GRAMMAR, HISTORY or. Grammar, as a practical art, must have existed long before it was considered' as a science, and the rules of grammar must have been formed after language had assumed a settled shape by the practice of good writers. The works of Ho mer contained a practical illustration of all the rules of the Greek grammar long before the subject of grammar excited any attention, It is likewise clear that £ S there is a close con nexion between correctness of thinking and correctness of speaking, the study of logic. preceded that of grammar • hence we find that Aristotle makes a logical distinction be tween words denoting time and words not denoting time, the former of which be denomi nates by a word answering to the verb in gram mar, and the latter jiy a word answering to the noun. But although the Greeks, par ,ticularly the Athenians, cultivated their lan guage for purposes of oratory, yet there ap. pears to have been no particular advances made towards bringing it under grammatical 'rules. They seem to have studied their lan guage by the ear, which was so universally nice that an herb woman at Athens is said to have distinguished Tbeophrastus to be a stranger from the affectation of a single word in expressing himself; and for the same rea son the orators were careful not to let a single injudicious expression escape them which might offend the audience. We are likewise informed that it was a common thing for the young people to get the tragedies of their fa vourite authors by heart, which they would recite on various occasions. When the Athe.
niane, after their defeat at Syracuse, were made slaves, they softened their slavery by reciting the works of Euripedes to their mas ters, who treated them the better on that ac count. In this manner the Grecian youth were taught their language at school, where a Homer was looked upon as indispensable. Toan a light minded people, like the Athenians, this mode of learning a language would be far more agreeable than the dry method of study , ing grammar ; but as this former course was not so practicable in the acquiring a foreign language, this is probably the reason why grammar seems first to have been cultivated among the Romans, who, being studious of the Greek, were naturally led to a comparison of languages, and to a logical and abstract consideration of language in general. Certain it is, that the study of grammar commenced with the Romans, and that the names of all the parts of speech are Latin, and to be found in the writings of authors subsequent to the age of Varro and Cicero, as Allies Dionysius, Julius Pollux, Valerius Probes, IIerodian, Suetonius, Charisius, Itlacrobius, Diomedes, Augustin, Priscian, Elius Donatus, &c.