The fortune of a grammar is not always an accurate test of its merits.
The goddess of the plenteous horn stands blindfold yet upon the floating prow; and, under her capricious favour, any pirate-craft, ill stowed with plunder, may sometimes speed as well, as barges richly laden from the golden mines of science.

Far more are now afloat, and more are stranded on dry shelves, than can be here reported.

But what this work contains, is candidly designed to qualify the reader to be himself a judge of what it _should_ contain; and I will hope, so ample a report as this, being thought sufficient, will also meet his approbation.

The favour of one discerning mind that comprehends my subject, is worth intrinsically more than that of half the nation: I mean, of course, the half of whom my gentle reader is not one.
"They praise and they admire they know not what, And know not whom, but as one leads the other."-- _Milton_..