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OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

FOR MIDDLE AND HIGHER CLASS SCHOOLS.

BY THE

REV. CHARLES UNDERWOOD DASENT, M.A.

OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,

PRINCIPAL OF HIGH CROSS COLLEGE, TOTTENHAM.

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WILLIAM COLLINS, SONS, AND COMPANY,
GLASGOW, EDINBURGH, AND LONDON,

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PREFACE.

THIS little book makes no pretension to originality either in its manner or its matter, but is rather meant to supply the student with a Manual of English Grammar that shall put him fairly abreast of the results of modern research. It is impossible to write an English Grammar without putting oneself under many obligations to such writers as Dr. Abbott, Dr. Morris, Professor Adams, Professor Mason, Dr. Latham, and to the works of Mätzner, Fiedler, Sachs, and others, and I gratefully acknowledge my debts; but in all cases I have exercised my own judgment, and, in the selection of examples and illustrations, have striven to draw from my own reading new and unhackneyed passages from the great masters of the language.

It is hoped that this book will enable the advanced student to deal with the English Language as a whole, and help him to trace its growth and changeful formation, from the speech of our Saxon, Jutish, and Danish forefathers, to the cultured prose and verse of the Poets, Philosophers, and Historians of modern times. With this object in view, I have made copious extracts from the earliest writers as well as from the successive works of later periods of English.

In the Analysis and Parsing of Sentences my aim has

been to reduce the operations of thought to the simplest rules, and not to overburden the student with intricate and complicated formulas of Analysis.

Exercises on the general scope of the Grammar are given in an Appendix, and will, it is hoped, not only furnish tests of proficiency for scholars, but suggest to teachers other questions bearing more minutely on the subject matter of each chapter.

I am quite aware that this book falls very far short of its idea, but if it enables its readers to take a more adequate measure than is usually taken of the historical dignity and literary wealth of the English tongue, it will not have altogether missed its aim.

C. U. D.

10th September, 15.6.

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