the practical equivalence of forms, but the names that these are known by in technical Grammar. For this reason, as well as for more convenient and intelligible arrangement, the Technical Names are given as headings. Thus they may be studied or neglected at discretion; the book is technical or untechnical according to the will of teacher or of pupil. The received Nomenclature of Grammar is not disturbed. I am well aware that many of the designations have often been assailed with varying success; they have been denounced as inconvenient, inadequate, improper, absurd. Yet, for one thing, it is to be remembered that not a few of these names may very reasonably claim to be no longer criticized on their derivation or primary meaning; they are now conventional terms, and we have nothing to do with them as conveying any sense but the conventional sense in common use. Further, judging from some names recently invented to supersede older designations, one is rather inclined to wait for more discussion and more agreement among competent grammarians. Very nearly the same line of remark is applicable to some other changes also quite recently advocated for instance, as regards the classification of certain adjuncts in Analysis. Such changes are apt to be rather hastily assumed as obviously proper. And, above all, a book like the present, professing to be illustrative of grammars in general use, must not make itself unintelligible or unworkable by newness of nomenclature. The volume is divided into three parts. The FIRST PART deals, in the manner above described, with the PARTS OF SPEECH as members of Sentences, and with the PHRASE and the CLAUSE forms doing duty for them. These three classes of forms are exhibited in their various uses, and the multiplicity of mutual interchange among them receives full illustration. The CO-ORDINATE SENTENCE also is shown in similar interchange. The many important and frequently recurring words of REFERENCE— especially as pronouns and as adverbs (or conjunctions) are always treated with careful attention. The general remarks already made apply most fully to this Part, which is the main division of the subject. The SECOND PART, treating of ELLIPSIS and PLEONASM, is in the closest connection with the First. Very many of the forms interchanged in the First Part are in various degrees elliptical. The full illustration of them. has necessarily led to systematic exemplification of the ellipses of the language. The supplying of omissions, combined with the practice of formal resolving, has been turned to account in testing complex and compound sentences for irregularity or impropriety of contraction. Pleonasm is mainly a matter of Rhetoric ; yet the purely grammatical points involved are of considerable importance. It forms the antithesis to Ellipsis. The THIRD PART is concerned with THE SIMPLE and THE ABSTRUSE in language. It takes us over the ground of "Derivation." It examines the respective merits of the words that have come to us from various sources (especially Teutonic and Classical), and it compares the advantages and disadvantages of Prefixes and Suffixes and other modes of composition of vocables. Several incidental matters are noted. Detailed exemplification has not been considered desirable but the points to be taken up with pupils and the general direction of study are succinctly indicated, while continuous Illustrative Extracts are furnished as suitable matter to work upon. In this department also, the teacher will find much to do, in continuation, expansion, and utilisation of the universal practice of giving equivalents. With unimportant exceptions, the EXAMPLES throughout this book have been slowly selected in a long course of varied reading. They are taken, in most part, from the best writers on all subjects in all periods of the language; but I have never hesitated to accept a good example whoever offered it. I have not been ambitious to follow the learned practice of minutely naming author and work and chapter and verse after each example. I am not sure, however, but there might have been considerable utility in doing so for more advanced students; but with junior pupils chiefly in view, I could hardly afford the space. Besides their immediate purpose, the examples may be used for further explanations. While they present an extensive field for exercise in Parsing and Analysis, they also afford wide scope for increasing facility in Paraphrasing. The Teacher will recognize the advantage of having an abundant variety of examples at hand. The present work may be used alone as the first approach either to the technical or to the practical study of English. Or it may be used side by side with any good Grammar of practical aims. Professor Bain's Grammars, which are used by the Author, will be found most serviceable; for the book is constructed on his classifications, and worked out in detail according to the spirit of his teaching. The best available guidance to the discrimination of good and bad in Composition is to be found in Professor Bain's Companion to the Higher Grammar. The course of study here prescribed has the closest and widest bearing upon the exercise of TRANSLATION both into and out of other languages, ancient and modern. It is very satisfactory to observe that the mutual helpfulness of languages is now being more frankly recognized. The Order of study may in some cases vary from the order of the book. For instance, the usages connected with Relative Pronouns and their equivalents may be postponed till the pupil has practised such matters as the simpler interchanges of adjectival and adverbial adjuncts. Ellipsis may be studied either in order of treatment or as cases occur among the Interchanges. By" Parsing" I mean such an account of a word as goes a very long way indeed beyond the "Parsing, or assigning words to their parts," stigmatized by Mr. Earle as "a juvenile exercise."-(The Philology of the English Tongue, 211, 2nd edition). The Third Part, which requires long and slow development, may be cautiously entered upon at once. In certain instances I have myself departed from strict logical arrangement, out of deliberate regard for great practical advantage. But there is a limit to this; and I could not venture to abandon the usual order of Grammar and commit myself to any assumed order of simplicity. After all, different pupils will often find different sections easiest. The teacher knows his pupils, and I rely upon the discretion of the teacher. ABERDEEN, October, 1875, |