Will any grammarian say, "I know well enough what the thing is, but I cannot tell ?" Yet, taken upon this common principle, the authors of our English grammars, (if in framing their definitions they have not been grossly wanting to themselves in the exercise of their own art,) may be charged, I think, with great ignorance, or great indistinctness of apprehension; and that, too, in relation to many things among the very simplest elements of their science.

For example: Is it not a disgrace to a man of letters, to be unable to tell accurately what a letter is?
Yet to say, with Lowth, Murray, Churchill, and a hundred others of inferior name, that, "_A letter_ is _the first principle_ or _least part_ of a word," is to utter what is neither good English nor true doctrine.

The two articles _a_ and _the_ are here inconsistent with each other.

"_A_ letter" is _one_ letter, _any_ letter; but "_the first principle_ of a word" is, surely, not one or any principle taken _indefinitely_.

Equivocal as the phrase is, it must mean either _some particular principle_, or some particular _first_ principle, of a word; and, taken either way, the assertion is false.