Gentlemen: In the June number of the Knickerbocker, I have seen an 'extract' purporting to be taken from the 'Introduction' of a yet unpublished work upon English grammar, by Goold Brown, which extract seems to be a sort of criticism levelled at me and my works, but more especially at my Grammar. Judging from the fury of this assault, one would be inclined to think, that my antagonist believed his very existence as an author depended upon his annihilation of me, and that my future popularity and success are dependant upon his opinion of me and my works! My Grammar, gentlemen, has been attacked by abler writers than Goold Brown, and has passed through the ordeal of their criticisms unscathed. It is not to be expected, therefore, that I should care a groat whether this self-constituted philological umpire likes the work or not. Indeed, I would rather he would not like it; for sure I am, that if he liked it, few others would; a clear proof of which we have, in a dull book on grammar, which he himself produced, some twelve or fifteen years ago, on a plan and in a style exactly suited to his own peculiar liking. Since then, it never entered into my scheme to write a grammar to suit the taste of my jealous rivals, but to please myself and the public. Having gained the latter point, I can very complacently bear all the futile abuse which may be heaped upon me.
I know it is mortifying for an author to fail, especially a conceited one. I admit that it is hard for him to write eleven years for nine hundred dollars,[7] even though his labors may not have been worth to the public one-half that sum. It is natural, too, for such writers, after having ascertained that nobody will purchase their bantlings, to turn philosophers, and become very disinterested, and affect to despise the idea of connecting emolument with the labors of their mighty pens. Doubtless, also, it is sufficiently provoking, and especially mortifying to a discomfitted author's vanity, to learn that the works of a much younger writer, and one upon whom he once affected to look down as his inferior, should go off by thousands, while his own precious productions are with difficulty shoved off by tens. That such an author should find nothing to praise in a work so much more popular than his own, is not at all singular; yet, when a conceited charlatan, himself a professed author, (and a pretended Quaker, withal!) so far departs from the dignity and decency of manly feeling, as to attempt, by gross misrepresentations and low trickery, to destroy the hard-earned and honest fame of a more successful fellow-laborer, for purposes of private malice, a decent respect for the dignity of true criticism and the rights of authorship, no less than a proper regard for the cause of learning, requires that he should be held up to public detestation.
Had Goold Brown merely dipped his pen in gall to assail my work, so little do I regard his criticism, so great is my aversion to contention, and so thorough my contempt for mere mousing word-catching, that he might have gone on and vented his spleen unheeded; but since he has seen fit thus wantonly to assail my private character, and to impeach my motives, and since he has attempted to sustain himself in this unjustifiable attack, by misapplying my language and distorting my meaning, I conceive myself called upon to expose his duplicity and baseness. That he is utterly incapable of discovering any thing in the grammatical works of others, but faults and defects, I need not show, for the article in question saves me the trouble; but that his assault upon me savors strongly of malevolence and dishonesty, I shall presently prove. He has, nevertheless, stated some facts in relation to my Grammar, although, as it appears, quite unintentionally; and, as far as facts stated by him can have any influence with the public, they will do me good. On the other hand, he has made many statements concerning me and my works, which are not founded upon facts. Most of these, however, so clearly show the evil design of the critic, that they need no reply. As they carry with them their own antidote, I have nothing to apprehend from their poison. But some of these misstatements are more adroitly managed, and are calculated to mislead the unsuspecting reader. I allude to his charges brought against both my personal and my grammatical character, which he has attempted to support by garbling, torturing, misquoting, misconstruing, and misapplying my language, and thereby perverting my meaning. In order, therefore, that the public may be disabused on these points, I shall proceed to take them up in order.
After denouncing me as a 'bad writer,'and as wanting in 'scholarship,' and insinuating that I would 'bribe the critics and reviewers,' my liberal and pious censor all at once discovers, through his rusty spectacles, not only that I am so unprincipled as totally to disregard 'accuracy' and usefulness in authorship, but that my 'principal business is to turn my publication to profit;' that I am, in short, a real worshipper of Midas; and, in order to prove himself correct in this marvellous discovery, the honest man presents his readers with the following passage:
'Murray,' says he, 'simply intended to do good, and good which might descend to posterity. This intention goes far to excuse even his errors. But Kirkham says, 'My pretensions reach not so far. To the present generation only I present my claims.' Elocution, p. 364. His whole design is, therefore, a paltry scheme of present income.'
The injustice and roguery of this passage, it is impossible for the casual reader fully to conceive. After forming a postulate to fit his own purpose, the critic ransacks my works to garble a passage that, by contortion and misapplication, shall fit it in such a manner as to make me utter a libel against my own moral character! My pen falters while I expose the duplicity of this transaction. 'Murray simply intended to do good.' Kirkham says, 'My pretensions reach not so far.' So far as what? As to do good, of course. This is undoubtedly the meaning intended to be conveyed by the wily critic. But let us look at the meaning of the passage, when taken in its original connexion, as it stands in my Elocution. It occurs at the close of that work, in some eulogistic remarks made upon Dr. James Rush, the distinguished author of the 'Philosophy of the Human Voice.' The whole passage reads thus:
'Dr. Rush, in his 'Philosophy of the Human Voice,' boldly addresses posterity. This is manly; and I hazard little in prophesying, that posterity will gladly give him a hearing. My pretensions reach not so far. To the present generation only I present my claims. Should it lend me a listening ear, and grant me its suffrages, the height of my ambition will be attained. Though unwilling to be a mere time-server, yet I know not that I have any thing on which to rest my claims upon generations to come.'
Now instead of saying in this passage that 'my pretensions reach not so far as to do good,' I simply say, that they reach not so far as those of Dr. Rush!—and the passage is so free from ambiguity as to render it impossible for my opponent to have mistaken my meaning. Mistaken it, indeed! He very well knew, when he penned this slanderous paragraph, that my professed object in writing school-books was to 'do good;' and yet he has the hardihood to hoax his readers into the belief that I openly disavow any such intention! Comment is unnecessary. And yet this is the modest man who has the effrontery to call in question the motives of him whom he traduces; to lecture him upon the principles of morality and justice; and cantingly to quote scripture at him! He intimates that I have not the moral courage to 'dare to do right.' I have the courage to dare to tell the truth.
But since my antagonist has maliciously attempted, by misquoting my language, to prove that I disavow any intention either to do good or to do right, perhaps I may be indulged in a few quotations, too, from my own works, merely with the view of presenting this matter in its proper light: