PREFACE.

ANGUAGE, being perpetually

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in ufe, is not easily preserved from corruption. Violent and grofs injuries, indeed, fuch as proceed from the attacks of vulgar or provincial barbarism, are readily perceived and repelled; but there are enemies which act against it more fecretly, and therefore more irresistibly. The arbitrary caprice of fashion, and the fpirit of improvement mifdirected, are daily making changes in the ftructure and found of language; which, though separately inconfiderable, are after fome time important in the total amount: and as the celeftial figns had nearly changed their places before the flow but conftant. motion of the equinoxes was detected, fo a language may have departed confiderably

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