James Greenwood, An Essay towards a Practical English Grammar Describing the Genius and Nature of the English Tongue, Giving Likewise, a Rational and Plain Account of Grammar in General, with a Familiar Explanation of its Terms, 2nd ed. (London: John Clark, 1722).
This is a copy of the second edition of the English grammar by James Greenwood (1683?-1737), whose first edition was published in 1711. According to the article on Greenwood in the DNB by F. Austin, he is best known for this book. It was widely read, not only in Britain but also in the United States, and its abridged version, The Royal English Grammar, was also published in 1737. It is said that Benjamin Franklin used it too. Franklin established the English Academy in Philadelphia in 1750, and Lindley Murray, who is regarded as the 'Father of English Grammar' because of his highly influential English Grammar (1795), entered this school in 1756, so Murray may well have read it too (Watanabe, pp. 491-93).
In the preface, Greenwood mentions three main reasons why he wrote this book: he wishes to 'excite Persons to the Study of their Mother Tongue', 'to give such a plain and rational Account of Grammar, as might render it easy and delightful to our English Youth, who have for a long time esteemed the Study of this Useful Art very irksome, obscure and difficult', and 'to oblige the Fair Sex whose Education, perhaps, is too much neglected in this Particular'. To meet these purposes, Greenwood provides each chapter with a Q&A section summarising what has discussed in the preceding part, which makes the points clearer and easier for readers to review.
In this book, Greenwood is greatly influenced by John Wllis's Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1653), as he himself writes in the preface that he has 'in this Book taken in every Thing that was Material from Dr. Wallis' (though he also writes that he did not pursue his method because he writes in Latin for foreigners). In fact, a large part of his preface consists of Wallis's (in translation and with additions), while what he writes about orthography and pronunciation is mostly taken from Wallis's book with some additions (Watanabe, p. 215). He also writes in the preface that he is indebted to John Wilkins, George Hickes, and John Locke too, and that he does not 'pretend to call this a Compleat Grammar, (no such Thing being to be expected from any one Person) but an Essay'.
My copy belonged to a Thomas Hiller in the eighteenth century, whose neat and archaic inscription on the flyleaf reads as follows:
Thomas Hiller
His Book Jan. 6. 1762.
If this Book in any strangers
Hand you see pray Convey
It unto mee, my Name
above you plainly see.
Perhaps this person was a schoolmaster or something? as it seems in this context, he takes it for granted that many people know who and where he is.
For more information about Greenwood's grammar, see Shoichi Watanabe, History of English Linguistics, Outline of English Linguistics 13 (Tokyo: Taishukan, 1975), or 渡部昇一『英語学史』英語学体系 第13巻 (大修館書店、1975年), pp. 214-16 and 319-21 (It is written in Japanese. It is a shame this really informative book (by my supervisor) has not been published internationally).
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