The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1894-10-26

SDle PROFESSION TOOK 10 tne law. he
was admitted to the bar at the age
of 24, and, after few years in Eng
land, returned to New York, where
he practiced until the Revolution
broke out. He then took turn at
mercantile life, and made a fortune
. and went to England. where he lived
ever afterward-an Englishman rath-
er than an American. He says: "In
particular I had strong prepOssession
in favor of residence in England,
because I was ever partial to it's po-
litical constitution and the mildnesS
and wisdom of it's general laws. On
leaving my native country there was
not, therefore, anything which could
afford me so much real satisfaction
as l have found in Great Britain"
He purchased a small estate near
Holdgate, where he led quiet, peace
full literary life.
Murray's chief literary work was
''The Power of Religion on the Mind"
published 1877, and which passed
through nearly twenty editions. The
object of the book, he said, was to
''eXcite serious reflections on the un-
satisfying and transitory nature Of
| temporal enjoyments, and to promote
| a lively concern for the attainment
of that felicity which will be complete
! and permanent He then wrote a
series of sketches of 100 men and
women of all sorts and conditions,
from Job to Caesar Borgia, and Baron
Heller to Sir William Jones, whose
lives, by inspiring in the reader either
admiration or pity, were to be ''of
singular efficacy to excite love Of
| God and goodness" He dwells es-
| pecially on their conduct at the ap-
| proach of death, and uses it for a
! stirring argument against infidelity.
| What an evidence OH behalf 'of piety
| and virtue! What a dissuasive from
vice and follyr' is the fact, he says,
that all should be so deeply impressed
| with the need of religion when they
reach the termination of their days.
And he quotes Young as the inspira-
ton of his life:
'Tis immOrtality-'tis that alone,
Amidst life's pains abasements, emp
tineSS,
The soul can comfort, elevate and fill.
In his school life Murray had made
many friends. with whom he kept up
Il lief-lcrg correspondence. Promi-
| nent among these was Chief Justice
Jay. Murray also wrote many relig-
ious and controversial pamphlets, and
|
But there is only one book that has
kept Lindley Murray's fame alive in
all these years. and that is his gram
mar. 1t alone is sufficient to make
the valley of the Swatara forever
famous. And yet how few people re-
member or know that the county Of
Dauphin can claim the birthplace Of
the noted grammarian.
Lindley Murray'S grammar! What
memories it inspires in all of the old
er genera tons. all of whom in the
satirical lines of Dryden
Climbed the grammar tree to know
Where noun and verb and participle
grow.
All the old schoolmasters swOre by
! Murray and his rules and examples
of orthography, etymology, syntaX,
and prosody. his four constituent
parts of English grammar.
| In the rural districts near the gram
maran's birthplace Murray, under a
different name, is still taught in all
, his glory, and there is a somewhat
. pretcntious academy, now happily on
Il decline, only few miles from the
Murray place, in which decrepit
old grammariar, dressed in gown,
. bands and wig" still holds his old
time sway. Grammar, in his opinion,
. constitutes the sum total of a liberal
education. He considers it his spec
ialty, and still uses Lindley Murray
! as the first and last authority, and q
, verbatim knowledge of his twenty
two rules of syntaX is his first re-
quirement from Il beginner and woe
bctide the poor wretch who recites
. rule 10 or rule 20 when rule of a
different number is called for!
This sur Jival of the Lindley Murray
regime is no more amusing than the
grave way in which l heard q little
girl discourse a la Murray on the
. difference between syStactical aud
genealogical parsing and then take
up ''Who preserves u.s." and, chatter
:, ing as fast as her tongue could go,
, proceed to tell "Old Polyphemus," !"
who hung over her with rule in one
hand and the other deep in the pocket
of his antiquated trousers. that "WhO
is a relative prOnOun of the ihterrOga-
i tive kind, therefore without any an
tccedent, and in the nominative case
, singular; nominative, who; possessive,
whose; objective, whom; the word to
which it relates is called it's subse-
quenr. and is the noun or pronOun
cont lining the answer to the question; !;
: according to a note under rule T.,
which says" etc.
The boys were not quite so ready
in their parsing, but perhaps they had
no key to the exercise or did not
stand in such awe of their teacher.
Whatever may be said of Murray's
grammar, it must be confessed that
under one name or another it is still
taught for good or for bad in nearly
all of the rural schools of the state
| EX.