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OR,

THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY.

INTRODUCTION.

B. THE mystery is at last unravelled. I shall no more wonder now that you engross his company at Purley,' whilst his other friends can scarce get a sight of him. This, you say, was President Bradshaw's seat. That is the secret of his attachment to the place. You hold him by the best security, his political prejudices and enthusiasm. But do not let his veneration for the memory of the ancient possessor pass upon you for affection to the present.

H.-Should you be altogether so severe upon my politics; when you reflect that, merely for attempting to prevent the effusion of brother's blood and the final dismemberment of the empire, I stand the single legal victim during the contest, and the single instance of proscription after it? But I am well contented that my principles, which have made so many of your way of thinking angry, should only make you laugh. Such however as they are, they need not now to be defended by me : for they have stood the test of ages; and they will keep their ground in the general commendation of the world, till men forget to love themselves; though, till then perhaps, they are not likely to be seen (nor credited if seen) in the practice of many individuals.

1 The seat of William Tooke, Esq., near Croydon, Surrey. [The persons of the dialogue are, B. Dr. Beadon, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester; H. the author; and 7. William Tooke, Esq.-EDIT.]

B

But are you really forced to go above a hundred years back to account for my attachment to Purley? Without considering the many strong public and private ties by which I am bound to its present possessor, can you find nothing in the beautiful prospect from these windows? nothing in the entertainment every one receives in this house? nothing in the delightful rides and walks we have taken round it? nothing in the cheerful disposition and easy kindness of its owner, to make a rational man partial to this habitation?

T-Sir, you are making him transgress our only standing rules. Politics and compliments are strangers here. We always put them off when we put on our boots; and leave them behind us in their proper atmosphere, the smoke of London.

B. Is it possible! Can either of you-Englishmen and patriots!-abstain for four-and-twenty hours together from politics? You cannot be always on horseback, or at piquet. What, in the name of wonder, your favourite topic excluded, can be the subject of your so frequent conversations?

T-You have a strange notion of us. But I assure you we find more difficulty to finish than to begin our conversations. As for our subjects, their variety cannot be remembered; but I will tell you on what we were discoursing yesterday when you came in; and I believe you are the fittest person in the world to decide between us. He insists, contrary to my opinion, that all sorts of wisdom and useful knowledge may be obtained by a plain man of sense without what is commonly called Learning. And when I took the easiest instance, as I thought, and the foundation of all other knowledge, (because it is the beginning of education, and that in which children are first employed,) he declined the proof of his assertion in this instance, and maintained that I had chosen the most difficult: for he says that, though Grammar be usually amongst the first things taught, it is always one of the last understood.

B.-I must confess I differ from Mr. H. concerning the difficulty of Grammar; if indeed what you have reported be really his opinion. But might he not possibly give you that answer to escape the discussion of a disagreeable dry subject, remote from the course of his studies and the objects of his inquiry and pursuit? By his general expression of-what is commonly called Learning-and his declared opinion of that, I can

pretty well guess what he thinks of grammatical learning in particular. I dare swear (though he will not perhaps pay me so indifferent a compliment) he does not in his mind allow us even the poor consolation which we find in Athenæus-et μn ιατροι ησαν,—but concludes, without a single exception, ουδεν των Γραμματικων μωρότερον.

1

I must however entreat him to recollect, (and at the same time whose authority it bears,) that—" Qui sapientiæ et literarum divortium faciunt, nunquam ad solidam sapientiam pertingent. Qui vero alios etiam a literarum linguarumque studio absterrent, non antiquæ sapientiæ sed novæ stultitiæ doctores sunt habendi."

H.-Indeed I spoke my real sentiments. I think Grammar difficult, but I am very far from looking upon it as foolish: indeed so far, that I consider it as absolutely necessary in the search after philosophical truth; which, if not the most useful perhaps, is at least the most pleasing employment of the human mind. And I think it no less necessary in the most important questions concerning religion and civil society. But since you say it is easy, tell me where it may be learned.

B.—If your look and the tone of your voice were less serious, the extravagance of your compliment to grammar would incline me to suspect that you were taking your revenge, and bantering me in your turn by an ironical encomium on my favourite study. But, if I am to suppose you in earnest, I answer, that our English grammar may be sufficiently and easily learned from the excellent Introduction of Doctor Lowth: or from the first (as well as the best) English grammar, given by Ben Jonson.

H.-True, Sir. And that was my first slight answer to our friend's instance. But his inquiry is of a much larger compass than you at present seem to imagine. He asks after the causes or reasons of Grammar: and for satisfaction in them I know

1 Ου γαρ κακως τινι των ἑταιρων ἡμων ελεχθη το, ει μη ιατροι ησαν, ουδεν αν ην των γραμματικών μωρότερον.-Deipnosoph. lib. 15.

2 "Duplex Grammatica; alia civilis, alia philosophica.

"Civilis, peritia est, non scientia: constat enim ex auctoritate usuque clarorum scriptorum.

"Philosophica, vero, ratione constat; et hæc scientiam olet.

"Grammatica civilis habet ætatem in qua viget, et illam amplectun

not where to send him; for, I assure you, he has a troublesome, inquisitive, scrupulous mind of his own, that will not take mere words in current payment.

B.—I should think that difficulty easily removed. Dr. Lowth, in his Preface, has done it ready to your hands. "Those," he says, "who would enter more deeply into this subject, will find it fully and accurately handled, with the greatest acuteness of investigation, perspicuity of explication, and elegance of method, in a treatise entitled Hermes, by James Harris, Esq., the most beautiful and perfect example of Analysis that has been exhibited since the days of Aristotle."

T. The recommendation no doubt is full, and the authority great; but I cannot say that I have found the performance to correspond: nor can I boast of any acquisition from its perusal, except indeed of hard words and frivolous or unintelligible distinctions. And I have learned from a most excellent authority, that "tout ce qui varie, tout ce qui se charge de termes douteux et envelopés, a toujours paru suspect; et non seulement frauduleux, mais encore absolument faux: parcequ'il marque un embarras que la vérité ne connoit point."1

B. And you, Sir?

H.—I am really in the same situation.

B.-Have you tried any other of our English authors on the subject?

H.-I believe all of them, for they are not numerous; ' but none with satisfaction.

tur Grammatici; dicunt enim sub Cicerone et Cæsare adultam linguam, &c. At philosophica non agnoscit ætatem linguæ, sed rationalitatem ; amplectiturque vocabula bona omnium temporum."—Campanella.

Bossuet des Variations des Eglises Protestantes.

The authors who have written professedly on this subject, in any language, are not numerous. Caramuel, in the beginning of his Grammatica Audax, says,-" Solus, ut puto, Scotus, et post eum Scaliger et Campanella (alios enim non vidi) Grammaticam speculativam evulgarunt; vias tamen omnino diversas ingressi. Multa mihi in Scaligero, et plura in Campanella displicuerunt; et pauciora in Scoto, qui vix alibi subtilius scripsit quam cum de Grammaticis Modis Significandi."

The reader of Caramuel (who, together with Campanella, may be found in the Bodleian Library) will not be disappointed in him; but most egregiously by him, if the smallest expectations of information are excited by the character which is here given of Scotus-whose De Modis Significandi should be entitled, not Grammatica Speculativa, but-an

B. You must then give up one at least of your positions. For if, as you make it out, Grammar is so difficult that a knowledge of it cannot be obtained by a man of sense from any authors in his own language, you must send him to what is commonly called Learning, to the Greek and Latin authors, for the attainment of it. So true, in this science at least, if not in all others, is that saying of Roger Ascham, that—“Even as a hawke fleeth not hie with one wing, even so a man reacheth not to excellency with one tongue."

H.-On the contrary, I am rather confirmed by this instance in my first position. I acknowledge philosophical Grammar

Exemplar of the subtle art of saving appearances, and of discoursing deeply and learnedly on a subject with which we are totally unacquainted. Quid enim subtilius vel magis tenue, quam quod nihil est ?

Wilkins, part 3. chap. 1. of his Essay towards a Real Character, says, after Caramuel,-"The first of these (i. e., philosophical, rational, universal Grammar) hath been treated of but by few; which makes our learned Verulam put it among his Desiderata. I do not know any more that have purposely written of it, but Scotus in his Grammatica Speculativa, and Caramuel in his Grammatica Audax, and Campanella in his Grammatica Philosophica. (As for Scioppius his Grammar of this title, that doth wholly concern the Latin tongue.) Besides which, something hath been occasionally spoken of it by Scaliger in his book De Causis Lingua Latina, and by Vossius in his Aristarchus." So far Wilkins : who, for what reason I know not, has omitted the Minerva of Sanctius; though well deserving his notice, and the declared foundation of Scioppius. But he who should confine himself to these authors, and to those who, with Wilkins, have since that time written professedly on this subject, would fall very short of the assistance he might have, and the leading hints and foundations of reasoning which he might obtain, by reading even all the authors who have confined themselves to particular languages.

The great Bacon put this subject amongst his Desiderata, not, as Wilkins says, because "few had treated of it;" but because none had given a satisfactory account of it. At the same time, Bacon, though evidently wide of the mark himself, yet conjectured best how this knowledge might most probably be attained; and pointed out the most proper materials for reflection to work upon. "Illa demum (says he), ut arbitramur, foret nobilissima Grammaticæ species, si quis in linguis plurimis, tam eruditis quam vulgaribus, eximie doctus, de variis linguarum proprietatibus tractaret; in quibus quæque excellat, in quibus deficiat ostendens. Ita enim et linguæ mutuo commercio locupletari possint; et fiet ex iis quæ in singulis linguis pulchra sunt (tanquam Venus Apellis) orationis ipsius quædam formosissima imago, et exemplar quoddam insigne, ad sensus animi rite exprimendos."-De Augment. Scient. lib. 6. cap. 1.