If I do not overrate this author's literary importance, a fair exhibition of the character of his grammar, may be made an instructive lesson to some of our modern literati.

The book is a striking sample of a numerous species.
22.

Kirkham's treatise is entitled, "English Grammar _in familiar Lectures_, accompanied by a _Compendium_;" that is, by a folded sheet.

Of this work, of which I have recently seen copies purporting to be of the "SIXTY-SEVENTH EDITION," and others again of the "HUNDRED AND FIFTH EDITION," each published at Baltimore in 1835, I can give no earlier account, than what may be derived from the "SECOND EDITION, enlarged and much improved," which was published at Harrisburg in 1825.

The preface, which appears to have been written for his _first_ edition, is dated, "Fredericktown, Md., August 22, 1823." In it, there is no recognition of any obligation to Murray, or to any other grammarian in particular; but with the modest assumption, that the style of the "best philologists," needed to be retouched, the book is presented to the world under the following pretensions: "The author of this production has endeavoured to condense _all the most important subject-matter of the whole science_, and present it in so small a compass that the learner can become familiarly acquainted with it in a _short time_.