and otherwise, I have collected the passages in which preposition stranding was in any way referred to, not only when stranded prepositions were criticised and proscribed, but also when they were advocated, i.e. described and even at times defended, and when they were just mentioned without any comment on their usage. Furthermore, in addition to the works which deal with the construction, I have also taken into consideration those which do not, in the belief that the latter can, in fact, tell as much as those which did discuss the issue. Thus, my corpus presents itself not only as a canon of negative precepts (cf. Sundby et al. 1991) but as a canon of the many and varied observations on the usage of end-placed prepositions made in the course of the eighteenth century. The chronological distribution of the works and the authors examined is shown in Table 1 below. Table 1. Number of works and authors making up the eighteenth-century precept corpus of preposition stranding.4 1700s 1710s 1720s 1730s 1740s 1750s 1760s 1770s 1780s 1790s 1700–1800

Works 3 10 12 12 12 16 23 36 34 52 149

Authors 4 15 16 16 16 21 35 49 50 63 285

A few notes on methodological issues seem in order. The material has been mainly retrieved from Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), a comprehensive digital collection of texts published in England between 1700 and 1800; in some cases I have also looked at printed books, and when access to the original work was not possible, I have taken Sundby et al. (1991: 426–428) as a source of reference. The material is not restricted to first editions only; in a large number of cases I have examined various editions of the same work, on the assumption that different editions are likely to show modifications in the discussion of the very same topic (see § 3.1.2. below).5 4 For the use of the term precept in relation to normative grammars, see, in particular, Oldireva-Gustafsson (2002: 17) and also Auer and González-Díaz (2005). 5 Unless some relevant modification has been noticed, in this paper I will be referring to first editions (examined) only.

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As far as the authors of the texts are concerned, as was to be expected, the large majority of the 285 works examined were written by men (i.e. 130 male authors, 248 works, 87%), less than 11% was written by women (i.e. 13 female authors, 31 works), and the remaining six works were written by anonymous authors (i.e. 2%). Besides, the corpus shows an interesting geographical spread: there are English-born authors as well as some Irish writers (e.g. Sheridan), some Scots (e.g. Blair) and some Americans (e.g. Webster). As for the types of sources collected, it must be noted that this corpus is not only a corpus of grammars (and grammarians) in the traditional sense, as for instance in the case of Sundby et al. (1991). The material has been drawn from a wide variety of texts so that the corpus includes not only English grammar books as such but also grammars attached to dictionaries (e.g. Johnson 1755), books of exercises (e.g. Murray 1797), and some grammars of Latin written in English (e.g. Bailey 3rd ed. 1713). I have also considered educational books (e.g. Edgeworth and Edgeworth 1798), rhetorical treatises (e.g. Blair 1783), philosophical essays (e.g. Withers 2nd ed. 1789), and a few letter-writing manuals (e.g. Wise 1754). As can be expected, most works fall into more than one category, the majority of them being grammar books (cf. also Michael 1970: 197–199; Sundby et al. 1991: 14). Working with such a variety of texts, I soon became aware that the discussion of preposition stranding was not as simple as a mere rule proscribing the “end” position of the preposition and/or prescribing its position “before”.

3. Topics prompting discussion of preposition stranding The survey to be presented in this section deals with the various topics in relation to which preposition stranding was discussed in the works of the corpus: the vernacular idiom (§ 3.1.), preposition stranding as it occurs in the syntactic rules laid down in the grammars (§ 3.2.), “transposed” prepositions (§ 3.3.), stranded prepositions with topicalised objects (§ 3.4.), and what was then called in terms of the effects of stranding prepositions “the harmony of the period” or sentence (§ 3.5.). Each of these topics will be examined in turn, in the process of which I will include information about who said what, when, where and how. One of the main conclusions that can be drawn from this analysis is that eighteenth-century writers shared a common “repertoire” when they set out to discuss the arrangement of sentences with prepositions at the end; in other words, certain writers with “common interests, goals and beliefs” adopted similar attitudes towards end-placed prepositions, whether to criticise, to advocate, or simply to mention the usage. They would then constitute what Watts terms


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a “discourse community” (this volume; see also Watts 1999a). The question inevitably arises as to whether the writers’ approach was original, whether they were influenced by previous works, and, if so, to what extent, and whether any similarity between their approaches is the result of plagiarism. That unacknowledged copying and verbatim plagiarism was common practice in the eighteenth century has been shown by Vorlat (1959) and Tieken-Boon van Ostade (1996), among others (see also Navest, this volume), and will become apparent in this paper too.

3.1.

The vernacular idiom: Robert Lowth and his followers

The traditional account of how end-placed prepositions were viewed in the eighteenth century is that of a vernacular “idiom”, i.e. a construction that is peculiar to the English language, and which is common in familiar conversation but not suitable in formal styles. This ‘myth’ (Milroy 1998: 95–98) emerged from the well-known passage written by Lowth in A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) which has been repeated ever since as the representative attitude towards preposition stranding in that century.6 His discussion deserves to be quoted in full: The Preposition is often separated from the Relative which it governs, and joined to the Verb at the end of the Sentence, or of some member of it: as, “Horace is an author, whom I am much delighted with.” “The [2] world is too well bred to shock authors with a truth, which generally their booksellers are the first that inform them of.” This is an Idiom, which our language is strongly inclined to; it prevails in common conversation, and suits very well with the familiar style in writing; but the placing of a Preposition before the Relative is more graceful, as well as more perspicuous, and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated Style. [fn. 2] Pope, Preface to his Poems (Lowth 1762: 127–128).

In this passage Lowth describes the construction as an “idiom” in which the preposition is “separated” from the pronoun it governs and is placed “at the end of the sentence”, noting, moreover, that its use reflects common practice in conversation and in “the familiar style in writing”. The latter addition is a key point in the discussion. Like other writers of the time, it seems that in his grammar Lowth was, according to Finegan (1992), “sensitive to what suits the conversational style”, and he often condemned colloquial and informal forms while favouring “a style of writing which is distinct from speech” (Finegan 1992: 124). Like many eighteenth-century grammarians, rhetoricians and lexi6

In Yáñez-Bouza (2007) I present new insights into this view on Lowth.

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cographers who were often guided by the principles of purity, perspicuity and precision of expression, Lowth was reluctant to admit syntactic variation and treated one variant “as more precise, perspicuous or pure than the other” (see Sundby 1998: 476). The precept in favour of the Latin-based fronted position thus comes as no surprise: the end position is contrasted (“but”, in the quotation from Lowth) with the position “before the relative”, the one to be preferred for the sake of elegance (“more graceful”), perspicuity (“more perspicuous”), and in order to attain a “much better” style. Lowth’s passage remains unchanged in five different editions included in my corpus, i.e. the first, second and third editions (1762, Dublin 1763, 1764) and two new editions, published in 1774 (Dublin) and 1780.7 Eighteenth-century normative works laid down rules about what speakers ought to say as well as what they ought not to say; it seems to me that with regard to preposition stranding Lowth was prescribing the fronted position before relative pronouns more than strictly proscribing the place of a preposition “at the end of the sentence”. The fact that the discussion appears in the main text of the grammar also hints at Lowth’s mild, at least milder, attitude towards this feature, for it is in the footnotes that he usually expressed his strong proscriptions (see, for instance, Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1997: 451–452; 2000b: 882), as when he qualifies double superlatives as being “peculiar to the Old Vulgar Translation of the Psalms” (1762: 42.fn7), the use of worser as “much more barbarous” (1762: 43.fn8), or you was as “an enormous Solecism” (1762: 48.fn2). Lowth’s words have been interpreted as conveying a proscriptive connotation, but recent studies have convincingly shown that his strictures were not as “dogmatic” as is generally thought, thus challenging what Beal calls the “demonization” of the figure of Lowth and his grammar by hinting at the descriptive nature of this and other passages (Beal 2004: 111; see also Rodríguez-Gil 2002). My own research confirms this new perspective, particularly so if we compare Lowth’s insightful observations with those of other grammarians and rhetoricians who flatly imposed the stricture: “never close a sentence with a preposition”, e.g. Dearborn (1795) (cf. § 3.5.3. below). The very presence of the stranded preposition “to” in the passage above (i.e. “which our language is strongly inclined to”) has attracted the attention of scholars and supports Lowth’s un-demonisation. Although sometimes it has been interpreted as a slip which would justify the 7 Compared to the earlier editions, the editions of 1774 and 1780 contain an additional footnote [3], where Lowth condemns the splitting of the preposition and its object (“To suppose the Zodiack and Planets to be efficient of, and antecedent to, themselves”) (1774: 117–118; 1780: 74); the addition does not affect his view of the idiom as such.


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natural character and the high frequency of the vernacular idiom (cf. Finegan 1992: 124), nowadays it is generally understood as an “alleged error”, one in which “he must have taken a huge delight” (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006: 551; cf. also Beal 2004: 111). Besides, Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s quantitative analysis of stranded prepositions in Lowth’s private letters has given evidence of his “preference for stranded prepositions, particularly in his informal language” (2005: 153). Lowth’s name and Lowth’s stricture about preposition stranding are not only repeatedly quoted by modern linguists but even by his contemporaries. In my corpus, I could trace his passage in at least twenty different texts by fifteen different authors. These writers may thus be considered as having been directly influenced by Lowth. Among Lowth’s followers we can distinguish several groups depending on the extent to which his words were plagiarised or overtly referred to. These are surveyed in the subsections to follow. 3.1.1.

The idiom: inelegant and colloquial

As noted above, there was a large number of grammarians who quoted Lowth’s discussion, very often verbatim, thus echoing his view of preposition stranding as an English “idiom” and his consideration of how the different forms of the construction were appropriate to different styles. In this group there are grammars such as Marriott (1780: e–ev), Anonymous (1781: 40–41), Seally (1788: II.44), Hornsey (1793: 100–101), Wright (1794: 157), Coar (1796: 179), Bullen (1797: 86, 132) and, as influential as Lowth’s or more so, Murray (1795: 121–122). The clearest and best-known case of Lowth being plagiarised is Murray. In the mid 1790s, thirty years after Lowth’s grammar was first published, Murray wrote “a new compilation … for the ease and advantage of young persons” (1795: iii). He would eventually name Lowth as one of “the authors to whom the grammatical part of this compilation is principally indebted for its materials” along with Harris, Johnson, Priestley, Beattie, Sheridan and Walker (1798: 6–7), but he did not acknowledge any of his sources in the first edition of the grammar, an important omission which made him be remembered as the most notorious plagiarist of the eighteenth century (cf. Vorlat 1959; Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1996). Lowth’s discussion of preposition stranding is copied almost verbatim. Murray, like most of Lowth’s followers, omitted the footnote in which Lowth cited Pope as the source of his second illustrative example, thus reducing the material, presumably, to make his rules more memorable (cf. Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1996: 90). Like other grammarians who borrowed from Lowth, Murray altered the deliberately end-placed preposition “to” in

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the original passage as to be placed before the relative pronoun, i.e. “to which” (cf. § 3.1.3.). Another interesting observation is that the passage where stranded prepositions are discussed does not appear in the main text “with a large type” but “in small letter” as the second remark to Rule XVII about the syntax of prepositions; this implies that the comments on preposition stranding are “of less consequence”, yet useful and to be “perused by the student with more advantage, after the general system has been completed” (Murray 1795: iv).8 Lowth’s followers for the most part tended to shorten the passage rather than copying it verbatim, placing the emphasis on the inelegance of final prepositions as opposed to the “more graceful and more perspicuous” place “before the relative”, but not so much on the stylistic differences between the “familiar” end position and the “solemn” fronted position. Of this type we have Raine’s (1771: 142), Alderson’s (1795: 24, 87), Postlethwaite’s (1795: 156–157) and Rhodes’s (1795: 38) works. By way of an example, Alderson’s stricture is quoted here: “The preposition is often separated from the relative; as; ‘Riding is an exercise which I am delighted with.’ But it is more elegant and perspicuous to place the preposition before the relative; as; ‘Riding is an exercise with which I am delighted’” (Alderson 1795: 87). Interestingly, Alderson altered the beginning of Lowth’s sentence from “Horace is an author …” to “Riding is an exercise …”; slight alterations of a similar type are also found in e.g. Marriott (1780: e–ev), who was delighted with “Churchill” rather than “Horace”, or Bullen (1797: 86), who was pleased with the poet “Gay”. Besides, Alderson, like e.g. Raine and Rhodes, added the corrected sentence with the fronted preposition after their stricture, i.e. “Riding is an exercise with which I am delighted”, which Lowth had not done in his grammar. 3.1.2.

The idiom revised

A second interesting group is that of grammarians who did not comment on or show discontent with the use of stranded prepositions in early editions of their works but who did censure the usage in subsequent editions, presumably because they were influenced by Lowth’s popular grammar. Examples are Devis’s Accidence (3rd ed. 1777: 83; enlarged in 1782 and 1786), compared to the first edition from 1775; Story’s Introduction to English Grammar (5th ed. 1793: 48–49), when compared with the third edition published ten years previously 8

It is interesting to note as well that whereas Lowth’s proscription of the split of prepositions from their nouns appeared in a footnote, in Murray’s first edition it appears as the third remark to the same rule in which preposition stranding is discussed, thus giving it the same importance.


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(1783: 47–48); and Buchanan’s Regular English Syntax (1767: 98), in comparison with his earlier work British Grammar (1762: 169–171), which had been published in the same year as Lowth’s grammar.9 Buchanan is an interesting case in itself. On the one hand, he expressed a different attitude towards preposition stranding in the three works included in the corpus. On the other hand, we can clearly trace Lowth’s influence on the discussion found in his Regular English Syntax (1767). Buchanan said nothing about preposition stranding in his earlier Complete English Scholar (1753) published a decade before Lowth’s grammar. In his British Grammar (1762) he notes that “sometimes … the preposition is put out of its natural place” but does not censure the usage at this point, his main concern being the correct place and case of the relative pronoun, as may be clear from the following quotation: How are the Pronouns placed? The Pronouns have two States, viz. the foregoing and following State. … The following State is always set after the Verb and Preposition; as, love me, hear him, teach us, … But whom, the following State of who, is, by the best Writers, set before the Verb; as, he is the man whom I saw yesterday, i.e. he is the man I saw whom [3]. And sometimes, when the Preposition is put out of its natural Place, whom goes before it; as, whom did you dine with? For, With whom did you dine? Whom shall I give this Apple to? for, to whom shall I give this Apple? This is the Man I sold the Horse to; for, to whom I sold the Horse (Buchanan 1762: 170–171).

It is only in the Regular English Syntax (1767), published five years after Lowth’s grammar which by then had already gone through various editions (Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume), that Buchanan dealt with preposition stranding. Lowth’s influence on Buchanan is supported by the fact that he is acknowledged at the end of the section on “false syntax”, where he is referred to as the “learned Author” to whose Short Introduction to English Grammar Buchanan was “obliged” (1767: 139). Although Lowth’s name is not explicitly mentioned in the discussion of stranded prepositions, his debt to Lowth becomes evident by reading the following passage: The Preposition is frequently separated from the Relative which it governs, and is placed after the Verb at the End of the Sentence; as whom do you dine with? for with whom do you dine? Is that the Book which I spoke of, for, of which I spoke? George is a Monarch whom his Subjects delight in, for, in whom his Subjects delight. This Form prevails in common Discourse, and in the familiar Style; but it is certainly 9

Unfortunately, I have had no access to the second edition of Devis’s grammar, nor to the first edition of Story (1778). See also Michael (1970: 557, 582) and Sundby et al. (1991: 443, 451).

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more elegant to place the Preposition immediately before the Relative, especially in the solemn Style. “It is the God of the Universe whom we worship, whom there is none like to, and whom we live, move, and have our Being in: ” Here the Inelegance of the Sentence is glaring; it ought to be to whom there is none like, and in whom we live, move &c. (Buchanan 1767: 98).

Buchanan’s change of attitude becomes more evident when we compare the sections on “false syntax” in the British Grammar of 1762 and the Regular English Syntax (1767). See the following quotations: He begged an Apple of I, to give to thou. These Oranges were sent to I by he. To who will you give that Cake? With who do you live? And from who did you get that Money? (Buchanan 1762: 194) The Prepositions govern the following State of the Pronouns. As, with whom do you spend your Time? I gave the Book to him … + Who did you sup with? Who did you give it to? Who did you serve under? … [fn+] In the Examples after +, I have separated the Preposition from the Case which it governs, and placed it at the End of the Sentence; but it is distinguished by being in Italick, as well as the Word governed by it … thus, who do you sup with? right – with whom did you sup? To whom did you give it? &c. This Rule answers to part of the Latin Rule already mentioned … Now the English Preposition naturally goes before the Word it governs as well as the Latin Preposition (a quo facta sunt omnia) though prevailing Custom has separated it in familiar Writing and Discourse (Buchanan 1767: 137–139; see also 1767: 224–225).

In the examples of the British Grammar it is only the pronoun that is marked in italics as a form to be corrected, not the prepositions, which, besides, happen to be already fronted (1762: 194). However, in the Regular English Syntax we find examples of “false syntax” in which both the nominative pronoun who and the stranded preposition must be corrected, both being marked in italics, as explained by Buchanan himself. The passages quoted above also show that Buchanan not only consulted the first edition of Lowth’s grammar, for some of the illustrative examples of “false syntax” and “bad grammar” can only be found in Lowth’s later editions, e.g. “Who servest thou under?” (1763: 97.fn1, not quoted in 1762: 126–127.fn1). 3.1.3.

The preposition fronted

Interestingly, among those grammarians who plagiarised Lowth, some turned Lowth’s deliberate use of a stranded preposition in sentence (2a) into a fronted preposition before the relative of sentence (2b): (2)

a. an idiom which our language is strongly inclined to b. an idiom to which our language is strongly inclined.


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As shown above in relation to Murray’s grammar (§ 3.1.1.), this is also the case in Seally (1788: II.44), Story (5th ed., 1793: 48–49) and Wright (1794: 157), to which must be added Ussher (1785: 80–81), who will be discussed in § 3.1.4. below, and the slightly modified version in Bullen (1797: 132), which reads as follows: (62) The Preposition is often separated from the word which it governs, as Gay is an Author whom I am much delighted with. Gay’s Fables is the Book which I speak of. (Bullen 1797: 86) P. 86, – The preposition, &c. This is a most inelegant construction, to which the idiom of our language seems strongly addicted (Bullen 1797: 132).

3.1.4.

The idiom advocated, Lowth criticised

Lowth was not only followed and even improved upon, but there are also writers who openly disagreed with him. Thus, Anselm Bayly (1772: 85–86) and John Fell (1784: 129) referred to Lowth’s passage on stranded prepositions in order first to criticise Lowth and then advocate the usage of the idiom. In this group, we can also include George N. Ussher (1785: 80–81), who plagiarised Fell’s (1784) discussion except for the fact that he moved Lowth’s stranded preposition to the front (cf. § 3.1.3.). This mode of ending a sentence, or clause, with a preposition, is an idiom that our language is strongly inclined to; yet it seems to be studiously avoided of late by many respectable authors; and, indeed, it is censured by one of our best grammarians. It is said to be a violent transposition, but, perhaps, untruly; for if we examine this idiom we shall find it to be perfectly consistent with the greatest simplicity of arrangement. The preposition, when thus placed, is always used to express the relation which the word governed bears to the word governing; and it appears that, to make the preposition follow the word governing, is more suitable to the genius of our language, than to place it next to the word governed (Fell 1784: 129).

3.1.5.

Summary

From the discussion in this section it appears that Lowth’s influence during the second half of the century cannot be denied, and it could be argued that it is precisely owing to his popularity that his figure has become associated with this particular stricture. Yet the analysis of my precept corpus has shown there are many other works and authors worth looking into as well. In what follows, I will show that Lowth was neither the first to discuss this vernacular idiom nor the first to censure the usage.

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3.2. Preposition stranding in the syntactic rules of the grammars 3.2.1.

Preposition stranding in explicit grammatical rules

The discussion about preposition stranding among eighteenth-century grammarians and other writers on the English language is not simply a matter of opponents and advocates of the construction; I have found many works in which this arrangement of prepositions is merely described as one of the rules of syntax without any further qualification, whether positive or negative. Examples are the early grammar by Turner (1710: 41), the elaborate discussions by Ward (1765: 139) and by his faithful follower Shaw (1778: 94–95) and by Coote (1788: 68, 219), and the shorter passages in the grammars by Harrison (1777: 35), Lynch (1796: 84) and Gardiner (1799: 88). For an example, see Gardiner’s quotation: Rule 5. The preposition is often separated from the relative which it governs: as, “Whom will you give it to?” instead of, “To whom will you give it.” (Gardiner 1799: 88).

Here, we do not have to do with plagiarism, but with a case of a shared repertoire by grammarians who were of the same opinion, which supports the view that eighteenth-century writers were part of a discourse community (cf. Watts, this volume). Interestingly, some writers mentioned the end position as an exception to the rule, so that the preposition does not always go before the word it governs but “in some sentences [it] is put after”, as Carter (1773: 106) explains in the quotation below; and so do Fenning (1771: 79–80, 110–111) and J. Wilson (1792: 108–109). Q. You said in Rule ninth, that Prepositions have the following State of the Relative; is that Rule a general one? A. No; though the Relative is placed before the Verb; yet, in some Sentences the Preposition is put after it; as, “We have now taken notice of those great Evils, which you have preserved us from. Addison” (Carter 1773: 106).

A clear point in common among them is the question–answer format of their grammars, as illustrated in the quotation above, but there is no trace of unacknowledged copying among the writers that belong to this category. 3.2.2.

The “preposition at end” as the rule prescribed

Eighteenth-century grammarians were also aware of the fact that the use of a stranded preposition is not always a choice, in that there are some clauses in which the preposition has to be stranded, like that-relative clauses, as in examples (3a) and (3b).


(3)

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a. an idiom that our language is strongly inclined to b. *an idiom to that our language is strongly inclined.

In relation to this issue, there are works which discuss end-placed prepositions in wh-relative clauses where the choice is acknowledged, either preferred or not, as well as in that-relative clauses, in which case grammarians, willingly or not, laid down the necessary rule to strand a preposition. For instance, early in the century Maittaire (1712: 33) pointed to the impossibility of placing a preposition before the relative that, as in (3b). His approach was borrowed by other grammars in the course of that century, such as in Elphinston’s (1765: II.45), Ward’s (1765: 357, 462–463; 1767: 94–95), Shaw’s (1778: 95), Fell’s (1784: 130) and Coote’s (1788: 215–216), which may therefore be regarded as more truly descriptive in nature. On this occasion, the passages do show clear mutual influences in the way the discussion is presented as well as in the examples used, with e.g. Ward (1765) being echoed by Shaw (1778) and Coote (1788). This may become evident from a comparison of the following two passages: When that is used as a relative pronoun, it does not admit of a preposition before it; but the preposition is placed where it should have stood in the sentence, which is turned into a relative clause. Thus if the sentences, I spoke of him – you spoke to him, are turned into relative clauses, by using that instead of him, the clauses must be, that I spoke of – that I spoke to; as, the man that I spoke of; the man that I spoke to; and not the man of that I spoke – the man to that I spoke: But if whom be used instead of him, the relative clause may either be, of whom I spoke, or whom I spoke of; whom I spoke to, or to whom I spoke; … we do not say, the place from that I came, but the place that I came from (Ward 1765: 462–463). Obs. That when used as a relative does not admit of a preposition before it; but if a preposition is required, it is set after the verb; as The thing that I spoke of; not the thing of that I spoke (Shaw 1778: rule VI.95).

Some other grammarians discuss the place of the preposition in that-relative clauses only to point out the absurdity of the construction with fronted preposition in this context, like Priestley (1768: 100–101),10 whose passage was borrowed by Metcalfe (2nd ed. 1771: 75) and later copied verbatim by Bicknell (1790: II.70). Priestley’s discussion reads as follows: … if a preposition must precede the relative, there is a kind of necessity to replace who or which; because the pronoun that does not admit of such a construction. His subject looked on his fate with the same indifference, to which they saw him totally 10

It is worth pointing out that this passage from Priestley’s grammar does not occur in the first edition of his Rudiments (1761). Other differences between the two editions are dealt with in Hodson (this volume).

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abandoned. Hume’s History, vol. 2. p. 52 (Priestley 1768: 100–101; cf. Bicknell 1790: part II.70).

3.2.3.

The “preposition placed before its object” as the rule prescribed

As might be expected, stranded prepositions were not considered acceptable as part of the standard syntax which normative grammarians were advocating at the time, and although we have seen that the construction was recognised as part of English grammar (§ 3.2.1.) and was considered obligatory in thatrelative clauses (§ 3.2.2.), there are works which laid down the rule to place the preposition before the word it governs, “as its name implies”, says Coar, while preposition stranding was not even considered as an option. This attitude is found, for instance, with Withers (2nd ed. 1789: 390), Nicholson (1793: 60), Coar (1796: 179) and Fogg (1796: II.105–106). There is no indication of plagiarism or influence among these works but, again, this is just a matter of shared repertoire, e.g. the use of the verb “precede”, as in the following remarks by Coar: A Preposition (as its name implies) is a word put before another to which it is applied … as, the walls of the city, I went to London … (Coar 1796: 129). The preposition should always precede the relative pronoun which it governs, as To whom does it belong? With whom does he go? To whom dost thou speak? and not, whom dost thou speak to? &c. (Coar 1796: 179).

3.2.4.

One of two errors

For the most part, the place of the preposition at the end of a relative clause is overlooked in the discussion of the ungrammatical nominative form who instead of the oblique form whom when governed by a preposition; illustrative examples of the incorrect case form often include sentences with stranded prepositions, as shown above in relation to Buchanan’s British Grammar (cf. § 3.1.2.). There are, however, a few grammarians who pointed out two errors in this particular context: the ungrammatical use of who as well as the incorrect stranded preposition. Interestingly, the end position of the preposition is generally understood to be the reason for using the wrong pronominal case, as by Fleming (1766: 85–86), Webster (1784: 78–79), Brittain (1788: 73) and Fenn (1798a: 56–57). Though these authors share a common repertoire, they do not seem to have copied from each other. The following quotation from Brittain illustrates the two “errors”: All prepositions govern an objective case; as, between you and me (not you and I). But from a certain familiar Anglicism, which, is too often obscure and inconvenient, the preposition is sometimes separated from the relative which it governs, and is left


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to bring up the rear of sentences: and hence the relative, appearing before the preposition that governs it, is left undeclined, and is daily mistaken for a nominative. Errors of this kind. ‘Who [whom] do you speak to?’ Shakesp. ‘Who (whom) civil power belongs to’. Locke. To avoid this vulgar, and almost imperceptible mistake, it is advisable to prefer the regular and natural construction, as, To whom do you speak? To whom does it belong? Of whom was it said? (Brittain 1788: 73).

3.2.5.

The grammar of Latin

One of the main arguments for censuring the end-placed prepositions is the fact that in Latin syntax the preposition usually precedes the word it governs (Beal 2004: 110). In the late seventeenth century, for instance, John Dryden stated that, I am often put to a stand, in considering whether what I write be the Idiom of the tongue, or false Grammar, and nonsense couch’d beneath that specious Name of Anglicisme; and have no other way to clear my doubts, but by translating my English into Latine, and thereby trying what sence the words will bear in a more stable language (Dedication to ‘Troilus and Cressida’, 1679).

One of the problems he encountered in this approach was that of stranded prepositions, which were evidently to be considered inadmissible. Consequently he decided to revise his own writings in order to avoid them, as in the second corrected edition of Essay of Dramatick Poesy (1684 [1668]). Latin was the model for Dryden as well as for many other eighteenth-century grammarians and rhetoricians (Baugh and Cable 2002 [1951]: 274−276). It thus seemed relevant to look at what grammars of Latin written in English had to say about the order of prepositions. The treatment of preposition stranding in eighteenth-century works of the corpus seems to follow the general pattern observed by Michael (1970) in the grammatical tradition of that century in that there are, in general, two opposite trends: one based on Latin grammar models, the other moving away from such models. On the one hand, end-placed prepositions were often criticised because writers based their principles “on the Latin grammar models with regard to terminology and structure”, as Auer (2004) pointed out regarding the subjunctive mood.11 This is emphasised by, for instance, Withers (2nd ed. 1789: 389) in the following passage: “A just remark. It is certainly incumbent on me to give a rational Account of the Difference. A preposition, as the Name implies, ought to precede in English the Object or it’s Representative. v.g. The man TO WHOM 11

See also Rodríguez-Gil (this volume) in relation to the fourfold division of the parts of speech.

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you spoke” (Withers, 2nd ed. 1789: 389). On the other hand, many writers who defended or advocated the usage tried “to avoid the Latin model and account for the English [end position] in its own right” (Auer 2004), as Campbell did in his Philosophy of Rhetoric (cf. also Fell 1784: 128–129): In every other language the preposition is almost constantly prefixed to the noun which it governs; in English it is sometimes placed not only after the noun, but at a considerable distance from it … Indeed the singularity of the idiom hath made some critics condemn it absolutely. That there is nothing analogous in any known tongue, ancient or modern, hath appeared to them a sufficient reason. I own it never appeared so to me (Campbell 1776: II.399).

As far as the Latin grammars in the corpus are concerned, examples in which the fore-placement of the prepositions in Latin was compared to the end-position in English (i.e. preposition stranding) occur for one of two reasons: to direct the reader either “in translating of English into Latine”, as in Bailey’s English and Latine Exercises for School-boys (1713: 193), and the anonymous English Grammar for the Latin Tongue (1765: 108): 29. The English Signs of the Cases are sometimes found at a Distance from their proper Word; Reduce the Words into their natural Order, and it will appear how they ought to be render’d. Good Instructions are as necessary as Food. Men honour those they received good Advice from, in their tender years. Præceptum bonus sum æque necessarius ac cibus. Honor afficio is, à qui accipcio consilium bonus, annus tener (Bailey 1713: 193).

The other reason concerns the translation from Latin into English, as in Lowe’s New Method of Learning Latin (1736: 54): Obs. 4. If a preposition comes at the end of a clause in English, and seems to want a case, it generally belongs to the foregoing relative: as, Ille in quo considébam, The man whom I relied upon, that is, upon whom I relied (Lowe 1736: 54).

3.3. The preposition transposed: the Lane–Greenwood tradition As pointed out in the introduction, one of the aims of this paper is to show that the phenomenon of preposition stranding is not only discussed as a vernacular idiom or as a mere syntactic construction: sentences with end-placed prepositions are also used to illustrate other grammatical issues, in particular with regard to word order, one of them being the so-called phenomenon of transposition. Transposition is commonly defined as “the placing of words in a sentence out of the natural order of construction” (e.g. Lane 1700: 104), and it is often


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treated as a grammatical figure of syntax. At the start of the eighteenth century, Lane (1700) offered a crucial discussion of the difference between the natural and the artificial order of elements in the sentence. The comments on this and other grammatical figures are mainly “descriptive and appreciative” (Sundby et al. 1991: 12), but in so far as the idea of correctness is implied in the definition of syntax as the “proper” ordering, joining or placing of words (Michael 1970: 130–131), transposition is considered a departure from the natural order of ideas, “the time-honoured question of ‘ordo naturalis’” (Sundby et al. 1991: 415; cf. also Vorlat 1979: 136–137; Adamson 1999: 603–604).12 Although Lane advocates the use of figurative syntax under certain circumstances for the sake of elegance, brevity and harmony, transposition in particular is doomed to be censured precisely because of the positional change: “putting words before which should come after, and words after which should go before” (1700: 104; my emphasis). In order to preserve “the true sense and meaning of any sentence” (1700: 104; i.e. perspicuity),13 his advice is “to reduce transpos’d words to the natural order” (1700: 108); in fact, except in poetry, he says, “the words ought not to be transposed” (1700: 105). In his grammar Lane does not offer examples of “transposed” prepositions in particular, nor of any other transposed element, but his lengthy discussion is plagiarised by later grammarians who do illustrate transposition by means of stranded prepositions. The best example is probably James Greenwood (1711) in that he borrowed and enlarged upon Lane’s passage, and because his grammar became a very popular work in itself which had “an enormous influence” during the whole eighteenth century (Vorlat 1975: 436). His discussion of transposed prepositions is summarised as follows: *Transposition

is the putting the Words in a Sentence, or Sentences, out of their natural Order, that is, in putting Words or Sentences before, which should come after, and Words or Sentences after, which should come before. … The Preposition is frequently transplac’d; as, Who do you Dine with? For, with whom do you Dine? What Place do you come from? For, From what Place do you come? … … But we shall first observe one Thing; which is, that, the best and clearest Writers have the fewest Transpositions in their Discourses: And that they are more allowable in Poetry than in Prose, because it is generally sweeter and more agreeable to the Ear (Greenwood 1711: 218; see 217–220).

12

13

Sundby et al. (1991) deal with preposition stranding as one of the four types of “positional errors” classified in their dictionary as “transposition” (i.e. “deferment”, 1991: 426–428). On the matter of perspicuity see, in particular, Adamson (1999: § 7.6).

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As far as transposed prepositions are concerned, Greenwood points to word order and frequency (“the preposition is frequently transplac’d”; 1711: 218), and provides two examples with the stranded prepositions with and from. Like Lane, Greenwood understood this arrangement as a syntactic deviation (“out of the natural place”, 1711: 220, 218), and so he also calls for “reducing the English … into its natural Order before they attempt to turn it into Latin” (1711: 218). The main reason for disapproving of transposed elements is, again, the aim to attain “perspicuity or clearness” (1711: 217); it will be “a very great fault some persons are too guilty of” (1711: 217) – notice his use of a stranded preposition! Like Lane, Greenwood justifies the transposed order of words for the sake of euphony: “to render the Words more Harmonious and agreeable to the Ear” (1711: 220), thus showing his awareness of differences between poetic and non-poetic use (cf. also Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2000b: 882–883; Görlach 2001: 107, 111–113). Greenwood’s passage is repeated in later works, as was common practice at the time, e.g. in Barker (1733: 25–26), Anonymous (1736: 84–86), Turner (1739: 28), Fisher (3rd ed. 1753: 122–123) and her “editor” J. Wilson (1792: 108–110), Farro (1754: 334–335), Carter (1773: 108–109), Clarke (1791: 129–130), as well as the shortened version in Hornsey (1793: 54). Farro may serve as an example here: Q. What is transposition? A. Transposition is the Insertion of Words in a Sentence or Sentences out of their natural Order; that is, by putting Words or Sentences before, which should come after; and Words, or Sentences, after, which should come before. … Particles of the second Sort are frequently transplaced; as, Whom do you dine with? for, With whom do you dine? What City came you from? From what city, &c. came you? … And further; One Thing ought to be observed, which is, that the best and clearest Writers have the fewest Transpositions in their Discourses; and that they are more allowable in Poetry than in Prose, because it is generally sweeter, and more agreeable to the Ear (Farro 1754: 334–335).

Within this category we must also consider some passages in which end-placed prepositions illustrate instances of the grammatical figure known as “enallage”, which in these particular passages is understood as a type of transposition: the change of word order by which “a noun is set before its preposition”. The works I am referring to are Fisher (3rd ed. 1753: 124–125) and Metcalfe (1771: 98). Fisher explains this figure of syntax as follows: Q. What is an Enallage? A. An Enallage is in the like Manner either of a Letter or a Word: The former denotes the Change of one or more Letters in a Word; the latter the Change of one or more Words in a Sentence. Q. Can you give any examples of the Enallage of a word?


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A. The Enallage of a Word is … 4. When a Preposition is set after its Name; as, We went homewards, for we went towards home; the Women who we were talking of, for the Women of whom we were talking (Fisher 3rd ed. 1753: 125).

3.4.

Stranded prepositions and topicalised objects

Another grammatical issue in relation to which preposition stranding is discussed in terms of word order is topicalisation (to use a modern term), the construction by which some element of the sentence fronted for reasons of emphasis. Among the eighteenth-century works examined I have found discussions of topicalised objects with pied piping, that is, the fronting of the whole prepositional phrase (e.g. “two months had now passed, and of Pekuah nothing had been heard”, Bicknell 1790: I.104), as well as discussions of topicalised objects with preposition stranding, by which only the object of the preposition is fronted, the preposition itself being left stranded at the end of the sentence (e.g. “him I will attend to”, Webster 1784: 78–79). It is the latter discussion that is relevant here, and the main works included in this category are Jones (1724: 47), Fell (1784: 128–129) and Webster (1784: 78–79). Whereas the latter grammarian condemns the separation as “improper”, Jones and Fell simply describe this word order with illustrative examples, as in the following quotation from Fell’s grammar: The following idioms are worthy of particular notice: prepositions, in all their different uses, are frequently set at a distance from the word which they belong to. … (4.) And also, when they govern substantives: but such employment as this I have no mind to; thee and thy virtues, here, I seize upon; for all these things do the nations of the world seek after; and the times of this ignorance God winked at (Fell 1784: 128–129).

3.5.

Preposition stranding and the “harmony of the period”

Those comments in my corpus that are of particular interest are those found in rhetorical treatises. In these texts, preposition stranding is largely discussed in relation to what was then referred to as the “harmony of the period”. In the classical discussions of Quintilian and Cicero, for instance, Adamson (1999: 593) notes that “the Period is considered as much a unit of prosody as of sense” in which “the ending was the high point” of suspension and force, and the means to achieve these effects were “partly prosodic and partly syntactic” (1999: 588–593; cf. also 584–585). The word occupying the final position in these periods, such as stranded prepositions, thus becomes the object of special attention in matters of eloquence and rhetoric.

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Rhetorical treatises form an important set of texts in my corpus for various reasons. First, in these works the main qualities required to attain good prose style were propriety (including purity), perspicuity, elegance and cadence, or “that which makes a style smooth” (Görlach 2001: 213–214), to which we can add what Campbell defined as the “canon of euphony”: that a particular expression “ought to be preferred which is most agreeable to the ear” (Campbell 1776: I.382). We will see in this section how end-placed prepositions are discussed in relation to these characteristics as well as other minor characteristics such as simplicity, vivacity, strength and, less often, dignity (cf. Leonard 1929: § IX.11–15). Secondly, they offer both the most positive attitudes towards preposition stranding in the figures of Priestley (1761) and Campbell (1776), and the most negative and proscriptive ones, as with Blair (1771, 1783) and Withers (2nd ed. 1789). A third point of interest is that the first work I know of in which stranded prepositions were criticised was written by Joshua Poole, who was also a teacher and, more importantly, who wrote two popular rhetorical treatises: The English Parnassus; Or, a Helpe to English Poesie (1657), said to be “sufficiently popular to have further editions in 1677 and 1678” (Michael 1987: 152), and Practical Rhetorick (1663), described as “a formulary rhetoric based on an influential work of Erasmus” (ODNB, s.v. “Joshua Poole”).14 It seems then that preposition stranding had been a topic of discussion among grammarians as well as rhetoricians, and even before the eighteenth century. Another reason which makes rhetorical treatises particularly interesting has to do with the issue of the interdependency of grammars and other works on language, for we find some traces of the discussion in e.g. Mason’s (1749) rhetorical essay echoed in Blair’s Lectures (1771, 1783), and, in turn, Blair’s elaborate criticism is copied almost verbatim in Webster’s (1784) and Murray’s (1795) grammar books. In what follows, I will describe the three main views on preposition stranding found in the rhetorical treatises included in my corpus. 3.5.1.

Euphony and cadence

Some rhetoricians and grammarians overtly favoured and even advocated preposition stranding for the sake of euphony and what they referred to as the natural cadence of the period, like, for instance, Priestley in his “Observations on Style” (1761: 50–51), Elphinston (1765: II.146–148), Bayly (1772: 84–85) and Campbell (1776: II.402–403). Priestley and Campbell are traditionally considered the representative figures of what Baugh and Cable (2002 [1951]: 14

The work in question is the grammar entitled The English Accidence (1646); see Yáñez-Bouza (forthc.).


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282–285) call “the doctrine of usage”: both advocated the use of end-placed prepositions and both ridiculed the rule of fronting the preposition, stating their preference for preposition stranding because it is natural, it “favour[s] the easy fall of the voice” (Priestley 1761: 50–51), and it gives “vivacity” to the sentence, as Campbell explains in the following passage: Vivacity requires sometimes … that even the governed part, if it be that which chiefly fixes the attention of the speaker, should stand foremost in the sentence. Let the following serve as an example: “The man whom you were so anxious to discover, I have at length got information of.” … Yet whether the expression can be altered for the better, will perhaps be questioned. Shall we say, “Of the man whom you were so anxious to discover, I have at length got information?” – Who sees not that by this small alteration, not only is the vivacity destroyed, but the expression is rendered stiff and formal, and therefore ill adapted to the style of conversation? Shall we then restore what is called the grammatical, because the most common order, and say, “I have at length gotten information of the man whom you were so anxious to discover?” The arrangement here is unexceptionable, but the expression is unanimated. … in the second there is a cold and studied formality which would make it appear intolerable (Campbell 1776: II.402–403).

3.5.2.

“Awkward” clustering of prepositions

Lack of euphony was another reason to criticise preposition stranding. A few authors commented on the co-occurrence of prepositions (such as one of them being stranded, the other introducing a following prepositional phrase), and on the bad consequences of these “awkward” combinations for the euphony, the elegance and perspicuity of the sentence. For instance, Campbell frowned upon the clustering of prepositions in passive sentences like “The magistrates were addressed to by the townsmen” (1776: I.383–384; emphasis added), or in sequences with three prepositions together such as “She was gone up to by him” because it “inevitably creates a certain confusion of thought” (1776: I.494; italics added). Withers (2nd ed. 1789: 391), for his part, is more concerned about the elegance of the phrase with “so awkward a concurrence of prepositions”, as he states in the following passage: It may be said, it [i.e. the end-position] is absolutely unavoidable on particular Occasions, v.g. The Stock was disposed OF BY private Contract … But an elegant Writer would rather vary the Phrase, or exchange the “Verb” than admit so awkward a Concurrence of Prepositions, v.g. The Stock was SOLD by private Contract … (Withers 2nd ed. 1789: 391).

Ussher likewise deals with this topic (1785: 81), though his discussion is based on Fell (1784), who did notice the cluster in that same context and yet, unlike

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Ussher, did not see any inconvenience in the accumulation of prepositions. Compare the two quotations below: 16. Next, two prepositions frequently occur together, while yet each has its own attendant case somewhere or other in the sentence: he brought the nation into those difficulties which it has now to contend with, under an oppressive weight of taxes; but these are pursuits which I never was inclined to at any period of my life; whomsoever I may meet with in that business (Fell 1784: 129). 17. The following sentence may be corrected in the same manner: These are pursuits which I was never inclined to at any period of my life. It is better expressed thus; These are pursuits to which I was never inclined at any period of my life. By this amendment we avoid the inelegance of the Prepositions to and at, which meet together in the first Example (Ussher 1785: 81).

3.5.3.

“Never close a sentence with a preposition”

The so-called harshness caused by end-placed prepositions with respect to the “harmony of the period” is a major topic shared by those rhetoricians and grammarians who expressed the strongest negative attitudes towards preposition stranding. More than a decade before Lowth’s Short Introduction was published, John Mason condemned end-placed prepositions in his rhetorical Essay on the Power and Harmony of Prosaic Numbers (1749: 72, also 65–68). He flatly laid down the rule with an imperative: “do not often conclude a sentence” with a preposition because this “sign” is not an “emphatical word”, and therefore he believed that its use would harm the prosody and elegance of the period. Thus he corrected two examples with stranded prepositions into sentences in which the end position is avoided. Curiously enough, as we have seen in Greenwood’s and Lowth’s grammars, in the same paragraph where Mason proscribes the usage, he himself strands one preposition: “an elegance we should always aim at”. See the following passage: [Rule] (5.) Do not often conclude a Sentence with the Sign of the Genitive or Ablative Case; because that precludes an Elegance you should always aim at, viz. closing with an emphatical Word. e.g. Perfect Vertue is the highest Happiness Mankind are capable of, and Reason the Rule they are to walk by. Better thus, Perfect Vertue is the highest Happiness of which Mankind are capable, and Reason the Rule by which they are to walk (Mason 1749: 72; emphasis added).

His strictures were echoed in the second half of the century in a more proscriptive way by other rhetoricians, such as Blair (1771: III.16–17; 1783: I.285–287, 308–310; 1783: II.69–71, 91–92), who was plagiarised in turn by Webster (1784: 111) and Murray (1795: 208); these shared views can also be traced in Withers (2nd ed. 1789: 391), Hornsey (1793: 93) and Dearborn (1795: 74). These are, in


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my view, the authors who most severely censured the use of preposition stranding in the eighteenth century: they made their contempt clear by strictly imposing the rule against preposition stranding with imperatives, as in “do not often conclude”, “avoid concluding”, “never close”, or with a smoother recommendation like “should never be closed”. Compared to them, Lowth’s words are mild indeed; it is therefore to say the least peculiar that he came to be identified with this particular stricture. The following passages help to un-demonise his figure, for it is only in Lowth’s wake that his stricture becomes proscriptive; it is therefore worth quoting them in full: A fifth rule for the strength of the sentences; which is, to avoid concluding them with an adverb, a preposition, or any inconsiderable word. Such conclusions are always enfeebling and degrading … Agreeably to this rule, we should always avoid concluding with any of those particles, which mark the cases of nouns, – of, to, from, with, by. For instance, it is a great deal better to say, “Avarice is a crime of which wise men are often guilty,” than to say, “Avarice is a crime which wise men are often guilty of.” This is a phraseology which all correct writers shun; and with reason. For, besides the want of dignity which arises from those monosyllables at the end, the imagination cannot avoid resting, for a little, on the import of the word which closes the sentence. And, as those prepositions have no import of their own, but only serve to point out the relations of other words, it is disagreeable for the mind to be left pausing on a word, which does not, by itself, produce any idea, nor form any picture in the fancy (Blair 1783: I.285–287; emphasis added). At all events, never close a sentence with a “PREPOSITION”, for it destroys the strength and harmony of the period (Withers 2nd ed. 1789: 391; emphasis added). Rule 2. In long sentences, the members should rise one above another in a harmonious swell, and the period should never be closed except with an important or high sounding word+. [fn +] Instead of giving strength to a sentence, it enfeebles and degrades it much, to conclude it with an adverb, a preposition, or any inconsiderable word (Hornsey 1793: 93; emphasis added). Direction. Never close a sentence, or member of a sentence, with a preposition, when it may be conveniently avoided (Dearborn 1795: 74; emphasis added).

4. Further questions From the analysis presented in the previous sections two main implications may follow. First, preposition stranding is commented upon in relation to the same topic of discussion in works published at different points in time in the course of the eighteenth century; for instance, the discussion of the “idiom” from Lowth (1762) is still echoed in the last years of the century in Coar (1796). And secondly, the same topic of discussion appears in different types of work,

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so that e.g. the stricture not to close a sentence with a preposition can be found in the rhetorical treatise by Mason (1749) as well as in the English grammar by Dearborn (1795). Two questions inevitably arise: (1) what is the chronological distribution of the different topics of discussion treated in this paper during the eighteenth century? And (2) is there any relationship between the topic of discussion and the type of work we are dealing with? In this section I will try to provide answers to these issues. In order to answer the first question, I have plotted in Table 2 on the next page the distribution of each topic, and subtopic, across the different decades of the eighteenth century (cf. the approach taken by Bax on the comparison of adjectives and adverbs, this volume).15 These are: (1) preposition stranding as a vernacular idiom when described as inelegant and/or colloquial (‘id’), when the discussion has been revised (‘id-re’), when Lowth’s originally stranded preposition appears in front position (‘id-fro’), and when the “idiom” is favoured (‘id-fav’); (2) preposition stranding as dealt with in the syntactic rules of the grammars (‘synt-part’), in that-relative clauses (‘synt-that’), in rules which prescribe the position before the prepositional object (‘synt-bef’), when preposition stranding is one of two errors (‘synt-err’), and when it is mentioned in rules of Latin grammars (‘synt-lat’); (3) “transposed” prepositions (‘transp’); (4) stranded prepositions and topicalised objects (‘topicl’); and, finally, the treatment of end-placed prepositions in relation to “the harmony of the period”, whether related to the euphony and cadence of the period (‘hareuph’), to the awkward co-occurrence of prepositions (‘har-awk’), or to the stricture stated as “never close a sentence with a preposition” (‘har-never’). Table 2 reveals certain interesting patterns. The topic of preposition stranding as a vernacular idiom characteristic of informal language becomes popular after the 1760s, when Lowth made mention of it in his grammar published in 1762 (cf. ‘id’). It is important to note as well that the reactions against his discussion already appeared in the following decade (cf. ‘id-fav’, e.g. Bayly 1772). End-placed prepositions were described in the syntax sections of the grammars form the start, as in Turner (1710) and Maittaire (1712), and it was so until the very last years of the century, e.g. Gardiner (1799) (cf. ‘synt-part’, ‘synt-that’). However, the prescriptions laying down the rule to place the preposition before its object (cf. ‘synt-bef’), and the strong criticism of grammatical error (cf. ‘synt-err’) only cropped up in the latter part of the century in e.g. Withers’s (2nd ed. 1789) essay and Webster’s (1784) grammar, respectively. As for the focus on word order, transposed prepositions (cf. ‘transp’) 15

The chronological distribution here presented is based only on the works mentioned in § 3 of this paper.


275

and stranded prepositions with topicalised objects (cf. ‘topicl’) are discussed throughout the whole century, although the latter topic occurs only occasionally (e.g. 1720s, 1780s). For their part, the effects of stranding prepositions on the so-called “harmony of the period” become a matter of concern only after mid-century. Whereas discussions about the positive effects on euphony and the so-called cadence of the period (cf. ‘har-euph’) are concentrated in the 1760s and 1770s, the negative effects of “awkward” clusters of prepositions (cf. ‘har-awk’) and the strong proscriptions that a sentence should never end with a preposition (cf. ‘har-never’) are found only in the second half of the century. This diachronic survey suggests as well that attitudes became fiercer and more proscriptive as time went by. Table 2. Chronological distribution of topics prompting the discussion of preposition stranding during the eighteenth century. 1700s 1710s 1720s 1730s 1740s 1750s 1760s 1770s 1780s 1790s Total id id (re) id (fro) id (fav) synt (part) synt (that) synt (bef) synt (err) synt (lat) transp topicl har (euph) har (awk) har (never) total

1 1

1

1 1 1

1 1

1 1

1 3

1 4 2

1 1

1 3

2

5

1 2 1 2 1 2

2

9 1 4 3 1 3 1 3

2 2

1

3

0

4

1 1

2

10

2 1 1 15

2 3 19

3 28

14 3 5 3 10 9 4 4 3 12 3 4 3 8 85

As regards the second question posed above, it is perhaps only to be expected that many different points of focus are presented in such a wide range of different texts as those included in my corpus. The question now is whether there is any correlation between the type of work and the topic of discussion. Based on the information drawn from the title pages and from the prefaces and introductions to the works analysed, I have established a cross-cutting classification according to two potentially independent criteria: the content of the work and the type of audience to which that particular work is addressed, when explicitly indicated. According to content, the categories are: distinct English grammars (‘Eng’), grammars attached to a dictionary (‘Dic’), book of exercises or gram-

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mar with exercises of bad English (‘Ex’), grammars of Latin written in English (‘Lat’), rhetorical treatises (‘Rhe’), philosophical essays (‘Phi’), and education books (‘Edu’); according to the type of audience, the works can be specifically written for schools (‘Scho’), particularly addressed to children (‘Chil’), or to ladies only (‘Lady’).16 Table 3 displays the distribution of the topics of discussion for preposition stranding and the types of work in which they have been documented. Table 3. Distribution of topics of discussion in different types of eighteenth-century works. id id (re) id (fro) id (fav) synt (part) synt (that) synt (bef) synt (err) synt (lat) transp topicl har (euph) har (awk) har (never) total

Eng 12 3 5 3 10 9 3 4

Dic 1

11 3 2 1 4 70

1

Ex 5 2 1 1 4 2 1 1

Lat Rhe 1 1 1

Phi

1 2 4 2 1 3

2

5

1

1 1 24

1 1 2 8

3

1 3 2 2 18

Edu Scho Chil Lady Total 5 1 2 27 2 1 2 11 3 1 11 1 6 8 2 26 4 2 1 22 1 1 8 1 1 2 1 11 3 3 3 5 29 1 1 1 1 8 6 1 6 1 2 2 1 15 3 30 13 18 189

The information displayed in the table does not reveal a clear-cut distribution of topics according to the type of work in which the discussion appears, since they occur across the different types of works here investigated. For instance, in English grammars preposition stranding is discussed in relation to all the topics identified in this paper, and a large number of these topics are also found in books with exercises, in pieces particularly addressed to ladies, to children, and in texts written for schools. The table does show other tendencies, too. Rhetorical treatises do not seem to deal with the syntax of prepositions but rather with the construction as being a vernacular idiom which has either a 16

For example, Gardiner’s The Young ladies’ English Grammar (1799) has been classified as ‘Eng’, according to the content of the text, and as ‘Lady’ according to the audience to which this particular grammar is addressed; More’s Essays on Various Subjects, Principally Designed for Young Ladies (1777) is “principally designed” for ladies, ‘Lady’, but it falls into the text type of educational books ‘Edu’.


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good or a bad effect on the “harmony of the period”, whereas philosophical treatises seem to be rather interested in word order and harmony but not so much in the idiomatic nature of the construction. For their part, in grammars prefixed to dictionaries and in educational books preposition stranding does not seem to be a matter of major concern but the scant evidence from these works only allows for tentative conclusions at this point.

5. Conclusion This paper has offered new insights into the eighteenth-century attitudes towards preposition stranding, both as regards how it was conceptualised by normative writers on language, i.e. grammarians, rhetoricians and lexicographers, and how it was discussed in a variety of works. My analysis of the data drawn from an eighteenth-century precept corpus on the subject of preposition stranding has shed further light on the varied perspectives from which the construction was approached: preposition stranding was not only described as a vernacular idiom of the English language or as part of the rules of syntax, but it was also dealt with in relation to other grammatical issues such as transposition and topicalisation, as well as, interestingly, in terms of rhetoric, such as the euphony and cadence of the period. Eighteenth-century writers seem to have shared a common set of beliefs regarding stranded prepositions, across different types of works and in certain cases across time too, which in turn suggests that these grammarians and rhetoricians must have belonged to the same discourse community, as Richard Watts (this volume) would argue. In addition, this paper provides new evidence against the general belief that “nobody in the eighteenth century appears to have tried hardening [the placing of a preposition before the relative] into a rule” after Lowth’s stricture was laid down in 1762 (cf. Leonard 1929: § VI.22), as well as evidence in favour of his un-demonisation: Lowth was neither the first one, nor (ipso facto) the only one, nor was his stricture proscriptive. In sum, I have tried to show that preposition stranding was indeed a matter of concern and discrepancy more than is generally thought and more than is generally said to have been in traditional accounts of grammar writing in the period. Thus, I found that it was not only censured but at times also advocated, and often merely mentioned. Preposition stranding is something to talk about, then as well as now.

Foolish, foolisher, foolishest: Eighteenth-century English grammars and the comparison of adjectives and adverbs1 Randy Cliffort Bax

1.

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to analyse the way in which eighteenth-century grammarians dealt with the phenomenon of adjectival and adverbial comparison in English. In contrast to standard English usage today, eighteenth-century English still abounded with forms such as foolisher, honestest, oftener and seldomer, as in examples (1) to (5), which were found in the diaries of Hester Lynch Thrale (1741–1821) (ed. Balderston 1951): 1. if it is foolish to say things in Praise of one’s Self, ’tis foolisher to say Things in Despraise (ed. Balderston 1951: 203) 2. Pope & Tonson agreed it seems that Garth Vanbrugh & Congreve were the honestest Men of all the Kýt Cat Club (ed. Balderston 1951: 426) 3. [I] have since then been suspicious that ’tis oftener done than believ’d (ed. Balderston 1951: 260) 4. He said that those who had the Word Gratitude oftenest in their Mouths, had the Love of Tyranny most deeply in their hearts (ed. Balderston 1951: 125) 5. Tis likewise odd enough … why Women are much seldomer nearsighted than Men, and why poor People are much seldomer nearsighted than rich (ed. Balderston 1951: 146). Present-day English would have required what Quirk et al. (1985) call “periphrastic comparison” for the adverbial forms highlighted in sentences (3), (4) and (5) above, which they refer to as “inflectional comparison”. Similarly, periphrastic forms would have been favoured in the adjectival examples featured under (1) to (3) above. The differences between the two types of comparison are summarised as follows:

1 An earlier version of this article was first published in Dutch in Meesterwerk. Berichten van Peeter Heynsgenootschap (Bax 2000).

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(a) with most monosyllabic adjectives the inflected and periphrastic forms are interchangeable (although the former are normally used) while participle forms used as adjectives and the exceptions real, right, and wrong require comparison with periphrasis; (b) with many disyllabic adjectives inflection and periphrasis are also interchangeable, as with common, cruel, handsome, pleasant, polite, quiet, solid, and wicked, and those ending in an unstressed vowel, syllabic /l/, /ɘ/ or /ɘr/, while participle forms and the exceptions eager and proper require comparison with periphrasis; (c) trisyllabic or longer adjectives take only periphrastic forms (Quirk et al. 1985: 461−463).

Other terms used for “inflectional” and “periphrastic” comparison are “synthetic” and “analytic” comparison and “morphological” and “syntactic” comparison (Denison 1998: 128). For the purposes of the present paper I have decided to adopt the terms “analytic” and “synthetic” comparison. Twenty years after the discussion provided by Quirk et al., usage is roughly still the same as that described by Quirk et al. (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002). Recent literature, however, points to the occurrence of adverbial premodifiers (Leech and Culpeper 1997: 367, Lindquist 2000: 127), of a second term of comparison or of an infinitival/prepositional complement after the comparative form (Mondorf 2002, Mondorf 2003) as factors that influence the selection of comparative strategy. From a present-day perspective the synthetic comparatives found in the above sentences would thus be unacceptable, and in all instances analytic forms with more and most would be required. Such instances were of course current at the time, too, as may be illustrated by examples (6) to (10), taken randomly from Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). 6. but growing more foolish, as we grow older, there’s no toy will please us then but a wife (3rd Gentleman, Dodsley, The Toy-Shop, 1756: 16) 7. it was thought wiser (we can’t say more honest) to argue after a different Manner (Smith 1756–1757: 368) 8. that we do not more often hear Stories of this Kind (Letter LXVI, Henry to Frances; Griffith 1760: 116) 9. whereby the Blood becomes more esily receptive of that Venom; but most often to an irregular Management of Cure, and use of Specificks (Atkins 1758: 240) 10. But the joining together in these Exercises, will cause you to jar far more seldom (Wesley 1760: 177). With the forms of comparison thus being highly variable during the eighteenth century, it will perhaps hardly come as a surprise that Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), in the grammar preceding his dictionary, despairingly, it would seem, noted: “The comparison of adjectives is very uncertain; and being much

18th-century grammars and the comparison of adjectives and adverbs

281

regulated by commodiousness of utterance, or agreeableness of sound, is not easily reduced to rules” (1755: sig. b2r). In the history of the use of comparatives and superlatives, the synthetic variants lost ground to their analytic counterparts which characterised usage in Middle English (ME). However, these variants regained ground towards the end of the Early Modern English (EModE) period. On the whole, inflectional forms have always been more frequent than periphrastic comparatives (Kytö and Romaine 1997: 334–335), although a relatively even competition between the two strategies has been the common trend during the Late Middle English (LME) and Early Modern English (EModE) periods. This claim, however, mainly applies to adjectival comparative forms, as adverbial comparison began to steer towards the periphrastic construction at the end of the ME period already. Clear evidence of the competition between inflectional and periphrastic forms can be found in the eighteenth century, for a search of the forms illustrated in examples (1) to (5) in the printed texts of the period contained in ECCO produced results only for oftener (19), honestest (1) and seldomer (1).2 Possibly, then, synthetic comparison was still more common in private writings such as diaries and letters. If it was the aim of the eighteenth-century normative grammarians to suppress variation of this kind and to teach people who privately used different linguistic forms to abandon these in favour of what was considered more acceptable in printed texts, it would be interesting to analyse the way or ways in which the prescriptive grammarians of the period dealt with this problem, defined as such by Johnson. Did the grammarians in the course of the period − during which grammars were published in increasing numbers, particularly after the 1760s (Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume) − indeed manage to provide their readers with more clarity about the formation of comparatives and superlatives? To find an answer to this question, I searched Alston’s microfiche collection called English Linguistics 1500–1800 (Alston 1974) for practical eighteenthcentury grammars of English. This resulted in a corpus of the 27 grammars listed on the next page which I have analysed accordingly. Among these grammars, Brightland (1711) is the only one that does not mention the comparison of adjectives or adverbs. Fisher (1750) is a second edition; I have used this edition because a copy of the first has not come down to us (see e.g. Rodríguez-Gil, this volume). In the subsequent analysis, I will refer to the grammars by the abbreviations provided in the list below. 2

Oftener is still found in English today, as are most of the other forms discussed, though not very frequently: a simple search in the British National Corpus produced six instances of oftener, two of honestest and one each of oftenest and seldomer.

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1700 Browne, Richard. The English School Reformed (1700Br)

1761 Priestley, Joseph. The Rudiments of Grammar (1761Pr)

1700 Lane, A. A Key to the Art of Letters (1700La)

1762 Buchanan, James. The British Grammar (1762Bu)

1711 Brightland, John, and Charles Gildon. A Grammar of the English Tongue (1711Br)

1762 Lowth, Robert. A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762Lo)

1711 Greenwood, James. An Essay towards a Practical English Grammar (l711Gr)

1763 Ash, John. Grammatical Institutes (1763As) 1765 Ward, William. An Essay on Grammar (1765Wa)

1712 Maittaire, Michael. The English Grammar (1712Ma)

177l Fenning, Daniel. A New Grammar of the English Language (1771Fe)

1724 Jones, Hugh. An Accidence to the English Tongue (1724Jo)

1772 Bayly, Anselm. A Plain and Complete Grammar of the English Language (1772Ba)

1731 Duncan, Daniel. A New English Grammar (1731Du) 1732 Owen, John. The Youth’s Instructor in the English Tongue (1732Ow) 1733 anonymous. The English Accidence (1733an)

1777 Harrison, Ralph. Institutes of English Grammar (l777Ha) 1784 Fell, John. An Essay towards an English Grammar (1784Fe)

1735 Collyer, John. The General Principles of Grammar (1735Co)

1784 Webster, Noah. A Grammatical Institute of the English Language (1784We)

1737 Saxon, Samuel. The English Schollar’s Assistant (1737Sa)

1785 Ussher, George N. The Elements of English Grammar (1785Us)

1746 Kirkby, John. A New English Grammar (1746Ki)

1795 Murray, Lindley. English Grammar (1795Mu)

1750 Fisher, Ann (2nd ed.) A New Grammar (1750Fi)

1797 Mackintosh, Duncan. A Plain, Rational Essay on English Grammar (1797Ma)

1754 Gough, James. A Practical Grammar of the English Tongue (1754Go)

2.

1798 Sedger, John. The Structure of the English Language. (1798Se)

Rules and approaches

What are the results of this comparison? First of all, it needs to be observed that there is a considerable degree of variation in the way the rules for the comparison of adjectives and adverbs are discussed in the grammars analysed. In order to prevent myself from being unable to see the wood from the trees, I have attempted the following distinction between rules and approaches.


2.1.

283

Rules

In what follows, two grammars are understood to prescribe the same rule in relation to a given adjective or adverb if the resulting forms are identical; that is, if the rules prescribed in these two grammars set out to produce the synthetic form seldomer in both cases, it will be argued that we are dealing with the same rule. It turns out that there are clear differences in the categories of rules that can be distinguished according to the 27 grammars analysed, and I have classified them according to whether they offer rules for synthetic comparison (sc) or analytic comparison (ac). In a number of cases the two systems are presented as being interchangeable (i). Brightland and Gildon (1711) and Duncan (1731) have been excluded from the analysis here as the rules he presented were ambiguous. The results of my classification are presented in Table 1. Table 1. The rules for comparison in the grammars analysed. 1. i Lane (1700) Jones (1724) Collyer (1735) Saxon (1737) Kirkby (1746)

2. i or ac Browne (1700) Greenwood (1711) Owen (1732) anon. (1733) Fisher (1750) Gough (1754) Buchanan (1762)

3. sc or ac Ash (1763) Ward (1765) Fenning (1771) Bayly (1772) Fell (1784) Webster (1784) Ussher (1785)

4. sc or ac or i Maittaire (1712) Lowth (1762) Murray (1795) Priestley (1761) Harrison (1777) Mackintosh (1797) Sedger (1798)

sc = synthetic comparison ac= analytic comparison i = sc and ac are interchangeable

According to the grammars in column 1, it would have been equally correct to use the synthetic or the analytic comparative or superlative, irrespective of the type of adjective or adverb. This means that foolisher and foolishest were considered to be the correct forms to use, alongside more foolish and most foolish. The grammars in the second column distinguish between adjectives and adverbs that accept both variants, synthetic and analytic, and a group in which only the analytic variant is permitted. For example, in Browne (1700) we can read the following as regards adjectival comparison: Q. What Adjectives make use only of more, most, or very before them to distinguish their degrees in Comparison? A. They are such Derivatives as end in y, ful, ous, some, ish, ant, ent, or ble; as stony gainful, desirous, gamesome, sweetish, penitent, dormant, favourable, &c. This the careful Observer will quickly find out by the very pronunciation of the word (Browne 1700: 94−95; emphasis added).

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Randy Cliffort Bax

According to the grammars in the third column, either the synthetic or the analytic form is correct, but never both. The fourth and final group distinguishes between three categories: synthetic, analytical or both. Figure 1 below is a visual representation of the same results. 1 = I 2 = I/AC

3 = SC/AC 4 = SC/AC/I

x

4 x

3 2 x

x

xx

1 x 1700

x 1710

x

x

1720

x xx

1730

x

x

xx x

xx

1750

1760

1770

xx 2x

x 1740

1780

1790

Figure 1. The four categories of rules distributed over time.

What can be established first of all is that the second group is the largest one and that the grammars belonging to this group are found throughout most of the eighteenth century. Secondly, we can see that the rule prescribed by the grammars in group 1 is limited to the first half of the century. In other words, the grammars according to which forms such as seldomer and honestest were considered acceptable were only published before 1750, which tallies with the idea of a shift from the use of synthetic forms such as seldomer and honestest to the use of comparatives and superlatives formed with more and most.

2.2.

Approaches

The term “approach” in this context refers to the way in which the grammars analysed classify adjectives and adverbs, each type corresponding with an appropriate synthetic form, an appropriate analytic form, or with both. My analysis of the grammars on this point shows that we can distinguish between eight different approaches, abbreviated as A1−A8 in Table 2. Each of these is based on one or more formal characteristics of adjectives and adverbs that the reader has to consider when determining whether the synthetic or analytical variant is advocated (or both) for the comparison of adjectives and adverbs. There are four features which a given approach may focus on in doing so, i.e. the ending (e), whether the word has a Latin origin (l), its number of syllables (s) and the position of its main stress (m). There are, for instance, five grammars in the leftmost column, i.e. Browne (1700), Greenwood (1711), Gough (1754), Ash (1763)


285

and Bayly (1772), each of which advises the reader to consider the ending as a guideline as to which form to choose for the comparative or the superlative of an adjective or adverb. Thus, in Browne (1700) we are told that the correct form is of the analytic type if the adjective or adverb ends in -y. Beautiful, then, corresponds with more/most beautiful rather than with beautifuller and beautifullest. According to the second approach, both the ending and the word’s Latinate or non-Latinate origin determine its form in the comparative or superlative, while according to approach number 8 none of the four characteristics Ending, Latin origin, Syllable or Main stress need to be taken into account, because according to the grammarians listed the synthetic and analytic forms are interchangeable for all adjectives and adverbs. Table 2 shows a classification of the grammars analysed along these principles with the exception of Sedger (1798), which has been excluded because it bases the choice between synthetic and analytic forms on purely prosodic grounds rather than the criteria discussed. By way of comparison it might be interesting to observe that the approach taken by Quirk et al. (1985) would be a4, as it focusses on the number of syllables of an adjective or adverb (monosyllabic, disyllabic and trisyllabic) in combination with the ending (for disyllabic words only). In the latter case, the synthetic and analytic types are interchangeable. Table 2. The grammars subdivided by approach.

non-I (synthetic and analytic types are not interchangeable)

a1 (E) 1700Br 1711Gr 1754Go 1763As 1772Ba

a2 (E,L)

a3 (E,L,S)

1712Ma 1733an 1750Fi 1762Bu

a4 (E,S)

a5

1765Wa 1784Fe

1761Pr 1762Lo 1777Ha 1784We 1785Us

(S)

a6 (E,S,M) 1771Fe

I

a7 (S,M)

a8 (–)

1795Mu 1797Ma

1700La 1724Jo 1731Du 1732Ow 1735Co 1737Sa 1746Ki

From Table 2 we may infer that there was considerable variation in the way eighteenth-century grammarians approached the comparison of adjectives and adverbs. The question therefore arises whether it is possible for us to detect a development in the approaches that were adopted over the years. To this end I rearranged the data in Table 2 according to the chronology in which the approaches were attested (Figure 2).

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++

A7 +

A6 +

A4

+

++

A5 +

A3 A2

+

A1 +

+

1770

1780

+

+ +

1710

++

+

A8 + 1700

+

1720

++ + + 1730

+

+

+ 1740

1750

1760

1790

Figure 2. The order in which the different approaches were first adopted.

It is perhaps not surprising to see that approach number 8 was the one first attested in the eighteenth-century grammars and also that it was the first to go, as it was the least sophisticated of the different approaches adopted. Increasingly, new features are introduced in an attempt to impose order on what Johnson had called an “uncertain” state of affairs. It is striking that these attempts are evident from the beginning of the century onwards. Thus, the approaches that focused on various formal characteristic of adjectives and adverbs appeared to have driven the first approach (a1) out. It is interesting to see that a4, the approach that is also found in Quirk et al. (1985), originated in the second half of the century, as did a5, a6 and a7. It would be of interest to see to what extent the latter three approaches continue to be found in the centuries following. It is also of interest to consider which of the approaches adopted by the grammars analysed were the first to go apart from a8. We thus no longer find approaches number 2 and 3, which included the Latinate origin of the words among the decisive principles, after 1762 (Buchanan). From the 1760s on, only the features Ending, Number of Syllables and Main Stress have to be taken into account by the user to be able to decide between an analytic or a synthetic form. What we notice, then, is that in the course of the eighteenth century the reader is no longer expected to be well-versed in Latin in order to recognise the Latin origin of words and to be able to produce grammatically acceptable English comparatives and superlatives as a consequence. This is a fundamental change in approach, which is a reflection of the type of readers that the authors had in mind, a readership that was rapidly changing. This development coincides with the greater attention paid to women as part of the intended audience of the grammars, as these usually lacked the kind of education which would have


287

enabled them to distinguish between Latinate and non-Latinate words (see also Percy and Rodríguez-Gil, both in this volume). Moreover, the development attested shows that for the first time the English language was truly considered to be something worth studying, something which, unlike in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was more than merely a “basis for the study of Latin grammar” (Baugh & Cable 2002 [1951]: 274). While at the beginning of this period the intended readership still consisted mainly of young males enjoying the advantages of a classical education (Fletcher 1995: 300), with “the centrality of Latin remain[ing] common ground in upper gentry circles” (Fletcher 1995: 305), in the course of the century there was a growing demand for English grammars, one important reason for which was that people from the middle classes, who had not had a classical education, were insecure about their usage (see Langford 1989: 78−88). Striving to improve their social position, they realised that an adequate command of the English language, in writing and speech, played a crucial role in attaining their goal, for as Fitzmaurice puts it, “[i]n the second half of the century, a facility to speak well and appropriately seemed increasingly to guarantee social mobility” (Fitzmaurice 1998: 309; see also Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume).

3.

Conclusion

The rules set by eighteenth-century grammarians for the comparison of adjectives and adverbs changed over time. While at first no formal rules and principles were distinguished that would guide the user into making a choice between either variant, with the increase of grammatical production in the course of the century, greater attention was paid to formal characteristics of adjectival and adverbial comparison that would help to determine what forms to use. The eighteenth century also saw the birth of the most common approach in dealing with the question today, i.e. that presented in Quirk et al. (1985). What was, moreover, discovered as well was that a major change in approach coincided with a change in the readership of the grammars, which no longer aimed at boys from the more privileged classes but came to be widened to include anyone interested in trying to rise in society, but, significantly, women as well. Whether the grammars can be held responsible for bringing about a change in usage as such is uncertain, given the fact that synthetic forms were no longer very common in printed texts.3 But the individual user had to be taught what 3 Note, however, that Kytö and Romaine (2006: 212) discovered that usage of comparative forms at the end of the nineteenth century “already came close to present-

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was considered to be the accepted practice if they wished to produce the correct forms in the right contexts, and this is what the grammars catered for.

day usage”. Though they don’t take the role of the normative grammarians into account as a possible factor in this development, it is striking that this change in usage is evident at a time when prescriptivism was at its height (see the introduction by Tieken-Boon van Ostade to the present volume).

On normative grammarians and the double marking of degree Victorina González-Díaz

1.

Introduction

A key issue in current historical sociolinguistics is the question of whether linguistic purism had a real effect on actual language usage (see e.g. Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 2005, Auer and González-Díaz 2005, Auer 2006, Bax, this volume, and research carried out in the context of the project The Codifiers and the English Language). In English, one of the areas that lends itself to this kind of investigation is double marking of degree, as the stigmatisation and disappearance of double comparative forms from the language has been traditionally associated with the rise of prescriptive grammar (see the comments in e.g. Denison 1998 or Blake 2002, among others). Previous work on the topic (González-Díaz 2003, Auer and González-Díaz 2005) investigated the influence of normative grammars on the development of double periphrastic comparison (i.e. forms like more better, more lovelier). This paper constitutes a natural continuation of the work done so far, as it focuses on the impact of prescriptivism on the two other double comparative structures of English, i.e. the double inflectional comparative forms worser and lesser. One should note that, historically, English had a third double inflectional comparative structure, i.e. nearer (from OE nærr (“closer”) + -er). However, unlike worser and lesser, nearer was reanalysed as a simple comparative already in Middle English and therefore it will not be considered here. The main period under analysis will therefore be Late Modern English (LModE, 1700−1900), although previous periods, i.e. Middle English (ME, 1150−1500) and Early Modern English (EModE, 1500−1700), will also be considered in order to be able to contextualise the results of the analysis. Furthermore, in order to allow for meaningful comparisons between the different double structures, the corpora used in this study mirror those used in GonzálezDíaz (2003; see the list below): – Middle English: Helsinki Corpus and the prose texts of the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse – Early Modern English: Helsinki Corpus, Lampeter Corpus (EModE part), Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler, dramatic works

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Victorina González-Díaz

of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Heywood, Dekker, Marlowe and Fletcher. – Late Modern English: Zurich English Newspapers (ZEN), the LModE part of the Lampeter Corpus, the fiction works of Austen, Defoe, Dickens, Henry Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Swift, Smollet, Thackeray and the dramatic works of Boucicault, Browning, Colley, Gay, Goldsmith, Lillo, Robertson, Sheridan, Steele, Tennyson and Vanbrugh. 2. Double periphrastic comparatives Given that the evolution of double periphrastic forms has been discussed elsewhere (González-Díaz 2007), this section will only summarise the key points of their development. The first instances of double periphrastic comparison appear in Latin translations from the ninth to tenth centuries (see (1) − (2) below); however, as Mustanoja (1960: 281) suggests, they do not seem to spread and become relatively frequent in the language until Late Middle English (LME, 1350−1500). In addition, Kytö (1996: 128) and Kytö and Romaine (1997: 337) show that double forms are, at all periods, notably less frequent than their simple counterparts: (1)

he bið swa micele wlitegra ætforan Godes gesihðe, swa he swiðor ætforan him sylfum eadmodra bið (ÆL.HOM, Thorpe 1844: 514). “he was so much fairer in front of God’s eyes as he was more humbler in front of himself”

(2)

hu miccle mae ł swiþor bettra is monn þonne scep forþon is alefed on restedagum god to doanne (RUSHW, Skeat 1887: 99). “how much more better is the man than the sheep because he is allowed to do good on Sabbath”.

My corpora record 157 examples of double periphrastic comparatives in ME and EModE (106 in ME and 51 in EModE). In both periods, they seem to occur relatively regularly, and the fact that I have not found any criticisms on their use − with the exception of Greaves (1594; see below) − suggests that they were acceptable in educated environments both in written language (e.g. letters, scientific texts, travelogues, see examples (3)−(4)) and in “speech” (e.g. drama or fictional dialogue see (5)−(6)):1 1 It may be worth pointing out that the use of double periphrastic forms seems to be more frequent in spoken than in written domains.

On normative grammarians and the double marking of degree

291

(3)

from the harte: Also, why he is moyst, is, that it should be the more indifferenter and abler to euery thing that shoulde be reserued or gotten into him (E1 EX SCIM VICARY 33: Heading).

(4)

In consideration whereof if it may please your goodness … to be meane and sewter for your owne power Pryory, that it maye be preserved and stond, you shalbe a more higher to vs than he that first founded oure Howse (MESS.LET, cxxvii).

Furthermore, in literary texts, drama as well as prose, double periphrastic comparatives appear to be somehow associated with noble or more highly placed speakers and the so-called “high style” (for more information on this issue, see González-Díaz 2004). Consider examples (5)−(6) below, where the double forms appear in the speech of a knight and a Roman Emperor, respectively: (5)

Madame said syre Percyuale I knowe wel the Lyon was not myn / but I dyd hit / for the lyon is of more gentiller nature than the serpent / and therfor I slewe hym (CAX.MD, Sommer 1889: 650).2

(6)

Octavius: No my most wronged Sister, Cleopatra Hath nodded him to her. He hath giuen his Empire Vp to a Whore, who now are leuying The Kings o’th’ earth for Warre. He hath assembled, Bochus the King of Lybia, … With a more larger List of Scepters (SHK.Ant., III, ii).

Double periphrastic forms disappear from my corpora around 1620 (cf. also Kytö and Romaine’s (1997: 338) comments)3 and they only reappear in the eighteenth century − as features of non-standard speech, examples of which may be found in (7)−(8) below: 2 As I have noted elsewhere (González-Díaz 2003), the Winchester MS contains two double comparative forms fewer than Caxton’s version of Morte Darthur (32 instances). This is rather revealing in relation to the status of double forms in the period, especially if one takes into consideration that one of Caxton’s main aims was to make the English language as “elegant” and “refined” as other European languages of the time (especially French; Brewer 1968: 12). 3 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out to me the interesting fact that other double constructions common in ME like double negation (see TiekenBoon van Ostade 2005) and double prepositions (Mustanoja 1960: 347, Fischer 1992: 390), e.g. … “But for to speke of þe first matere a‫ޚ‬en” (Three kings of Cologne), also started to disappear from the written medium in the EModE period.

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(7)

I am sure your La’ship hath done him too much Honour ever to think on him … And to be sure, if I may be so presumptious as to offer my poor Opinion, there is young Mr. Blifil, who besides that he is come of honest Parents, and will be one of the greatest Squires all hereabouts, he is to be sure, in my poor Opinion, a more handsomer, and a more politer Man by half (FIEL.TJ).

(8)

“No it ain’t that,” said Sam, “circumscribed, that’s it.” “That ain’t as good a word as circumwented, Sammy,” said Mr. Weller gravely. … “Think not?” said Sam … “Vell p’raps it is a more tenderer word,” said Mr. Weller (DICK.PP).

As for the question of whether eighteenth-century grammarians had an effect on the stigmatisation and virtual disappearance of double periphrastic forms from English, and the written language in particular, I performed a cross-period analysis of the data, which showed that the frequency of double comparatives had started decreasing in EModE already. See the figures in Table 1, which have been normalised to one million words: Table 1. Frequency of double periphrastic forms across periods. Period ME EModE LModE PDE (BNC)

Double forms

Corpus size

106 51 13 45

3,749,031 5,590,362 13,214,315 90,297,034

Double forms/ 1,000,000 words 28.2 9.1 0.9 0.5

Furthermore, a look at the grammars from the EModE period shows that the first criticism of double periphrastic forms was recorded in Greaves’ (1594: 4) work – where they are branded as examples of ignorant (inscite) and impure (impure) linguistic practices – and that their process of social downgrading was on its way to completion by the end of the seventeenth century, i.e. before the appearance of prescriptive grammar (see (9) below): (9)

I think that few of our present Writers would have left behind them such a line as this, Contain your spirits in more stricter bounds But that gross way of two Comparatives was then, ordinary: and therefore more pardonable in Johnson (Dryden, Defense of the epilogue 1672, Bolton 1966: 62; emphasis added).


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In other words, it seems that the only role that eighteenth-century grammars had on the stigmatisation of double forms was that of mere reinforcement of a process (i.e. double comparatives as social class markers) that was well under way before the rise of prescriptive grammar. It is precisely because the grammars include a stricture against double periphrastic comparison that it is worth considering the comments that they made on the construction. Table 2 summarises this analysis. One should also note that it was only in the second half of the eighteenth century that the production of grammars underwent a noticeable increase (see Tieken-Boon van Ostade, this volume); this is the reason for the predominance of late eighteenth-century works in my compilation.4 Table 2. Double periphrastic comparatives in eighteenth-century grammars. Grammarian Greenwood Fisher Buchanan

Year of Comment on double periphrastic comparatives5 publication 1711 Is it good English to say more stronger …? No. 1750 is it good English to say more fairer …? No, you ought to say … 1753 Would it be good English to say more wiser …? No, we ought to say … 1756 it wou’d not be good English to say more wiser.

Compleat Letter Writer6 Bayly 1758 Buchanan 1762 Lowth 1762 Elphinston Burn

1765 1766

Newbery Priestley Carter Hodgson Smetham

1776 1768, 1772 1773 1770 1774

obvious redundancies of form Is it not bad English …? Yes, it is absurd The double superlative most highest is a Phrase peculiar to the Old Vulgar translation of the Psalms Pleonastic The adverbs more and most ought to never stand before an adjective compared by er Mistakes in forming the Degrees of Comparison a greater impropriety Is it good English to say …? No … Two comparatives as more braver are improper Two comparatives together is nonsense

With the exception of the grammar prefixed to Johnson’s Dictionary (1755), the grammars consulted for this period come from Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). 5 For the sake of clarity, the grammarians’ meta-linguistic (i.e. value) judgements on the double forms investigated will be put in bold type in all the tables presented in this paper. 6 The Compleat Letter Writer is a manual on how to write letters well. It includes a grammatical treatise, which is the work I have used here. 4

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Table 2. (continued) Grammarian

Year of Comment on double periphrastic comparatives publication

Bettesworth

1778

Egelsham

1780

Story Fell Murray (A.) Coote

1783 1784 1787 [2nd ed.] 1788

Brittain Bicknell

1788 1790

Pape

1790

Haywood

1793

Fogg

1792–96

Wright Coar

1794 1796

Murray (L.) Postlethwaite

1795 1795

Rhodes

1795

Ussher

1785

Fogg

1796

Gardiner

1799

Wright

1800?

A Comparative Adverb must not be set before a Quality compared by er or est There is not an error more common, among persons unacquainted with Grammar, than the using of Double Comparatives and Double Superlatives Two comparatives and superlatives are very improper such double [forms] … can add nothing to the sense Two comparatives, as more braver are improper These comparatives and superlatives are ungrammatical, as they doubly express the degree of comparison … a repetition that is absurd Double comparatives are vitious Are double comparisons ever made use of? Not with propriety. Is it good English or proper grammar to say more happier or most happiest? No; this would only be a repetition of the words more, or most, as more happier signifies, as much as to say, more more happy, … which is no addition to the sense but confuses and destroys it The word more is never used before the Comparative when the Comparative is formed by er It is a most disgusting fault to have two signs of the same degree two comparatives or superlatives are improper a double comparative or superlative is improper as more braver, more oftener after the most straitest sect Double comparatives … should be avoided Double Comparatives, or Superlatives, are ungrammatical Double comparatives, and superlatives, are very improper; and should not be used There is a great impropriety in a double comparative or double superlative The rule that forbids two signs of the same degree is a plain consequence from the simple principal of avoiding tautology Double comparatives and superlatives are very improper Two comparatives, as more braver … are improper


295

The survey presented in Table 2 above demonstrates that eighteenth-century grammars are, for the most part, consistent in their condemnation of double periphrastic comparatives. Exceptions are Priestley (1761),7 Ward (1765, 1767), Newbery (1770), Metcalfe (2nd ed. 1771) and The English Grammar (1781) – which do not mention these forms. There is, however, a slight change in the grammarians’ labelling of the criticisms as the century goes by. In the first half of the century, double forms are often branded as examples of “bad English”. Note that the wording of all criticisms is similar to that of Greenwood (1711), the difference being in the adjective that is used for exemplification, e.g. Greenwood uses “strong”, Fisher uses “fair” and Buchanan “wise” − which may indicate that the consistent use of the word bad could simply be a consequence of the adaptive practices of the period (cf. Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1996 on the development of the concept of plagiarism in English). Sundby et al. (1991: 40) observe that the word “improper” is “one of the basic terms used by eighteenth century grammarians”. A close look at the eighteenth-century grammars from the second half of the period confirms this claim: 32% of the grammarians’ comments after 1750 use the word “improper” or a lexically related term such as “impropriety”. Sundby et al. (1991: 40) also indicate that the semantic coverage of improper is rather wide, which the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines as 1. Not truly or strictly belonging to the thing under consideration; not in accordance with truth, fact, reason, or rule; abnormal, irregular; incorrect, inaccurate, erroneous, wrong. Formerly sometimes without implication of blame or censure, e.g. said of a meaning given to a word which is not the ‘proper’ or literal one, but metaphorical. 2. Not in accordance with the nature of the case or the purpose in view; unsuitable, unfit, inappropriate, ill-adapted (OED online, s.v. improper, a.).

Note, however, that alongside improper, other terms like ungrammatical, redundant (and its near-synonyms i.e. pleonastic, tautology, repetition) and absurd/nonsense appear in the grammars from the second part of the century. These terms may narrow down the interpretive possibilities of the grammarians’ criticisms of double periphrastic forms, in the sense that something that is “improper” is not necessarily “ungrammatical”, for, in general, they seem to apply to the same domain, i.e. that of grammar and its rules − which, in this period, seems to be ultimately governed by logic (note that a construction that is considered to “make no sense” is also “ungrammatical”). 7

Note, however, that double periphrastic constructions are discussed in the second edition of Priestley’s grammar published in 1768 and in the third edition (1772), where they are called “improprieties”. A similar case occurs with Newbery’s works.

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The other (much less frequent) terms used to criticise double periphrastic forms, “vitious” and a “disgusting fault”, seem to have a moral tinge attached to them: according to the OED, “vitious” refers to “the nature of vice, contrary to moral principles, depraved, bad” (OED, s.v. vitious, adj.) (see, however, the OED entry for “vicious” II 6a which specifically relates to language). A rather similar connection can be made with respect to “fault” (OED, s.v. fault, n.): “defect, imperfection, blamable quality … in a moral character (expressing a milder censure than vice)”. Furthermore, in connection to the labelling of words in dictionaries (which could also be applied to grammars), Card et al. (1984: 58) suggest that “the status of any linguistic form … involves a number of dimensions”. They distinguish nine main dimensions (which on some occasions may be interrelated): – “History” (e.g. like the term “archaic”), which refers to the development of the language – “Maturity … involving the life of a speech community” – “Association” (e.g. “slang”, “biology”), which involves “the technical language of a vocation or avocation” – “Relationship to the reader or hearer”, as they say, “this is one of the most troublesome scales to label” (e.g. “local”, “colloquial” or “informal”) – “Medium”, in relation to the differences between speech and writing on the scale of formality – “Attitude” in relation to “different attitudes on the part of the speaker or hearer or both” (e.g. labels like “vulgar”, “cruel”, “restricted”) – “Territory” in relation to territorial variations in the use of words, meanings, grammatical forms or pronunciations” (e.g. American English “conductors” as opposed to British English “guards”) – “Social position” in relation to “social differences” (e.g. “non-standard”) – “Responsibility”, which they classify as the “most difficult to measure” and the dimension that relates “to the classical one of conformity to the expectations that a particular situation creates” (e.g. “literary”). Applying Card et al.’s (1984) dimension analysis to double comparatives, one could perhaps suggest that, as for the main critical terms, the adjective “improper” is best placed within the “responsibility dimension” as being the category associated with “the conformity to the expectations that a particular situation creates”; whereas the terms “ungrammatical”, “tautology” and “repetition” are perhaps more clearly related to their “association dimension” (Card et al. 1984: 61).


3.

297

Double suppletive comparatives: worser and lesser

The forms worser and lesser are a LME development. According to the OED, the first example of lesser dates from 1459 and that of worser, from 1495; for examples, see (10) and (11): (10)

Item, ij. pillowes of lynen clothe of a lasser assyse. Ibid. 487 Item, ij. aundyrys, grete, of one sorte. Item, ij., lasse, of anothyr sorte. Item, iij. lesser aundiris (1459; Inv. in Paston Lett. I. 478).

(11)

More~thrumbles egges ben lyke to Geys egges but they ben lesser … and worser of smellynge (1495; Trevisa’s Barth. De P. R. XIX cvi. llviij/1).

3.1.

Worser

No instances of this double form were attested in my ME corpora. As for the EModE data, which produced 21 tokens, worser seems to be almost exclusively found in dramatic texts (see Table 3 and examples (12) and (13) below); the only exceptions are two instances from the works of William Prynne (Lampeter Corpus) in 1649. (12)

Earl of Gloucester You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me: Let not my worser spirit tempt me again To die before you please! (SHK.Lear, IV, vi).

(13)

Doctor

Secure in being innocent: but when In the remembrance of our worser actions We ever beare about us whips and furies (FLT/MASS, Custome, IV, i).

This could mean that this is a development from the spoken language (see also, in this connection, the high number of tokens of worser in the speech of Dickens’s characters discussed below). In terms of social distribution, the data features a greater social diversification of worser as compared to double periphrastic forms discussed in § 2: worser appears in the speech of the nobility (Lucio in Love’s Cure by Beaumont and Fletcher), middle-class citizens such as lawyers or doctors (e.g. a doctor in Fletcher’s and Massinger’s The Custome of the Countrey) and labourers and servants (e.g. a herdsman in The Silver Age). A full overview is provided in Table 3.

298


Table 3. Worser in EModE. Example Worser shape Worser match Worser sole Worser than it is Worser place Worser genius Worser than Tybalt’s death Worser part Worser spirit Worser hours Worser thoughts Worser to be trusted Worser suite Worser place Worser title Worser plague Worser actions Worser end Worser cause

Character Joan la Pucelle D. of Gloucester Launce Hortensio Helena Ferdinand

Play SHK.1H6 (V, iii) SHK.R3 (I, iii) SHK.TGV (II, ii) SHK.Shrew (I, ii) SHK.MND (II, I) SHK.Temp. (IV, I)

Date 1590 1591−1592 1593−1594 1590 1596 1611

Juliet

SHK.Rom (III, ii)

1694−1596

Hamlet E. of Gloucester Cordelia Charmian D. of Gloucester Rufford Elizabeth Lucio Herdsman Doctor Soldier Aminta

SHK.Hamlet (III, iv) 1601 SHK.Lear (IV, I) 1605−1606 SHK.Lear (IV, vii) 1605−1606 SHK.Anth. (I, ii) 1606−1608 HEY.2E4 (main) 1599 HEY.2E4 (main) 1599 HEY.Know1 (main) 1605 FLT/BEAU.Loves (V, i) 1606(?) HEY.SA (III) 1613 FLT/MASS.Custome (IV, i) 1619−1620 FLT/MASS. False (V, iii) 1619−1623 FLT/ROW. Maid (IV, iii) 1623

There are fewer examples of worser in the LModE corpora, i.e. six tokens, five of which appear in Charles Dickens’s works. See Table 4: Table 4. Worser in LModE. Example Worser nor ( = than) Even worser Worser than that Worser than that Worser guess than that There has been worser (ladies)

Character Mrs Mackin Ikey Joe Joe Mr Weller Mrs. Horrocks

Author/Work dick.boz dick.boz dick.pp dick.pp dick.pp thack.vf

Date 1836 1836 1836–1837 1836–1837 1836–1837 1847

Furthermore, as in the case of double periphrastic forms, all the instances of worser in this period come from the speech of individuals featuring marked non-standard practices, as may be illustrated by example (14) below. However, one should not forget that “linguistic realism is not attempted in literature” (Blake 1981: 14, cf. also Page 1973: 1, 3, Gilbert 1979: 6) and, therefore, that the use of worser (and the double comparatives in the works mentioned above) could perhaps be interpreted as a fictional convention closely related to the


299

fact that criticism of double forms kept being repeated in grammars.8 Another possibility would be to consider that the progressive decrease in frequency of worser and its subsequent social downgrading is a case of “change from below” (cf. Labov 1972) which was halted by the influence of eighteenth-century prescriptive grammars. (14)

3.1.1.

What do you think I see in this very arbour night?” inquired the boy (…) “The strange gentleman – him as had his arm hurt – a kissin’ and huggin’ –” “Who, Joe – who? None of the servants, I hope.” “Worser than that,” roared the fat boy, in the old lady’s ear. “Not one of my grand-da’aters?” “Worser than that.” “Worse than that Joe!” said the old lady, who had thought this the extreme limit of human atrocity (DICK.PP). Worser in eighteenth-century grammars

The following table summarises the eighteenth-century grammarians’ comments on worser. Note, in this connection, that Lowth (1762) is the first grammarian who explicitly condemns the use of worser, his predecessors either omitting the form or listing it by the side of worse. As in the case of the double periphrastic forms, no criticism of worser is found in a number of grammarians, among them, Fisher (1750), Bayly (1758), Priestley (1761), Buchanan (1762), Newbery (1770, 1776), Metcalfe (1771), Haywood (1793), Coar (1796), Murray (1795) and Rhodes (1795). Table 5. Comments on worser in eighteenth-century grammars. Grammarian Greenwood Compleat Letter Writer Lowth Elphinston Burn Ward Priestley

8

Year 1711 1756 1762 1765 1766 1767 1772 [3rd ed.]

Comment on worser bad, worse (and worser), worst bad, worse or worser worst barbarous pleonastic false syntax Pleonastic a mistake: worser instead of worse;

For instance, Chapman (1994: 44ff.) argues that there is evidence to suggest that some of the features that Dickens recorded as characteristic of Cockney English (i.e. [w]/[v] confusion) could have been obsolete at the time when Dickens was writing.

300


Table 5. (continued) Comment on worser

Grammarian

Year

Carter Hodgson Smetham Bettesworth Egelsham English Grammar

bad, worse, worst [found in exercises of bad grammar] bad, worse, worst bad, worse, worst there is no such word as worser Worser sounds much more barbarous, only because it has not been so frequently used 1783 [found in exercises of bad grammar] 1784 bad, worse, worst 1787 [found in exercises of bad grammar] 1788 ungrammatical 1788 worser [improperly used] for worse 1793 worser improperly instead of worse 1790 bad, worse, worst 1792−96 a most disgusting fault 1793 barbarous corruption 1794 bad, worse, worst 1795 should be avoided 1785 bad, worse, worst 1796 bad, worse, worst 1799 bad worse, worst 1800? bad, worse (not worser), worst

Story Fell Murray (A.) Coote Brittain Story Bicknell Fogg Hornsey Wright Postlethwaite Ussher Fogg Gardiner Wright

1773 1770 1774 1778 1780 1781

The distribution of worser across the periods under consideration, which is shown in Table 6, may at first sight support the connection between prescriptive grammars and the disappearance of worser. Table 6. Distribution of worser across the different periods, normalised/million words. Period ME EModE LModE PDE (BNC)

Tokens 0 [0.00] 21 [3.80] 6 [0.50] 2 [0.02]

Size of corpus 3,749,031 5,590,362 13,214,315 90,297,034

There are, however, some problems with this suggestion. First, despite the size of the corpus analysed, the number of examples of worser in LModE is too low to draw any well-founded conclusions. Secondly, even if we were to disregard this factor, one cannot but notice that the distribution of worser in the LModE


301

period, as represented in Table 7, is opposed to what one would expect had the grammars had an influence on its development: Table 7. Worser in LModE, normalised/million words. Period 1700−1800 1800−1900

Tokens 1 [0.2] 5 [0.6]

Size of corpus 5,309,677 7,904,638

The figures in this table show that worser seems to be − relatively! − more frequent in the nineteenth than in the eighteenth century, which suggests that there was no time-lag between the diffusion of the change and its representation in the written language (note, in this connection, that the analysis of the grammarians’ comments suggests that worser was accepted as a valid comparative form up to the second half of the eighteenth century). This leads to another interesting issue in relation to the process of stigmatisation of worser. I mentioned above that the first criticism on double periphrastic forms appears in Greaves’s grammar (1594). Interestingly, Greaves considers worser (and lesser) perfectly acceptable forms (see example (15) below); three decades later, Butler (1633) points at the impropriety of worser (see (16) below):9 (15)

Comparationis anomaliam habent sequentia. Good, better, best. Evil, vel ill, worser, worst. Sing. much, more. Plur. Many, moe, most. Little, lesser, lest. Vtimur autem plerumque worse, & lesse, pro comparativis worser, & lesser (Greaves 1594: 11; emphasis added) The following (forms) possess anomaly of comparison [i.e. defective comparison]. Good, better, best. Evil, or ill, worser, worst. Singular much, more. Plural: many, more, most; little, lesser, lest. The forms worse and less are also generally used instead of the comparatives worser and lesser [my translation].

(16)

Worser & lesser ar not comparativ’s but superfluous comparativ’s of comparativ’s: which soom ignorantly us’ for wors and less: even as dei say unloos “dat is tyed” (Butler 1633: 37; emphasis added).

Did Butler’s criticism set in motion the social downgrading of worser? This suggestion does not seem very likely, for, as Table 5 suggests, early eighteenth9 Note that Butler’s (1633) comment coincides with the period in which the double periphrastic comparatives started to disappear from the written language.

302


century grammarians still considered worser acceptable. As noted above, this could indicate that prescriptive grammarians may have had an influence on the change − though note yet again that the distribution of the data does not support this hypothesis. Furthermore, the fact that many eighteenth-century grammarians (see Table 5) did not mention worser in their comments does not directly imply that they condemned its use. Put differently, more data is needed in order to reach a sound conclusion on the extent of the influence of prescriptive grammars on the history of worser. It is nevertheless instructive to consider the nature of the grammarians’ criticisms on this comparative form. I commented above on the use of the terms “improper”, “pleonastic” and “ungrammatical” in connection to double periphrastic comparatives. These labels are also applied to worser (and, as we will see below, to lesser); however, by their side, the terms “vulgar”, “corruption” and “barbarous” are attested. The latter two seem to be most frequent − possibly because these are the terms that Samuel Johnson used to criticise these suppletive forms. The semantics of these two terms are interesting: an analysis of the collocational patterns of the criticisms listed above (e.g. “improper”, “ungrammatical”, “absurd” and “redundant”) in the British part of the ARCHER corpus indicates that “corrupt” and “barbarous” are the only labels that can be applied to describe human attributes during the eighteenth century (cf. the OED definitions) − and hence, the terms that can lend themselves most easily to associations with moral value judgments.10 (Also note that, in terms of Card et al.’s (1984: 64) system, “barbarous” and “corrupt” (as well as “vulgar”) would in all probability be best couched within the “Attitude” dimension; see § 2 above).

3.2.

Lesser

Worser was, at all times, a variant of worse. Slightly different is the case of lesser with respect to less. Less initially means “of not so great size, extent or degree, of smaller number or of lower rank or importance” (OED, s.v. less). The original meaning of lesser was rather similar, i.e. “of not so great size, 10

As Crowley (1989) points out, issues of linguistic purism have a social evaluative dimension: the individuals who use “proscribed variants” are branded as socially inferior (Crowley 1989: 152, cf. also Stein 1994: 10). In the LModE period, these linguistic and social considerations are further clustered around moral issues: as Blake (1996: 238) notes, only those who spoke in a “correct” way could be trusted to lead their life according to a strict moral code.


303

extent or degree” (lesser, adj. and adv, 1a.), although the OED also admits the meaning of “a smaller number” which originates from the OE adverbial construction læs “with a partitive genitive … that is frequently found but generally regarded as incorrect”. As Jespersen (1933: 221) observes, a differentiation between less and lesser took place, in the sense that lesser became a separate lexeme preferred for the meanings of “minor size, value or importance” and was used chiefly attributively (see OED, s.v. lesser) while less was preferred for the meaning of “minor quantity or amount” and could occur both attributively and predicatively.11 With respect to its distribution across different text types, it turns out that lesser is more widespread than either worser or the double periphrastic comparative in the EModE period. See Tables 8 and 9. Table 8. Lesser in EModE corpora. Text type Scientific12 Drama Legal Miscellaneous Economic Political Letters Medical Sermon Philosophical Fiction Bible Education Travelogue Total

Tokens 74 (47.8%) 41 (26.6%) 11 (7.1%) 6 (3.9%) 6 (3.9%) 5 (3.2%) 3 (1.9%) 2 (1.3%) 2 (1.3%) 1 (0.6%) 1 (0.6%) 1 (0.6%) 1 (0.6%) 1 (0.6%) 155 (100%)

The distributional differences between lesser and the other double forms are more noticeable in the Late Modern English period, though, that is, when 11

12

Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2006b) points to an interesting case of hypercorrection between less and lesser in one of Lowth’s letter to his publisher, i.e. “the Appendix I suppose you will print on a less Letter”. She suggests that lesser was, at the time, a social shibboleth, with less becoming some kind of avoidance strategy which did not catch on. The occurrence of technical terms like lesser circle and lesser square (14 examples), explains the high frequency of lesser in EModE scientific environments (cf. the OED entry for lesser, adj. 2a−d).

304


lesser is recorded in environments other than fictive non-standard speech (see Table 9 below): Table 9. Lesser in LModE corpora. Text types Economic Legal Scientific Miscellaneous Political Newspapers Fiction Drama Total

Tokens 1 (1.5%) 1 (1.5%) 15 (23%) 1 (1.5%) 1 (1.5%) 12 (19%) 23 (35%) 11 (17%) 65 (100%)

Furthermore, fiction is precisely the text-type in which the distribution of lesser deserves closest attention, for it gives a very good indication of the different status of lesser as compared to worser in the period, as is illustrated by Table 10: Table 10. Lesser in LModE fiction. Example Lesser part Lesser heap Lesser loaves Lesser actions Lesser sins Lesser stars Lesser duties Lesser evil than Lesser matter Lesser occasions Lesser recollections Lesser importance Lesser rib Lesser roadside Lesser deaths Lesser star Lesser flame Lesser importance Lesser theatrical lights Lesser fry Lesser importance Lesser grindstone Lesser question

Character R. Crusoe R. Crusoe A. Newport A.Newport Jack Gulliver Marianne Ashwood Narrator Narrator Narrator D. Copperfield Narrator Narrator Narrator Narrator Narrator Narrator Narrator Narrator Narrator Narrator Narrator Narrator

Work/Author DEF.FRC DEF.RC DEF.Cavalier DEF.Cavalier DEF.Jack SWF.GT AUST.SS AUST.SS AUST.Mansf. AUST.Pers. DICK.DC DICK. Cont. DICK.Dombey DICK.Holly DICK.LD DICK.LD DICK.LD DICK.Mudf. DICK.NN DICK.OCS DICK.Boz DICK TTC DICK.UT


305

Lesser appears in authors or works in which no tokens of worser were found, i.e. in Defoe (5), Swift (1) and Austen (4). According to Blake (1981: 108, 113, 144), the works of these three authors clearly reflect an interest in the use of language as a social shibboleth. In addition, 13 of the 23 fictional instances were found in the works of Charles Dickens. The distribution of worser/lesser in Dickens’s works seems to correlate closely with remarks made by Blake (1981: 114) and Adamson (1998: 603) on the literary practices of the prose writers of period. These scholars observe that LModE writers had a conventionalised way of representing different speech registers: the main character and the narrator were represented as using Standard English, whereas non-standard language was usually restricted to the minor characters.13 Applying this idea to the Dickens examples listed above, one will observe that, while LModE worser appeared in the non-standard speech of lower-class characters (see Table 5), virtually all my lesser examples (with the single exception in the speech of David Copperfield, the main character of the novel by that name) are attested in the voice of the narrator. More quantitative and qualitative analysis of data is needed in order to provide further support to the suggestions made here; yet the investigation carried out in this section seems to suggest that, by Dickens’s time, lesser was established, or was on its way to being established, as part of standard English. 3.2.2.

Lesser in eighteenth-century grammars

Table 11 summarises the distribution of lesser over the different periods analysed: Table 11. Distribution of lesser across periods, normalised/million words. Period ME EModE LModE PDE (BNC)

13

Tokens 4 [1.1] 155 [27.7] 65 [4.9] 1765 [19.9]

Size of corpus 3,749,031 5,590,362 13,214,315 90,297,034

The kind of non-standard language often portrayed in the literary works of the period, and especially in the eighteenth century, was “provincial dialects, the language of foreigners and professional language” (Blake 1981: 114). Note, however, that the term “dialectal language” must be understood in a broad sense, i.e. as features that are perceived as pertaining to non-standard domains but which cannot be classified as characteristic of a specific region (cf. Blake 1981: 117, 119).

306


Although some tokens are found already in ME, EModE is the period in which lesser is most frequent. The LModE period reflects a noticeable drop in the use of the form, which is followed by an upward tendency in present-day English. To date, I have not found any linguistic explanation for the drop of lesser in LModE. One could perhaps suggest that the semantic differentiation between less and lesser mentioned above meant a restriction in the usage domain of lesser; yet, as noted in § 3, this differentiation seems to have taken place very early in the history of this comparative form − which reduces the chance of a knock-on effect on the frequency of the form in subsequent periods. In other words: as it stands, the decrease in the use of lesser could well be the result of the eighteenth-century grammarians’ prescriptions (in this connection, note Lowth’s hypercorrect use of less discussed by Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006b). This possibility grows stronger if we consider the distribution of lesser in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries separately, for which see Table 12: Table 12. Distribution of lesser in LModE, normalised/million words. Period 1700−1800 1800−1900

Tokens 42 [7.9] 23 [2.9]

Size of corpus 5,309,677 7,904,638

The following table summarises the comments of eighteenth-century grammarians on lesser. As in the case of the double periphrastic comparatives and worser, a number of grammarians do not make mention of lesser (Compleat Letter Writer Anon. 1756, Lowth 1762, Ward 1767, Priestley 1772 [3rd ed.], Metcalfe 1771, Hodgson 1770, Smetham 1774, Story 1783, Brittain 1788, Pape 1790, Wright 1794, Coar 1796, Fogg 1796, Wright 1800?). Table 13. Comments on lesser in eighteenth-century grammars. Grammarian Greenwood Fisher Buchanan Johnson Bayly 14

Year 1711 1750 1753 1755 1758

Comment on lesser little, less (and lesser), lest little, less/lesser, least little, less or lesser, least A barbarous corruption of less14 little, less or lesser, least

It is interesting to note the differences in wording between worser and lesser in Johnson’s dictionary entries. Lesser is described as a corruption “formed by the vulgar from the habit of terminating comparatives in er” which was “afterwards adopted by poets, and then by writers of prose”. By contrast, Johnson simply states


307

Table 13. (continued) Grammarian Buchanan Lowth Elphinston Burn Priestley Newbery Carter Smetham Newbery Bettesworth Egelsham English Grammar Story Fell Ussher Murray (A.) Coote Bicknell Fogg Hornsey Murray (L.) Postlethwaite

Rhodes

Comment on lesser sounds less barbarous because of frequent use Lesser … is a barbarous corruption of less pleonastic pleonastic although condemned by Mr. Johnson and other English grammarians, is often used by good writers 1770 little, less/lesser, least 1773 little, less, least 1774 little, less, least 1776 mistake: lesser, instead of less 1778 little, less, least 1780 though lesser have the authority of Dr. Swift and Mr. Addison in its favour, it is condemned by Dr. Johnson, and is now entirely disused 1781 lesser, says Mr. Johnson, is a barbarous corruption of less formed by the vulgar habit of terminating comparisons in er 1783 lesser, is sometimes improperly used instead of less 1784 the comparative here is as ungrammatical as worser, though Ben Johnson seems inclined to justify these duplications of comparison 1785 little, lesser or less, least. Lesser is so frequently used by our best writers that grammarians can hardly venture to condemn the use of it particularly in poetry 1787 [found in exercises of bad grammar] 1788 ungrammatical 1790 little, less, least 1792–96 a most disgusting fault (but see p. 248: “the lesser accidents”) 1793 barbarous corruption 1795 should be avoided 1795 lesser is, no Doubt, ungrammatical; and worser seems less proper still; though only because we have not so frequently met with it, otherwise it would no more offend our Ears than lesser, for they are alike double Comparatives 1795 little, less, least (but cf. on p. 91: negligent of lesser graces)

Year 1762 1762 1765 1765 1768

that worser is “a barbarous word, formed by corrupting worse with the usual comparative termination”. Furthermore, whereas in the first edition of the Dictionary there is an entry for both worser and lesser; in the 1755−1756 edition the entry for worser has disappeared.

308


Table 13. (continued) Grammarian Gardiner Wright

Year 1799 1800

Comment on lesser little, less, least little, less not lesser, least

Early eighteenth-century grammarians seem to consider lesser an alternative form to less. Also, as in the case of worser, direct or indirect rejection of the form seems to be a prevalent tendency during the second half of the eighteenth century (note also the similarities of the proscriptive labels with those found for worser). The picture that emerges from the analysis of these criticisms is, however, less homogeneous than in the case of worser. Following Johnson’s Dictionary, Lowth (1762: 43) condemns the use of lesser as a “barbarous corruption of less”. However, he admits that lesser sounds less barbarous than worser because it has been frequently used (cf. also English Grammar 1781, Postlethwaite 1795). Twenty years later, Egelsham (1780: 12) suggests that lesser “is nowadays entirely disused” (but compare Egelsham’s comment to Ussher’s 1785). Other interesting examples of grammatical comments are those by Priestley (1772, 3rd ed.), Wilson (1792: 58) and Ussher (1785). Priestley (1761) reports on previous criticisms of the form, though without condemning it. He even admits its validity in the 1761 edition, but nevertheless adds the stricture in the subsequent editions of his grammar (cf. Hodson, this volume). By contrast, Wilson (1792: 58) comments on the “impropriety” of lesser, yet he suggests that grammarians “might … adopt the Expression” as it is frequently used by geometricians. Also, because of its frequency in the works of “the best writers”, Ussher (1785) claims that “grammarians can hardly venture to condemn” lesser. Finally, I would like to mention Brittain (1788), who is, to the best of my knowledge, the first grammarian to recognise a functional differentiation (as opposed to the semantic distinction drawn above) between less and lesser when he comments that “lesser is sometimes in a manner necessary, to distinguish this adjective from the adverb less” (Brittain 1788: 32). The lack of consensus on the status of lesser is also reflected in the works of individual authors. Buchanan (1753, 1762) and Newbery (1770, 1776) change their views on lesser in the course of the publication of their grammars: while accepting lesser (or, at least, not criticising it) in earlier editions of their respective works (Newbery 1770?, Buchanan 1762), they later condemn it (Newbery 1776, Buchanan 2nd ed. 1768).


4.

309

Conclusion

The results of my analysis suggest that double comparatives do not constitute a homogeneous group of structures with a single evolutionary pathway. The social downgrading of worser seems to have started later than that of double periphrastic comparatives; by contrast, lesser, although it was criticised by a number eighteenth-century authors, appears to have gradually established itself in the standard by the end of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, whereas previous research played down the influence of prescriptivism on the development of double periphrastic comparatives, the results of the present analyses indicate that prescriptive grammars may indeed have had an effect on the development of the double suppletive forms worser and lesser, or, at least, on the evolution of lesser. What are the reasons that may account for these evolutionary differences? In relation to the chronological mismatch concerning the grammarians’ criticisms on double periphrastic forms vs. worser/lesser, one should not forget that worser and lesser are morphologically more similar to any simple inflectional comparative form (e.g. better, lovelier) than their etymological counterparts worse and less. In other words, issues of morphological transparency may have had an influence on the speakers’ perception of the forms, in the sense that worser and lesser may well have been taken for simple inflectional comparatives (note the comments by Egelsham 1780), which, in its turn, may have had an impact on their social acceptance across time. As for the survival of lesser, one may confidently argue that, whereas worser was at all times considered a variant of worse (and hence was eventually deemed redundant), lesser acquired a differential linguistic value from that of less. This must have guaranteed its lexicalisation in the language despite the LModE grammarians’ condemnation of the form. Furthermore, an interesting question that cannot be addressed here – but which deserves further scrutiny – is the reason why prescriptive grammarians condemned the use of double comparative forms when the stricture, as the data from the EModE period onwards suggests, was no longer an issue among educated speakers. In this connection, Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2006d) finds a parallel case in the condemnation of double negation: when grammarians condemned the form, hardly any educated speakers used double negation during the eighteenth century (cf. Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1982). One possible suggestion would be that different developments may have been going on at the time in the spoken and the written language and that the grammarians were attempting to avoid the spread of these etymologically incorrect variants into the written language. In addition, in a number of cases (e.g. Priestley, Newbery,

310


Egelsham), it seems as if some grammarians became “fiercer” in their criticisms of the double comparatives with the passage of time (cf. Yáñez-Bouza, this volume). Although there is no time and space to discuss this here (see González-Díaz 2003), this seems to oppose the trend of the late nineteenth century, when, in contrast to their predecessors, grammarians like Morris (1872: 163), Mason (1886: 46) and West (1897: 112) no longer censure the use of double forms but simply describe them as characteristic features of earlier stages of the language. On a more general level, this paper further confirms the claims put forward in previous research (cf. Auer and González-Díaz 2005) in relation to the need for a careful corpus-based reassessment of the impact of prescriptivism on processes of language change. In addition, it brings to the fore other issues for further research. First, the results show that eighteenth-century grammarians did not have a homogeneous influence on the development of double comparative forms. Taking this into consideration, one may also wonder about their impact on the development of the double superlative strategy (e.g. most kindest). Secondly, the present analysis has brought to light some differences between double comparative forms in terms of the labels that prescriptive grammarians used to condemn them. Sundby et al. (1991: 16–17) discarded this method of analysis for their dictionary on the grounds that it “would lead to arbitrary decisions”. While this may be true when many and very different types of structures are considered, one may suggest that, at a very local level of analysis (as represented in this study), there may be some mileage in a corpus-based stylistic analysis of the technical terms used by the grammarians: the fact that eighteenth-century grammarians chose slightly different epithets to reprobate the use of closely related types of construction (i.e. different double comparative structures) makes one suspect that the perception of these forms at the time may have been slightly different.

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Index

A., M. (fl. 1785) (grammarian) 234 Academy declaration against an English 4−5, 34, 179−180 English 4, 5, 133, 142 French 4, 132 functions of an 4, 10, 19 Italian 4 Spanish 4 accomplishments, teaching female 198, 200, 201, 202, 204 Adam, Alexander (1741−1809) (grammarian) 39 Addison, Joseph (1672–1719) (writer) 4, 39, 43n Alderson, James (fl. 1795) (grammarian) 258 analytic comparison: see Grammatical strictures, comparison of adjectives and adverbs Anne, Queen (1665–1714) death of 4 Statute of 91, 150 Arden, Jane: see Gardiner, Jane Arnauld, Antoine: see Port Royal, grammar of Ash, John (1724–1779) (grammarian) 135, 228 Ash’s grammar (1760) 10, 11, 60, 61, 65, 106, 107, 108, 121, 122, 123, 231, 232, 241, 282, 283, 284 copyright of 123 influence of 9, 200, 230, 231, 232, 233, 236 popularity of 9, 108, 124, 229 translated into German 108 auction catalogues 58, 63, 67, 74 audience 2, 9, 10−11, 14, 40, 61, 83, 85−86, 115, 126, 134, 135, 136, 145, 275, 276n; see also Priestley’s grammar, audience of

children 11, 14, 87, 91, 96, 229 learners of English 91 royal children 226, 227 upwardly mobile 14, 43, 45, 46, 121, 191, 287 women 14, 87, 146, 165, 286 authorship: see Bellum Grammaticale; Ann Fisher, authorship Bailey, Nathaniel (d. 1742) (grammarian) 158n, 161n, 165, 254, 266 Baker, Robert (fl. 1766?−1779) (grammarian) 5, 14, 17, 19, 126, 138, 140 Barbauld, Anna Letitia (1743−1825) (schoolmistress) 194, 227 Barker, Isaac (fl. 1733) (grammarian) 4, 268 Bayly, Anselm (1718/19−1794) (grammarian) 18, 42, 71, 98n, 100, 128, 129, 136, 261, 270, 274, 282, 283, 285, 293, 299, 306 Beattie, James (1735–1803) (grammarian) 232, 235, 257 Becket, T. (fl. 1768–1769) (bookseller/ publisher) 111 Bell, John (1745–1831) (bookseller) 70, 71 Bell, John (fl. 1769) (grammarian) 65, 74, 106 Bellum Grammaticale 80−100 Bent, William (1747−1823) (bookseller) 59−62 Bettesworth, John (fl. 1778) (grammarian) 294, 300, 307 Bickerstaff, Isaac (pseud. of Swift and later, Steele) 84, 96 Bicknell, Alexander (d. 1796) (grammarian) 163n, 263, 264, 269, 294, 300, 307 Binns, John (bookseller/grammarian) 65−66, 74, 111−112, 114, 115, 122 Blair, Hugh (1718–1800) (writer on rhetoric) 254, 270, 272, 273

350

Index

Bliss, Robert (fl. 1785) (bookseller) 71n book auctions 14, 58, 67−69 book catalogues 18, 57−75 book review periodicals 125−142 booksellers 13, 22, 23, 43, 44n, 48, 51, 57−69, 74, 80, 99, 101−124, 146, 152−154, 169, 170, 225, 238; see also individual booksellers booksellers’ catalogues 13, 112, 115, 125 book trade 62−63, 110, 142 provincial 64 Boyer, Abel (1667?–1729) (grammarian) 232 Brightland, John (d. 1717) (grammarian) 81, 83, 90, 91, 94, 95–97, 99 Brightland’s grammar (1711) 41, 60, 66, 70, 74, 81–100, 129, 281, 282 Bristol Library Society 70, 71, 72 Brittain, Lewis (fl. 1788) (grammarian) 264 Browne, Richard (fl. 1700) (grammarian) 282, 283, 284, 285 Buchanan, James (fl. 1753–1773) (grammarian) 60, 70, 129, 131–132, 133, 134, 138, 139 Buchanan’s grammars (1762, 1767) 60, 61, 65, 71, 106, 107, 110, 138, 141, 161n, 163n, 164, 259, 260, 264, 282, 283, 286, 293, 295, 299, 306, 308 Bullen, Henry St. John (fl. 1797–1799) (grammarian) 223, 224, 225, 236–239, 257, 258, 261 Burn, John (fl. 1766) (grammarian) 6, 106, 293, 299, 307 Butler, Charles (1560–1647) (grammarian) 2, 301 Cadell, Thomas (1742–1802) (bookseller) 110, 111, 112 Cadell, Thomas, Junior (1773–1836) (bookseller) 112, 113 catalogues: see Auction catalogues; Book catalogues; Booksellers’ catalogues; Library catalogues; Sale catalogues; see also Circulating Libraries

Campbell, George (1719–1796) (writer on rhetoric) 31, 266, 270–271 Carter, John ( fl. 1773) (grammarian) 6, 65, 66, 70, 74, 262, 268, 293, 300, 307 Cater, R. (fl. 1789–1797) (publisher) 122–123 change from below 299 Circulating libraries 5, 17, 69–72, 73 Bathoe, William 71 Bliss, Robert 71 Bristol Library Society 70, 71, 72 Fisher, R. 70 Lane, William (1745/6−1814) 70, 71 Lowndes, Thomas (fl. 1758?) 70, 71 Manchester 70 Minerva 70, 71 Ogilvy, David & Son 71n Palmer & Merrick’s 70 Yearsley, Ann 71n Clarke, J. (bookseller) 109, 153 Clarke, John (1687−1734) (grammarian) 163, 165, 232 Clarke, John of Grantham ( fl. 1791) (grammarian) 268 Coar, Thomas (fl. 1796) (grammarian) 257, 264, 273, 294, 299, 306 codification 1, 7, 10, 19, 43, 46, 80, 104, 124, 126, 130, 131, 132 Collyer, John (fl. 1735) (grammarian) 282, 283 community of practice (CofP) 11, 37−56, 237 comparatives: see Grammatical strictures; Usage problems Compleat Letter Writer, The 293, 299, 306 Cooper, Christopher (1655?–1698), (grammarian) 2, 8 Coote, Charles (1760–1835) (grammarian) 29–30 copying, unacknowledged: see Plagiarism copyright 62, 72, 122, 123; see also Ash’s grammar; Fenn’s grammar; Fisher’s grammar; Lowth’s grammar

Index Copyright Act 1710 63, 66, 73, 86, 91, 107, 122, 150; see also Queen Anne, Statute of 1814 74 Corbet, James (fl. 1743) (grammarian) 4 Corbet, John (fl. 1784) (grammarian) 161n Critical Review: see Periodicals Crocker, Abraham (fl. 1772) (grammarian) 6, 70, 71, 135 curriculum school 24, 49, 131, 169, 218–219 university 24, 25 see also Logic; Moral philosophy; Rhetoric Dearborn, Benjamin (fl. 1795) (grammarian) 256, 272, 273, 274 Defoe, Daniel (1660?–1731) (writer) 4 descriptive approach 33, 92, 103, 145, 210, 247, 256, 263; see also Prescriptive approach Devis, Ellin (1746−1820) (grammarian) 9, 13, 135, 165n, 166n, 191, 196, 198–205, 206, 207, 211, 220, 228, 233, 258, 259n Dickens, Charles (1812–1870) (novelist) 297, 298, 299n, 305 dictionaries 1, 4, 17, 43, 44, 50, 59, 60, 63, 110, 123, 127, 128, 131, 137, 180, 218, 248, 254, 275, 277, 296; see also Johnson’s Dictionary; Thomas Dyche; John Entick; Daniel Fenning; Ann Fisher; William Johnston; William Kenrick didactic instruction 25, 40, 41, 51, 61, 131, 132, 137, 166, 173, 192, 195, 196, 205, 214, 215 Dilly, Edward (1732–1779), and Charles (1739–1807) (booksellers) 108, 110, 121, 122 Dilworth, Thomas (d. 1780) (grammarian) 163n discourse community 11, 19, 29–31, 36, 37–56, 80, 82, 95–97, 255, 262, 277

351

Dodsley, James (1724–1797) (bookseller) 3, 52, 102, 103, 110, 111, 112, 113, 118, 120, 122 Dodsley, Robert (1704–1764) (bookseller) 3, 6, 12, 18, 19, 48, 49, 50, 52; 79, 80, 102–103, 110, 112, 116, 120, 121, 122, 123, 130, 134 double comparatives, superlatives: see Usage problems Downing, M. (fl. 1745–1752) (bookseller) 109, 153 Dryden, John (1631−1700) (writer) 4, 251, 265 Duncan, Daniel (fl. 1731) (grammarian) 4, 282, 283 Dyche, Thomas (d. ca. 1733) (grammarian) 4, 63, 160, 161, 164, 171 Edgeworth, Maria (1768−1849) (educationist) 199, 203, 204, 254 editions duodecimo 62, 101, 102, 112, 115, 117, 119, 121, 237 octavo 62, 101, 102, 103, 112, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121 vs. reprints: see Grammars, editions vs. reprints sextodecimo 115, 117, 237 editions, numbering of 85, 102, 103, 113, 114, 116, 119, 120, 225 education of women 86, 146, 165, 173− 174, 191−221, 242, 286 educational games 195, 205−208, 215, 227 Edwards, Mrs. M. C. (fl. 1796) (grammarian) 13, 191, 210−212, 220 Edwards, Samuel (fl. 1765) (grammarian) 106 Egelsham, Wells (fl. 1780) (grammarian) 234, 294, 300, 307, 308, 309, 310 Elphinston, James (1721−1809) (grammarian) 30, 60, 70, 106, 107, 133, 139, 263, 270, 293, 299, 307 enallage 268–269 Enfield, William (1741−1797) (reviewer) 136, 165, 193n, 199, 204

352

Index

English as a preparation for Latin 81, 86; see also Latin English vs. Latinate terminology 9, 145; see also Grammatical terminology Entick, John (ca. 1703−1773) (grammarian/lexicographer) 4, 133, 163 Eton, grammars used at 60, 61, 232 etymology: see Morphology Eves, Mrs. (fl. 1800−1809) (grammarian) 13, 45n, 191, 205−210, 211, 215, 220, 233 examples grammatical 84, 94, 103, 109, 159, 161, 168, 184−185, 192, 195, 197, 201, 203, 204–205, 206, 207, 209, 210, 216, 218, 220−221, 229, 230, 231, 239, 240, 268, 269, 271, 272; see also Exercises of bad/false English literary 200, 201, 213, 220, 257, 258 moral 156, 196, 197, 200, 201, 203, 209, 220, 302 religious 196, 197 exercises of bad/false English 65, 162, 164, 166, 167, 172, 260, 265, 299, 300, 307; see also Fisher’s grammar Farro(e), Daniel (fl. 1754−1775) (grammarian) 70, 71, 136, 268 Fell, John (1735−1797) (grammarian) 31, 261, 263, 266, 269, 271, 272, 282, 283, 294, 300, 307 female grammarians: see Grammarians, female Fenn, Ellenor (1744−1813) (grammarian) 13, 50n, 135, 146, 147, 192, 197, 204, 205, 208, 223−243, 264 pseudonyms (Mrs. Lovechild, Mrs. Teachwell) 223, 224, 225, 226, 231, 238, 239 Fenn’s grammars 13, 50, 135, 223−243, 264 anonymously published 13, 238 copyright 122, 242 influenced by 146, 227−239, 242, 243 originality 191, 239−242 relationship with Lowth’s grammar 135

Fenning, Daniel (1714/15−1767) (grammarian) 25, 26, 28, 32, 34, 35, 59, 116, 134, 135, 240, 158 credentials 28 Fenning’s grammar 65, 127, 134, 135, 164, 262, 282, 283 Finch, Lady Charlotte (1725−1813) (Royal Governess) 226, 227 Fisher, Ann (1719−1778) 9, 30, 42, 49, 55, 135, 145, 146 authorship 146, 149−176 pedagogy 31, 146, 172, 173 Fisher’s grammar ([1745] 1750) 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 49, 60, 61, 65, 66, 74, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 121, 122, 149−176, 197, 268− 269, 281, 282, 283, 293, 295, 299, 306 anonymously published 13, 149, 154 copyright of 122−123, 161−162, 176 exercises of bad English in 9, 30, 146, 162, 163−164, 166, 167, 172, 276 influence of 8, 9, 10, 11, 42n, 129, 146, 165, 191 popularity of 59, 107, 111, 116, 123, 129 Fisher, Daniel (1718−1799) (educational writer) 146, 139, 149−176 Fleming, Caleb (1698−1779) (grammarian) 106, 135, 139, 264 Fogg, Peter Walkden ( fl. 1792−1796) (grammarian) 10, 164, 264, 294, 300, 306, 307 footnotes in grammars: 11, 87, 98, 186, 187, 258; see also Lowth’s grammar, footnotes Fowler’s Modern English Usage 8, 252 French teaching of 131, 177, 194, 195, 204, 209, 224 see also Grammars, French model; Academy, French games: see Educational games; Teaching methodology Gardiner, Jane (1758−1840) (grammarian) 13, 191, 192−198, 199, 210n, 220, 262, 274, 276n, 294, 300, 308

Index gender, grammatical 208, 233 Gentleman’s Magazine, The: see Periodicals Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757−1806) 241 Gildon, Charles (ca. 1665–1724) (grammarian) 81−100, 129; see also Brightland’s grammar Gough, James (fl. 1754) (grammarian) 6, 106, 107, 108, 282, 283, 284 Gough, Richard (1735–1809) (antiquarian) 57, 63 Gowers’s Plain Words 8 grammar didactic 92 normative 248, 251, 252, 253n; see also Grammarians, normative; Grammars, normative philosophical 29, 30, 87, 90, 92, 93, 96n, 97, 98, 99, 204, 254, 276, 277 practical 6, 10, 49, 61, 85, 87, 88, 98, 100, 109, 135, 281; see also Fisher’s grammar; James Gough; James Greenwood rational 82, 86, 87, 89, 92, 96n, 98, 99, 100, 136 speculative 109, 135 teaching: see Grammarians, teachers universal 29–30, 32, 34, 35, 53, 90, 136, 177; see also James Beattie; Joseph Priestley see also Prescriptive grammar; Proscriptive approach to grammar grammarians as language experts 3, 5, 12, 17, 18, 21, 52, 145, 192 as usage experts 12, 18, 21, 36 clergymen 22, 23, 63 credentials of 23–28, 35 female 11, 13, 192; see also Ellin Devis; Mrs. M.C. Edwards; Mrs. Eves; Ellenor Fenn; Ann Fisher; Jane Gardiner; Blanch Mercy; Mrs. Taylor normative 103, 247, 249, 264, 277, 281, 288n, 289–310; see also Grammar, normative

353

reforming 155, 168, 175 reputation of 28, 32, 33, 134, 220 schoolmasters as 22, 23, 25–26, 40; see also Anna Letitia Barbauld; John Binns; Daniel Fenning; Daniel Fisher; Grammarians, female; Samuel Johnson; Benjamin Rhodes teachers as 25, 32, 50–51, 130, 131, 170, 172, 174; see also Grammarians, female; Mothers as teachers of grammar; Prescriptive grammarians; Pseudonym, publishing under see also individual grammarians grammars advertised 115, 122, 149, 150, 152−154, 160, 164, 165, 169−170, 175, 224n, 225 anonymous publication of 3, 11, 13, 254; see also Bellum Grammaticale; Lowth’s grammar; Fisher’s grammar; Fenn’s grammars approach taken in: see Descriptive approach; Grammar, normative; Grammarians, normative; Prescriptive approach; Proscriptive approach audience of: see Audience battle for the market for 12, 81−100, 101−124 corpus-based 18; see also James White dissemination of 57, 58, 68, 74 division into four parts of: see Orthography; Morphology; Syntax; Prosody edition statements: see Editions vs. reprints 48, 101−102, 108, 116 empirical 18; see also Grammars, approach taken in format of: see Editions French model of 194, 195, 206 influence of 13, 49, 57, 58, 72, 74, 90, 248, 252, 255, 263, 289, 299, 301, 309−310; see also Ash’s grammar; Fisher’s grammar; Greenwood’s

354

Index

grammars; Johnson’s Dictionary; Lowth’s grammar; Murray’s grammar; Wallis’s grammar Latin model of 7, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 51, 139, 145, 155, 166, 171, 172, 175, 183, 188, 191, 194, 213, 248, 265−266, 274 market for 12, 14, 22, 36, 48, 49, 50, 79−142, 166n, 181, 203 normative 1, 7, 12, 59, 256, 289; see also Grammar, normative; Grammarians, normative; Grammatical strictures pedagogical notions in 9, 10, 36, 172, 181, 182, 183, 189, 215; see also Fisher’s grammar; Priestley’s grammar; Teaching methodology price of 60, 64, 65, 111, 115, 154, 161 print-runs of 102, 116, 118, 120, 121, 123 production in 19th century of 6, 49, 104–105, 192, 310; see also Murray’s grammar production of, increase in 1, 3–4, 8–10, 72, 79, 104–106, 115, 121, 123, 287, 293 production of, peak in 3, 6, 12, 79, 81 publication history of 49, 58, 99, 101, 104, 108n, 112−121, 123 question-and-answer method used in 91, 136, 179, 182, 183, 185, 186, 211, 262 readership of: see Audience reception of 3, 9, 79−142 reputation of 33 set up of: see Grammars, division into four parts sizes of: see Editions as specialist studies 18, 59, 71, 72, 98 grammars published in America 13, 114, 227 London 4, 12, 49, 62, 65, 74−75, 106, 108, 109, 123, 146, 226; see also Fisher’s grammar Newcastle 42, 49, 107, 109, 146; see also Fisher’s grammar

the provinces 4, 12, 13, 65, 74−75, 106, 107, 108, 109, 122 see also Pirated editions grammatical examples: see Examples grammatical strictures 156, 247, 248, 249, 256, 272 comparison of adjectives and adverbs 233, 279−288 double negation 156, 247, 249, 251, 291n, 309 see also Double comparatives, superlatives grammatical terminology 9, 51, 92, 145, 167, 168, 256 Greaves, Paul (fl. 1594) (grammarian) 290, 292, 301 Greenwood, James (1683?–1737) (grammarian) 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95–97, 99, 129 Greenwood’s grammars (1711, 1737) 2n, 4, 6, 41, 60, 61, 64, 65, 70, 74, 81, 85–86, 88, 89, 92, 99, 106, 107, 266–269, 272, 282, 283, 284, 293, 295, 299, 306 influence of 85, 267 Griffiths, Ralph (1720?−1803) (bookseller) 110, 127, 128, 134; see also Periodicals, Monthly Review Harris, James (1709–1780) (grammarian) 7, 26, 28, 30, 31, 32, 50 Hermes (1751) 7, 98, 99, 200, 235 Harris, John (fl. 1803−1818) (bookseller) 200, 226, 239, 257 Harrison, Ralph (1748−1810) (grammarian) 65, 74, 163, 164, 262, 282, 283 Hawes, L. (fl. 1755−1767) (publisher) 109, 110, 153 Haywood, James ( fl. 1793) (grammarian) 294, 299 Henson, John (fl. 1760?) (grammarian) 106, 108 Hickes, George (1642−1715) (grammarian) 26, 86, 90 Hitch, C. (fl. 1755−1766) (bookseller) 109, 110, 153

Index Hodgson, Isaac (fl. 1770) (grammarian) 6, 10, 60, 164, 293, 300, 306 Hodgson, Solomon (bap. 1760−1800) (printer) 151n, 161n, 163n Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696−1782) (writer) 34 Horne Tooke, John (1736–1812) (philologist) 22, 100 Hornsey, John (fl. 1793) (grammarian) 257, 268, 272, 273, 300, 307 Houghton, John ( fl. 1766) (grammarian) 106, 141, 196 Hume, David (1711−1776) (philosopher) 138 inflectional comparison: see Grammatical strictures, comparison of adjectives and adverbs Johnson, J. (fl. 1768−1799) (bookseller) 111, 114 Johnson, Samuel (1709−1784) (lexicographer/grammarian) 7, 17, 18, 47, 57, 68, 86, 213, 235, 248 credentials of 23−24, 26, 27, 28, 33, 35 grammar by (1765) 106 library of 67 and Lowth 18, 19, 68 will of 17, 18 Johnson’s Dictionary (1755) 5, 17, 68, 110, 129, 203, 232, 235, 302, 306 abridgement of (1756) 17n as a publishers’ project 6, 12, 49n, 50, 110, 121 grammar prefixed to 2n, 5, 7, 110, 179, 185, 254, 280, 281, 286, 293n influence of 18, 34, 59, 104, 138, 184, 200, 203, 232, 234, 235, 257, 307, 308 Plan for 7 preface to 33 Johnston, William ( fl. 1764) (publisher) 132 Jones, Hugh (fl. 1724) (grammarian) 4, 269, 282, 283

355

Kenrick, William (1729/30−1779) (reviewer) 125, 127, 129–131, 133−139, 141 Kippis, Andrew (1725−1795) (reviewer) 138, 141 Kirkby, John (1705−1754) (grammarian) 4, 8, 10, 28, 34n, 42n, 60, 61, 70, 186, 282, 283; see also Plagiarism; Ann Fisher; Joseph Priestley Kirkpatrick, James (1696−1770) (reviewer) 142 Knapton, John (bap. 1696−1767x70) and Paul (bap. 1703−1755) (booksellers) 110 labelling of grammars 6n of language use 209, 295, 302, 308, 310; see also Proscriptive approach of words in dictionaries 296 Lancelot, Claude: see Port Royal, grammar of Lane, A. (fl. 1695−1700) (grammarian) 266−268, 282, 283 Lane, William (1745/6−1814) (librarian) 70, 71 Langhorne, John (1735–1779) (reviewer) 137, 141 Latin: grammatical differences with English: see Grammars, Latin model Latin, learning 23, 24, 25, 28, 81, 83, 86, 94, 131, 136, 152, 166, 177, 194, 248, 287 Law, W. (fl. 1791−1797) (publisher) 122, 123 learning: see Accomplishments; Educational games; Examples, grammatical; Pedagogy lesser: see Usage problems libraries 69 private 18, 67, 68, 73 public 70, 72 subscription 69−72 university 72−73 see also Circulating libraries; Library catalogues; Societies

356

Index

library catalogues 17, 58, 69−73, 74−75 Licensing Act (1695) 62 Lily, William (1468?−1522/23) (grammarian) 92, 142 linguistic prescriptions: see Grammatical strictures; Prescriptive grammar; Usage problems Locke, John (1632−1704) (philosopher) 22, 23, 30, 31, 33, 86, 89, 90, 99, 187, 205, 208 logic as part of the teaching curriculum 24, 25, 81, 171 as a principle of correct grammar 138, 247, 295 London as centre of grammar production: see Grammars published in Longman, Thomas (1699–1755) and Thomas (1730–1797) (booksellers) 110, 195 Loughton, William ( fl. 1734) (grammarian) 4, 6, 60, 64, 161, 164 Lowe, Solomon (fl. 1736–1737) (grammarian) 4, 266 Lowndes, Thomas: see Circulating libraries Lowth, Robert (1710–1787) (grammarian) 2, 8, 18, 23, 26, 44, 55, 67n, 79, 101, 110, 111, 116, 118, 306 approach to grammar by 33, 34, 80, 103, 126, 139, 145, 247, 248, 273 credentials of 23, 25, 27, 28, 33 as expert on grammar 3, 32–33, 35 as icon of prescriptivism 8, 33, 36 and Johnson 7, 18, 19, 49n, 50, 68, 308 and Priestley 11, 50n, 103–104, 110, 177, 178, 184–185 will of 18, 103 Lowth, Thomas Henry (1753–1778) 6, 11, 48, 110, 229 Lowth’s grammar (1762) 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 32, 60, 61, 64, 65, 66, 69–73, 98, 101, 102, 103, 106, 107, 116, 142, 184, 185, 214, 231, 232, 241, 251, 255–257, 282, 283, 293, 299, 306, 307, 308; see also

John Ash; Ellenor Fenn; Grammars; Lindley Murray; Pirated editions anonymously published 107, 108n, 109, 122 authoritative status of 5, 28, 33, 34, 101, 126, 229, 230 copyright of 122 criticised: see reception first edition vs. second edition of 79, 102–103, 120–121, 256 footnotes in 8, 80, 256 influence of 5, 9, 18, 58, 68, 103, 134– 137, 138, 178, 200, 203, 204, 220, 228–229, 233, 234, 235, 248, 251, 257–260, 277 origin of: see Thomas Henry Lowth pirated editions of 107, 108, 109, 113, 114, 119, 122 popularity of 13, 14, 48, 58, 59, 79, 101, 102, 104, 112, 115, 120, 122, 125, 142, 145, 229, 231 preface to 7, 98 publication history of 112–124 as a publishers’ project 3, 6–7, 12, 48, 49n, 83, 102, 104, 107, 120–121 reception of 126, 127, 138, 141, 145, 185, 204, 247 Lynch, Elizabeth (fl. 1769) (bookseller) 66 Lynch, Patrick (fl. 1769) (grammarian) 262 M., T. (fl. 1774) (grammarian) 137 Mackintosh, Duncan (fl. 1797) (grammarian) 282 Maittaire, Michael (1668–1747) (grammarian) 30, 64, 74, 81, 86–87, 88, 89, 93, 94, 95–97, 99, 129, 263, 274, 282, 283 marketing devices for grammars 12, 80, 83, 85, 97, 107, 109, 110–111, 120, 122, 123, 136, 166n Marriott, Charles (fl. 1780) (lexicographer/grammarian) 257, 258 Martin, Benjamin (bap. 1705–1782) (grammarian) 8, 60, 61, 65, 70, 107, 155

Index Martin, Thomas (fl. 1824) (grammarian) 237 Mason, C. (fl. 1886) (grammarian) 310 Mason, John (fl. 1706–1763) (writer) 270, 272, 274 Meilan, Mark Anthony (ca. 1743−1813) (grammarian) 135 Mercy, Blanch (fl. 1799−1803) (grammarian) 13, 191, 192, 204, 205, 214–220 metalanguage: see Grammatical terminology Metcalfe, Lister (fl. 1771) (grammarian) 263, 268, 295, 299, 306 Miège, Guy (bap. 1644–ca. 1718) (grammarian) 2, 42n, 232 Millar, Andrew (1705–1768) (bookseller) 2n, 3, 102, 110, 112, 120, 122, 123, 163n Mills, Edward (1753−1820) (preacher) 238 Milner, John (fl. 1788) (bookseller) 66, 111 Monthly Review: see Periodicals moral philosophy 24 morphological comparison: see Grammatical strictures, comparison of adjectives and adverbs morphology (as a traditional subsection in grammars) 7, 91, 155, 162, 163, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172, 185, 213 Morris, R. (fl. 1872) (grammarian) 310 mothers as teachers of grammar 11, 146, 224, 230, 232, 237, 240, 241, 243 Murray, Alexander ( fl. 1785–1787) (grammarian) 294, 300, 307 Murray, Lindley (1745–1826) (grammarian) 59 accused of plagiarism 42, 234–235, 243, 257–258, 270, 272 as expert on grammar 18, 35, 36 Murray’s grammar (1795) 11, 18–19n, 32, 40, 74, 123, 147, 186, 282, 283, 299 abridgement of (1797) 122, 123 influence of 58, 74, 197n, 228–229, 257 popularity of 36, 58, 74, 116, 123

357

networks: see Community of Practice; Discourse Community Newbery, Elizabeth (1745/6−1821) (bookseller) 224–226 Newbery, John ( fl. 1745−1776) (grammarian) 4, 106, 293, 295, 299, 307, 308 newspapers: see Periodicals Nicholson, G. (1760–1825) (bookseller) 66, 111 Nicholson, James ( fl. 1793) (grammarian) 264 non-standard speech 291, 298, 304, 305 normative approach 103, 248, 251, 252 rules 1, 248, 249, 256, 289 see also Grammar, normative; Grammarians, normative; Grammars, normative norms, linguistic 6, 11, 33 121, 130; see also Social aspirations orthography (as a traditional subsection in grammars) 91, 155, 158, 161, 167, 173, 185, 213 Osborne, Thomas (1704?–1767) (bookseller) 57 Owen, John (fl. 1732) (grammarian) 282, 283 Pape, Daniel (fl. 1790) (grammarian) 294, 306 parsing lessons 225, 240, 241 Parsons, Philip (fl. 1768) (grammarian) 106 parts of speech 91, 92, 94, 155, 156, 167, 168, 169, 170, 186, 187, 188, 205–207, 211, 213, 214n, 215, 216, 219, 227, 228, 230, 231, 238, 240, 241, 265n Payne, Thomas (1716/18−1799) (bookseller) 64, 65, 67, 74 pedagogy 9, 10, 31, 36, 49, 146, 172, 173, 181, 182, 183, 189, 191−221, 240; see also Fenn’s grammars; John Locke; Jean-Jacques Rousseau

358

Index

periodicals: Critical Review 8, 10, 19n, 79, 80, 125−142, 204, 205 Female Guardian 229, 231 Gentleman’s Magazine 57, 127, 165, 242 Monthly Magazine 69 Monthly Review 8, 9, 80, 110, 115, 125−142, 165n, 204, 207, 217, 224 Newcastle Chronicle 151 Newcastle General Magazine 152 Newcastle Journal 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 157n, 161, 164, 165, 169, 170, 173 Spectator 43n, 100, 142, 165, 175, 201 Tatler 84, 100, 129 periphrastic comparison: see Grammatical strictures, comparison of adjectives and adverbs Perry, William (1747−?) (lexicographer) 163n Peyton, V. J. ( fl. 1779) (grammarian) 42, 133 Pickbourn, James ( fl. 1789) (grammarian) 18, 59, 70, 72, pied piping 269; see also Preposition stranding pirated editions 64, 66, 107, 108, 109, 114, 119, 122, 163; see also Lowth’s grammar, pirated editions plagiarism 8, 9, 18, 42, 51, 90, 104, 179, 234, 235, 242, 243, 255, 257, 260, 261, 262, 264, 267, 272, 295; see also Grammars, influence; John Kirkby; Murray’s grammar polite language 43, 46, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55, 139, 170, 239, 252 politeness, pursuit of 6, 43, 45, 130, 177, 202, 214 Poole, Joshua (ca. 1615−ca. 1656) (grammarian) 2, 270 Port Royal, grammar of (1660) 82, 89, 90, 93 Postlethwaite, Richard ( fl. 1795) (grammarian) 258

preposition stranding: see Usage problems prescription stage 1, 6, 7, 10 prescriptive approach 247, 248 prescriptive grammar 14, 52, 55, 156, 210, 214, 251, 274, 289 effect on usage 58, 72, 252, 289, 293, 294, 300, 302, 306, 309, 310 prescriptive grammarians 8, 21, 33, 35–36, 41, 44, 145n, 247, 248, 281 prescriptivism 6, 8, 21, 33, 35, 40, 252, 288n Priestley, Joseph (1733–1804) (grammarian) 8, 14, 28, 33, 34, 35, 110, 145, 146 see also Academy, declaration against approach to grammar by 145, 247, 177–189, 270–271 credentials of 24, 26, 28 a dissenter 24 expertise of 31, 145 rivalry with Lowth 11, 103–104, 110, 123, 145 and usage 34, 126, 270–271 Priestley’s grammar (1761) 8, 11, 60, 61, 64, 65, 70, 71, 72, 83, 103, 106, 107, 115, 128, 138, 177–189, 263, 264, 270, 282, 283, 293, 295, 299, 306, 307, 308, 309 audience of 179, 181, 182, 185, 186, 187 first edition vs. second edition of 14, 50n, 101–102, 135, 145, 177–189, 263n influence of 34, 103, 111, 134, 200, 223n, 234, 235, 257 “Observations on Style” in 107, 177, 182, 183, 187, 189, 270 preface to 34, 109, 177, 178n, 179–185, 234 reception of 79, 107, 109, 110, 127, 130, 131, 132, 135, 141 reputation of 28, 33, 134 French translation of 111 pronunciation, proper 22, 46; see also Norms

Index proscriptive approach to grammar 80, 156, 248, 256, 258n, 270, 272, 273, 275, 277, 308 prosody (as a traditional subsection in grammars) 91, 155, 157, 158, 161, 167, 185, 186, 213 pseudonym, publishing under 149, 250, 206, 224, 226, 238; see also Ellenor Fenn publishers, 18th-century: see Booksellers punctuation 155, 158, 159, 175 Raine, Matthew (fl. 1771) (grammarian) 258 reading lessons 156n, 157, 158, 225, 227 reviews: see Periodicals rhetoric as part of the teaching curriculum 24, 81 rhetorical treatises 252, 254, 269, 270, 274, 276 rhetoricians 22, 255–256, 265, 270, 272, 277 Rhodes, Benjamin (fl. 1795) (grammarian) 63, 258, 294, 299, 307 Richardson, J. (fl. 1759−1772) (bookseller) 109, 151n, 153 Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689−1761) (printer/writer) 138, 142 Roberts, J. (fl. 1767) (printer) 153 Robertson, Joseph (1726–1802) (writer on punctuation) 197, 209, 210 Robinson, G. (fl. 1767–1799) (printer) 114, 153, 162 Rose, William (1719−1786) (reviewer) 126, 129, 130, 132, 136, 138, 139 rote learning: see Teaching methodology, memorisation Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712−1778) (philosopher) 131, 221 Royal Society (London) 24, 26, 27, 28, 193 Ruffhead, Owen (ca. 1723−1769) (reviewer) 128, 133 sale catalogues 57, 63−66, 67, 74−75 Saunders, H. (fl. 1763) (bookseller) 107, 114

359

Saxon, Samuel (fl. 1737) (grammarian) 4, 40, 282, 283 Scott, William (fl. 1778–1793) (grammarian) 137, 234 Seally, John (1741/2–1795) (writer) 257, 261 Sedger, John (fl. 1798) (grammarian) 282, 283, 285 self-improvement 71, 126, 173 Shaw, John (1729−1796) (grammarian) 136, 162, 163 Sheridan, Thomas (1719?−1788) (elocutionist/lexicographer) 46−48, 51, 52, 55, 130, 132, 133, 235, 254, 257 shibboleths, grammatical 8, 137, 251, 292, 299, 301, 303n, 305, 309; see also Stigmatisation; Usage problems Slack, Thomas (1723−1784) (printer) 49, 109, 151, 153, 161−162; see also Ann Fisher Smetham, Thomas (fl. 1774) (grammarian) 6, 65, 293, 300, 306, 307 Smollett, Tobias (1721−1771) (writer) 127, 132, 133 social aspirations 6, 142; see also Audience, upwardly mobile social downgrading: see Shibboleths social mobility: see Audience, upwardly mobile; Social aspirations social networks: see Community of Practice; Discourse Community societies 21–23, 26 Bristol Library Society 70, 71 Philosophical Society (Edinburgh) 26 see also Royal Society spelling book 28, 63, 83, 90, 116n, 128, 131, 150, 154, 155, 157, 158n, 161, 211, 225, 227, 229, 230 dictionary 28, 31, 132, 151, 153, 162, 164, 172 spelling, teaching of 157, 158, 218, 227 Spence, Thomas (1750–1814) (lexicographer) 9−10

360

Index

standardisation process 1, 6, 8, 10, 11, 46, 131; see also Codification; Prescription stage Stationers’ Company 72, 73 Steele, Sir Richard (bap. 1672–1729) (writer) 43n, 70, 84, 85; see also Isaac Bickerstaff stigmatisation 252, 289, 292, 293, 301; see also Shibboleths Stirling, John ( fl. 1735) (grammarian) 4 Story, Joshua (fl. 1778–1793) (grammarian) 65, 74, 258, 259n, 261, 294, 300, 306, 307 strictures: see Grammatical strictures style 133, 137, 140, 174, 181, 255, 256, 257, 259, 260, 270, 271, 291 superlatives: see Usage problems Swift, Jonathan (1667–1745) (writer) 4, 84, 91, 201, 207; see also Isaac Bickerstaff syntactic comparison: see Grammatical strictures, comparison of adjectives and adverbs syntax (as a section in 18th-century grammars) 7, 8, 91, 155, 156, 162, 163, 164, 170, 172, 185, 186, 213, 267, 274 synthetic comparison: see Grammatical strictures, comparison of adjectives and adverbs Taylor, Mrs. (fl. 1796) (grammarian) 13, 191, 212–214, 220 teaching methodology 164–169, 170, 173, 174, 192, 207, 212, 217, 218 grammar games 195, 205–206, 207; see also Educational games memorisation 39, 137, 205, 207, 208, 209, 214, 215, 220, 227 Thompson, Isaac (fl. 1745–1754) (printer) 149, 152, 153, 154, 161, 162 transposition 156, 174, 220, 266, 267, 268, 277 Trimmer, Sarah (1741–1810) (educationist) 200, 211

Turner, Daniel (fl. 1739) (grammarian) 4, 268 Turner, William (fl. 1710) (grammarian) 81, 98n, 262, 274 universities, Scottish 24–25, 28 usage, as a basis of grammars 7, 8, 31, 33, 34, 103, 178, 247, 248, 270–271 usage guides 6, 19; see also Robert Baker; Fowler’s Modern English Usage usage problems 11 double comparatives 156, 291–312 double negation: see Grammatical strictures double superlatives 256, 281, 284, 286, 294 lesser 289–310 preposition stranding 251–277 principles to decide on, 247; see also Vernacular idiom worser 289–310 Ussher, George Neville (fl. 1785) (grammarian) 197, 261, 271–272, 282, 283, 294, 300, 307, 308 vernacular idiom 254, 255, 257, 261, 266, 274, 276, 277 vernacular metalanguage 167, 168 Wallis, John (1616–1703) (grammarian) 90, 92, 99 Wallis’s grammar (1653) 2, 96, 99, 106, 107 influence 2, 7, 82, 86, 89, 99, 235 and Lowth 3 popular 1, 99, 130, 135 Walpole, Sir Horace (1717–1797) 226–227 Ward, John (1678/9−1758) (grammarian) 18, 61−62, 66, 70, 71, 109, 117, 128, 129 Ward, William (1708/9−1772) (grammarian) 6, 10, 60, 61−62, 64, 65, 66, 106, 107, 109, 134, 141, 171, 200, 262, 263, 282, 295, 299, 306 Webster, Noah (1758−1843) (grammarian) 264, 269, 270, 272, 274, 282, 283

Index Wells, Samuel (fl. 1760) (grammarian) 106, 108 Wesley, John (1703−1791) (grammarian) 107 West, A. S. (fl. 1897) (grammarian) 310 White, James (fl. 1761) (grammarian) 18, 59, 60, 70, 71, 129, 137, 139, 140 Wild, John ( fl. 1719?) (grammarian) 4 Wilkins, John (1614−1672) (linguist) 26, 86, 89, 90, 93, 94, 96, 99 Wilson (fl. 1789−1799) (publisher) 123, 195 Wilson, J. (fl. 1792) (grammarian) 262, 268, 308 Wise, Thomas (fl. 1754) (grammarian) 254

361

Wiseman, Charles (fl. 1764) (grammarian) 60, 70, 71, 106, 125, 130, 133, 134, 137, 139 Withers, Philip (fl. 1789) (philosopher) 254, 264, 265, 266, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274 Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759−1797) (writer) 192, 193, 194, 204 women: see Audience; Education of women; Grammarians, female worser: see Usage problems Wright, G. (fl. 1794) (grammarian) 257, 261, 294, 300, 306 Wright, Thomas (fl. 1800) (grammarian) 294, 300, 306, 308 Wynne, Richard (1718?−1779) (grammarian) 136

Monika S. Schmid on a handbook of varieties of english, Linguist List, June 2005

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Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England (Topics in English Linguistics)

Code-Switching in Early English (Topics in English Linguistics)

A Comparative Grammar Of British English Dialects: Agreement, Gender, Relative Clauses (Topics in English Linguistics : 50.1) (Topics in English Linguistics)

Topicalization and Stress Clash Avoidance in the History of English (Topics in English Linguistics)

Modality in English: Theory and Description (Topics in English Linguistics 58)

Argument and Rhetoric: Adverbial Connectors in the History of English (Topics in English Linguistics)

Marcus Contextual Grammars (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy)

Marcus Contextual Grammars (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy)

Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars

English Adjectives of Comparison: Lexical and Grammaticalized Uses (Topics in English Linguistics)

Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars

The Byzantine Grammarians: Their Place in History (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs)

Metadiscourse in L1 And L2 English (Studies in Corpus Linguistics)

English in Nineteenth-Century England: An Introduction

The Grammar of English Grammars

Cardinal Numerals: Old English from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective (Topics in English Linguistics)

Empirical Studies in English Applied Linguistics

Rhythmic Grammar: The Influence of Rhythm on Grammatical Variation and Change in English (Topics in English Linguistics)

Cognitive English Grammar (Cognitive Linguistics in Practice)

Impact Topics! 30 Exciting Topics to Talk About in English

The Grammar of English Grammars

The Grammar of English Grammars

Kurdish Grammarians

English Corpus Linguistics: An Introduction (Studies in English Language)

Cause, Condition, Concession, Contrast: Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives (Topics in English Linguistics, No 33)

Constructive Adpositional Grammars: Foundations of Constructive Linguistics

Structural Nativization in Indian English Lexicogrammar (Studies in Corpus Linguistics)

Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English (Studies in Corpus Linguistics)

Studies in the History of the English Language IV: Empirical and Analytical Advances in the Study of English Language Change (Topics in English Linguistics)

Constructive Adpositional Grammars: Foundation of Constructive Linguistics

Mathematical Methods in Linguistics (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy)

Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England (Topics in English Linguistics)

Code-Switching in Early English (Topics in English Linguistics)

A Comparative Grammar Of British English Dialects: Agreement, Gender, Relative Clauses (Topics in English Linguistics : 50.1) (Topics in English Linguistics)

Topicalization and Stress Clash Avoidance in the History of English (Topics in English Linguistics)

Modality in English: Theory and Description (Topics in English Linguistics 58)

Argument and Rhetoric: Adverbial Connectors in the History of English (Topics in English Linguistics)

Marcus Contextual Grammars (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy)

Marcus Contextual Grammars (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy)

Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars

English Adjectives of Comparison: Lexical and Grammaticalized Uses (Topics in English Linguistics)

Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars

The Byzantine Grammarians: Their Place in History (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs)

Metadiscourse in L1 And L2 English (Studies in Corpus Linguistics)

English in Nineteenth-Century England: An Introduction

The Grammar of English Grammars

Cardinal Numerals: Old English from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective (Topics in English Linguistics)

Empirical Studies in English Applied Linguistics

Rhythmic Grammar: The Influence of Rhythm on Grammatical Variation and Change in English (Topics in English Linguistics)

Cognitive English Grammar (Cognitive Linguistics in Practice)

Impact Topics! 30 Exciting Topics to Talk About in English

The Grammar of English Grammars

The Grammar of English Grammars

Kurdish Grammarians

English Corpus Linguistics: An Introduction (Studies in English Language)

Cause, Condition, Concession, Contrast: Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives (Topics in English Linguistics, No 33)

Constructive Adpositional Grammars: Foundations of Constructive Linguistics

Structural Nativization in Indian English Lexicogrammar (Studies in Corpus Linguistics)

Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English (Studies in Corpus Linguistics)

Studies in the History of the English Language IV: Empirical and Analytical Advances in the Study of English Language Change (Topics in English Linguistics)

Constructive Adpositional Grammars: Foundation of Constructive Linguistics

Mathematical Methods in Linguistics (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy)

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