And if mere copyists, compilers, abridgers, and modifiers, be encouraged as they now are, it surely will not advance.

Style is liable to be antiquated by time, corrupted by innovation, debased by ignorance, perverted by conceit, impaired by negligence, and vitiated by caprice.

And nothing but the living spirit of true authorship, and the application of just criticism, can counteract the natural tendency of these causes.

English grammar is still in its infancy; and even bears, to the imagination of some, the appearance of a deformed and ugly dwarf among the liberal arts.

Treatises are multiplied almost innumerably, but still the old errors survive.