THE

FIRST LINES

OF

ENGLISH GRAMMAR;

BEING A

BRIEF ABSTRACT OF THE AUTHOR'S LARGER WORK,

THE

"INSTITUTES OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR."

DESIGNED FOR YOUNG LEARNERS.

BY GOOLD BROWN,

AUTHOR OF THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH GRAMMARS.

"Ne quis igitur tanquam parva fastidiat Grammatices elementa.”—Quintilian.
"The rudiments of every language must be given as a task, not as an amusement."
-Goldsmith.

A NEW STEREOTYPE EDITION,

CAREFULLY REVISED BY THE AUTHOR.

NEW YORK:

SAMUEL S. & WILLIAM WOOD,
No. 889 BROADWAY.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

BY

ORIGINAL PREFACE.

THE following epitome contains a general outline of the principles of our language, as embodied and illustrated in "The Institutes of English Grammar." The definitions and explanations here given, are necessarily few and short. The writer has endeavoured to make them as clear as possible, and as copious as his limits would allow; but it is plainly impracticable to crowd into the compass of a work like this, all that is important in the grammar of our language. Those who desire a more complete elucidation of the subject, are invited to examine the author's larger work.

For the use of young learners, small treatises are generally preferred to large ones; because they are less expensive to parents, and better adapted to the taste and capacity of children. A small treatise on Grammar, like a small map of the world, may serve to give the learner a correct idea of the more prominent features of the subject; and to these his attention should at first be confined; for, without a pretty accurate knowledge of the general scheme, the particular details and nice distinctions of criticism can neither be understood nor remembered.

The only successful method of teaching grammar, is, to cause the principal definitions and rules to be committed thoroughly to memory, that they may ever afterwards be readily applied. And the pupil should be alternately exercised in learning small portions of his book, and then applying them in parsing, till the whole is rendered familiar.

The learner who shall thus go through this little work, will, it is imagined, acquire as good a knowledge of the subject as is to be derived from any of the abridgements used in elementary schools. And, if he is to pursue the study further, he will then be prepared to read with advantage the more copious illustrations and notes contained in the larger work, and to enter upon the various exercises adapted to its several parts.

This work is in no respect necessary to the other, as it contains the same definitions, and pursues the same plan. The use of it in the early stages of pupilage will preserve a more expensive book from being soiled and torn; and the scholar's advancement to the larger work may be expected to increase his pleasure and accelerate his progress in the study.

GOOLD BROWN.

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.

SINOE the completion and publication of my Grammar of English Grammars, it has frequently been suggested to me, that a new and critical revision of the Institutes and First Lines, to present them in a state of stricter conformity to that more elaborate work, and to obviate at the same time some remaining defects which had occasionally been noticed, might be the means of increasing the usefulness, and sustaining the reputation of these pretty widely known school-books. Such an improvement of the Institutes the author carefully prepared for the stereotypers during the last year. Having now performed, in like manner, and with proportionate pains, a new revision, or a sort of recasting, of the First Lines of English Grammar, he may perhaps, without lack of modesty, commend this little book to the managers of schools, as being, in his own estimation at least, the best and cheapest epitome of English Grammar yet offered to their choice.

LYNN, MASS., 1855.

GOOLD BROWN.