THE ETYMOLOGY AND SYNTAX OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE EXPLAINED AND ILLUSTRATED. BY THE REV. ALEX. CROMBIE, LL.D., F.R.S., M.R.S.L., AND F.Z.S. THE THIRD EDITION, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED. LONDON. PRINTED FOR JOHN TAYLOR, Bookseller and Publisher to the University of London, 30, UPPER GOWER-STREET. THE Success, with which the principles of any art or science are investigated, is generally proportioned to the number of those, whose labours are directed to its cultivation and improvement. Inquiry is necessarily the parent of knowledge; error itself, proceeding from discussion, leads ultimately to the establishment of truth. Were we to estimate our progress in the knowledge of English grammar from the number of works already published on the subject, we should perhaps be prompted to infer, that in a field so circumscribed, and at the same time so often and so ably explored, no object worthy of notice could have escaped attention. And yet in this, as |