AN

ENGLISH GRAMMAR

For the Use of Learners.

BY THE

REV. FREDERICK MEYRICK, M.A.,
Rector of Blickling, Prebendary of Lincoln; late Fellow and Tutor
of Trinity College, Oxford; and for ten years Her Majesty's
Inspector of Schools.

PREFACE.

THE following is an attempt to meet a need that I strongly felt during the ten years that I was Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools. During that time I frequently had to complain of the Manuals used in Schools, and when asked by Managers and Masters to recommend others, I had none to name which I considered perfectly satisfactory. The deficiency appeared to me most marked in respect to Manuals of Grammar and Reading Books. I have here endeavoured to supply the deficiency in regard to Grammars. I have steadily kept in view the persons for whom I was writing, and have made it my object to avoid unphilosophical arrangement on one side, and philological and philosophical discussions addressed in self-defence to imaginary assailants on the other. My purpose has been neither to form

an undigested collection of Rules and Observations, nor to write a Treatise on Language; but to produce a Practical English Grammar, founded on an unobtruded knowledge of the Science of Languages, and suited to learners by being clear, concise, definite, and dogmatic.

Of course, I have avoided the error of some older Grammarians, who impress mistakes on the memory by setting before the eye examples of faults to be corrected. All the Exercises are taken from Shakespeare, or from other classical English writers.

Blickling Rectory,

Aylsham.

F. M.