Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1852-03-02
From the Chicago Journal.
OLD DAYS.


OLD DAYS.
Some day this month-we should remember
exactly-a man was born, whose name, next TO
Webster's and "Peter Parley's," has been ia
mliar to the juvenile world-"a household
word"-sometimes a word of terror, but now,
as we remember it, word to covure with-to
wave up scenes and forms long faded and crum-
bled. LINDLEY MURRAY. Did you ever hear
of him! And do you not remember his little
book, that like another " little book" was bit
ter" and nerer sweet at all And don't you
recollect how firmly it was bound, old lronsides
that it was, and what was on the fiy-leaf-John
or James or David Somebody, his book" and
that Lochiel like couplet,
Steal not this book, my honest friend
For fear the gallows shall be your end"
And who printed it" II. and E. Phnney," and
the year, 1900 and something!
Shut your eyes now and you can see every
page of that old Grammar; just where the noun
began, and the "verb to be-" and SyntaX with
it's terrible code Of twenty-five, exactly twenty
two Rules.
And how like quarter horses, we plunged
through the modes and lenses Of the verb
!" Love-" Who has forgotten, or whoever can
forget how it went and we went? 81 love,
loved, have loved, had loved, shall or will love,
shall have loved" On we darted, through the
cans and the coulds and the nights of the Po-
'tental, and the mysterious contingencies of the
Subjunctive, till rounded to on the trio of Par
ticiples that brought up the rear of this mar
vellous cavalcade of deeds, probable and possl-
Bile, present, past and future, in the great art
and action Of loving.
And then when you come to Propositions,
how they puzzled us all Don't you remember
the definition? Right hand page, four lines
from the top, just before Conjunctions, on the
threshold of Syntax!
Thus it ran: propositions are words used
to connect words, and show the relation be-
tween them," or to give little Joe Miller's or
some other little felows's version, "Pep'sition
word used c'nect words show 'lation tween
'em." Showed relation" did they? And achat
relation! Blood relation or relation by mar
rage! And so we puzzled anil pondered, and
passed it over, and learned the list, that went
like flock of sheep over the wall, "Of to for
by within" &c.
And who has forgotten those queer contri-
vaaces of Conjunctions, that connected and
didn't connect, and what God-s5nd the Inter
lection was, in the midst of the fog, with its
oh ! ah and alas Often had we employed it;
we understood, felt and appreciated it.
Then the wonderful process they called
" Parsing" if they do it yet-when
we used to take couplets from the Prince OF
English Rhyme, and row Of little cannibas
that we were, there we stood beneath the un-
winkng optics of our teacher, and "transpo-
sed" alias mutilated, paraphrased" alias butch
cred, and every thing but devoured his immor-
tai lines
Do you not recolect how we disposed of
" In spite of PRIDE in erring Reasons spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right!
After much science and little sense, the light
used to burst upon our bedazzled intellects
about once winter, that Pope meant to say
and did say, "whatever is right, is rightr' Do
they dream in the grave! Does the Bard sleep
peaceful yet?
And where's the boy that sat next in the
Grammar class !? And the bright-eyed girl, that
used to whisper the answer so softly to us, and
save our juvenile palms, many an acquaintance
with the oaken ferrule-where is she? Does
she whisper hope and happiness to any body
still! Are her eyes as bright, and her steps as
light as of old Or has Death, that great Bal
liff closed her eyes and set seal upon her lips
Who knows? Who can tell?
And the old schoolmaster, gray cas- long ago
as we can remember"-gray before that-does
he teach Grammar still? Is his step as firm
and his eye as stcel-like gray as it was wont to
be then?
And the ancient schoolmaam, old Miss E.
who lived in the yellow house next to the vii
lage green, and taught us spelling and Etymol-
ogy, she too is conjured up by the spell of Old
Murray" and we see her looking over those
spectaces as she used to do, when she meant
to be "awful." One day she "put out" celib.
acy though twas the name of her lonely state
--poor old lady that circumstance didn't lei
her into the pronunciation, and "sillybossy,'