In Nos. 254 and 255 of the Tatler there was advertised, as shortly to be published, "An Essay towards a Practical English Grammar, by James Greenwood.... Particular care has been taken to render this book useful and agreeable to the Fair Sex." This book is dated 1711, and is noticed in the Works of the Learned for July. The Preface gives "part of a letter which I wrote about a twelvemonth ago to the ingenious author of the Tatler upon this head" (i.e. knowledge of grammar among the fair sex). Greenwood's remarks on female education were not printed in the Tatler; but they may have formed part of the letter in this number (234), if this letter is by Greenwood. The third edition, enlarged, of Greenwood's "Essay" appeared on May 24, 1729. Greenwood was sub-master at St. Paul's School, and afterwards kept a boarding-school at Woodford, in Essex. He published "The London Vocabulary, English and Latin," of which there was a third edition in 1713, with curious illustrations. By 1817 this book had passed through twenty six-editions in England, besides several in America. Greenwood also published in 1713 "The Virgin Muse," a collection of poetry for "young gentlemen and ladies at school." Second and third editions appeared in 1722 and 1731.
Michael Maittaire also issued, in 1712, "An English Grammar; or, an Essay on the Art of Grammar, applied to and exemplified in the English Tongue." In the same year a pamphlet appeared with the title, "Bellum Grammatical, or the Grammatical Battle-Royal. In Reflections on the three English Grammars published in about a year last past." It consists chiefly of an attack on Greenwood's "Essay," and praise of Brightland's "Grammar," which "merits what the Censor said of it." In a postscript Maittaire's "Grammar" is described as the worst of all. Brightland and Greenwood deserve to be remembered for their efforts to spread abroad a knowledge of "the genius and nature of the English tongue." (The facts in this note are taken from a paper by the present writer in Watford's Antiquarian for October 1885.)
[130] Horace, 3 Od. iv. 19.
[131] Virgil, "Eclog." i. 67.
"Bartolus (a covetous lawyer). Where shall I find these sums?
Diego (sexton to Lopez). Even where you please, sir."
—Beaumont and Fletcher's "Spanish Curate," Act. iv. sc. i.