334 Philosophy of Language. [Chap. XVL 



Monboddo, m4io, in his Origin and Progress of 

 Language, gave some general views of the philo- 

 sophy of grammar. Like Plato and Aristotle, to 

 ^vhose doctrines, especially those of the latter, he 

 looked with the profound veneration of a disciple, 

 he divided language into two parts. Noun and 

 Verb, and endeavoured to bring all the other parts 

 of speech under these general denominations. But 

 while he adopts this division of words in one part 

 of his work, he retracts it in others, and admits 

 principles wholly inconsistent with the general 

 doctrine. So that, though he must be acknow- 

 ledged to have given some learned and ihgenious 

 views of language, yet the praise of having formed 

 an original, consistent, and satisfactory system of 

 philosophical grammar must be wholly denied 

 him. 



In 1786* this perplexing and mysterious sub- 

 ject, which had so long eluded the researches of 

 philosophers, was unfolded by an English philolo- 

 gist of great acutencss and erudition, in a manner 

 which the ablest grammarians have generally and 

 justly praised. In that year was published the ce- 

 lebrated EHEA IITEPOENTA, or Divei^sio7is of Pur- 

 ley f, by Mr. John Home Tooke, a work in which. 



* As eaily as 1778 Mr. Tooke, in his letter to Mr. Dunning, 

 laid before the public the substance of the sixth, seventh, eighth, 

 and 7unlh chapters of tlie Diicrsium of Purley, printed eight years 

 afteru'ards. 



f The Greek scholar will immediately perceive that the first 

 part of this whimsical title signifies zci/igcd uurds, and refers to the 

 author's doctrine of derivations. The second part alludes to the 

 celebrated seat of president Bradshaw, near Croydon, at wliich he 

 amused himself witli the composition of tlie work. 



