P153 586 1854 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE; COMPREHENDING UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR, OR THE PURE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE; AND GLOSSOLOGY, OR THE HISTORICAL RELATIONS OF LANGUAGES. BY SIR JOHN STODDART, KNT., LL.D. THIRD EDITION, REVISED BY THE AUTHOR, AND EDITED BY WILLIAM HAZLITT, Esq., BARRISTER-AT-LAW. 970 PREFACE. THE present work was originally composed for the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, a publication which was designed to have been produced under the editorial care of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge. That accomplished scholar, distinguished poet, and profound metaphysician, was unfortunately prevented by ill health, and other adverse circumstances, from carrying the intended editorship into effect. He, however, not only devised the comprehensive plan which was described in the Prospectus of the Encyclopædia, but furnished the original materials for a general introduction, which his friend, my uncle, Sir John Stoddart, undertook, at the desire of the proprietors, to arrange for publication, in the form in which it eventually appeared. My uncle was led, from this circumstance, to draw up an article on Grammar, which, though hastily executed, in the intervals of a laborious profession, was deemed by Mr. Coleridge not unworthy to occupy a place in the Encyclopædia. The subject was one which had attracted the author's attention at a very early period. He was educated at the school in the Close of Salisbury, an institution attached to the Cathedral, and of which a Minor Canon, Dr. Skinner, was Master, and the Rev. E. Coleridge (an elder brother of the poet), Under Master. Grammar was then taught on the ancient plan of the once |