PREFACE. L ANGUAGE, being perpetually in use, is not easily preferved from corruption. Violent and grofs injuries, indeed, fuch as proceed from the attacks of vulgar or provincial barbarium, 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 misdirected, are daily making changes in the ftructure and found of language; which, though feparately 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 a 2 fiderably from the fixed point of purity, and the harmony of its conftruction may be materially injured, before thofe minute changes, which affect only fingle words or fyllables, fhall have attracted the public obfervation. In an enlightened and improving age much, perhaps, is not to be apprehended from the inroads of mere caprice: at fuch a period it will generally be perceived that needlefs irregularity is the worst of all deformities; and that nothing is fo, truly elegant in language as the fimplicity of unviolated analogy. Rules will therefore be obferved, fo far. as they are known and acknowledged; but at the fame time the defire of improvement having once been excited, will not remain inactive; and its efforts, unlefs affifted by knowledge as much as they are prompted by zeal, will not unfrequently be found pernicious; so that the very perfons whose intention it is to perfect the inftrument of reason, will deprave and disorder it unknowingly. At fuch such a time, then, it becomes peculiarly neceffary that the analogy of language fhould be fully examined and understood; that its rules should be carefully laid down; and that it should be clearly fhown how much it contains which, being already right, fhould be defended from change and violation; how much it has that demands amendment; and how much that, for fear of greater inconveniences, muft perhaps be left unaltered, though irregular. So complete a view of the whole ana-logy of language, fo far as it exifts, and of its want of analogy, fo far as it is yet unremedied, must be the best fecurity that can be provided against corrupt or injudicious innovation. Happily for language, that part of it which is higheft in importance is the leaft liable to fuffer from the attempts of innovators. Its internal or grammatical structure, being founded on the folid principles of reason, powerfully refifts depravation. Barbarism alone can a 3 delight |