Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-07-25
A Rare Book.

Messrs Editors II have a small English gram
mar which is so rare and interesting, that some
OF your readers may thank me for description
of it Its title page is ms follows. Compend
of English grammar being An attempt to point out
the fundamental principles of the English Ian
guage, in concise and Ineligible manner, etc,
lsix lines of verse omit Written by Abel Cur
tss 4 b. Dresden Dartmouth College, 1879"
1t is l6mo. of rty-eight pages, and wants a
final page OF two at the end, The preface says
it has been just cause Of anxiety, that there
is no treatise extant, adapted TO the genius and
circumstances of the times, and fitted to young
and vulgar capacities, which point out the funda-
mental principles OF the English language con-
cisely," etc, and dedication follows to " Rev
siyanus RIPPLE Director OF Moor's school, incor-
porated with Dartmouth College" In this treat
Use the parts of speech are the noun, pronoun,
verb and particle Nouns are substantial or ad-
jectiye and particles embrace " Adverbs, conjunc-
ton, propositions and iuteriections Substan-
tives have Gender, number and article, but
Nouns are not varied through cases, as in Latin
except we allow genitye or possessiye " " -Four
things belong to verb, person, number, time and
mode and under mode, the author has q sub
innctye, but not potential
This work seems To he the first English gram
mar published in America small Latin and
English grammar was published at Hartford
by Robert Ross about twenty Years earlier, but
with this exception, nothing SO early is known Ia
a gentleman who has made study Of GRAMMAR
rs widely as possible And ofihis, no other copy
is known to me Indeed, my object In this COM
muncatlon is partly To inquire II any of your
readers know of another copy or can give any
further information of It's use and history have
met but one gentleman who had ever heard of its
existence Mr. William T.. Lewis, town clerk OF
Norwich whose early home was in the same house
where Mr. Curtiss lived sud died The author
graduated at Dartmouth College in l77d and died
M Norwich in 1854 lie was town clerk of Nor
witch for some Years, aud active in the polite Il
movements OF the period Mr. Walton's " Governor
and Council " shows that he WAS member of the
Assembly in l77S, 81 and 50; Judge of Windsor
County Court in 1898 and, with Jonas Fay and
Ira Allen he was a delegate Ia Congress- at Phil
adelphia, in 1882, defending there the overtures
and Interests of Vermont His early death an
uarenty deprived Vermont of one of its most
PROMISING young men, whose name might have
become widely known II life had been spared
And suggest the inquiry II this little work has
not another title IN special remembrance, as the
very first contribution at once OF Vermont and Of
Dartmouth College to the literature of the world?
Some political pamphlets did preeede it, but am
aware of nothing else which can contest this claim
In any case il Is fit that Vermont in her centel-
NAL year, should revive the memory of one OF her
early patriots, and his long-iorgotten grammar,
II may not be known Ia all your readers that
Dresden was the name by which the parish or sec
ton of Hanover in which the college WAS located
was for u few years known. It was represented
along with Hanover in the Vermont conventions
OF l77S-S2 But New Hampshire never recol nifed
H. and when IL tailed 10 secure the place II desired
in the new Vermont il passed intn iorgetlulness
HENRY A. HAzEN Billerica Mass.