LIST OF MR. COBBETt’s BOOKS. book learning, and smooth the way along to my own English Grammar, which is the entrance-gate. I often promised to comply with these requests, and, from time to time, in the intervals of political heats, I have thought of the thing, till, at last, I found time enough to sit down and put it upon paper. The objection to the common spelling books is, that the writers aim at teaching several important sciences in a little book in which the whole aim should be the teaching of spelling and reading. We are presented with a little Arithmetic, a little Astronomy, a little Geography, and a good deal of Religion l No wonder the poor little things imbibe a hatred of hooks in the first that they look into! Disap- proving heartily of these books, I have carefully abstained from everything beyond the object in view, namely, the teaching of a child to spell and read ; and this work I have made as pleasant a3 I could, by introducing such stories as children most delight in, accompanied by those little woodcut illustrations which amuse them. At the end of the book there is a “ Stepping-stone to the English Grammar.” It is but a step ; it is designed to teach a child the different parts of speech, and the use of points, with one or two small matters of the kind. The book is in the duodecimo form, contains 176 pages of print, and the price is Is. 6d. — W. C. ENGLISH GRAMMAR. COBBETT’S ENGLISH GRAMMAR. ( Price 3s J— This work is in a series of letters addressed to my son James, when he was 14 years old. I made him copy the whole of it before it went to press, and that made him a grammarian at once ; and how able an one it made him will be seen by his own Grammar of the Italian Lan- guage, his Ride in France, and his Tour in Italy. There are at the end of this Grammar “ Six Lessons intended to prevent States- men from using false Grammar;” and I really wish that our states- men would attend to the instructions of the whole book. Thou- sands upon thousands of young men have been made correct writers by it ; and it is next to impossible that they should have read it with attention without its producing such effect. It is a book of principles, clearly laid down ; and when once these are got into the mind they never quit it. More than 100,000 copies of this work have been sold. — W. C. FRENCH GRAMMAR. COBBETT’S FRENCH GRAMMAR (Price 5s.); or, Plain Instructions for the Learning of French. — This book has had, and has, a very great effect in the producing of its object. More young men have, 1 dare say, learned F rench from it than from all the other books that have been published in English for the last fifty years. It is- like the former, a book of principles, clearly laid down. 1 had this great advantage too, that I had learnt French without a master. I had grubbed it out, bit by bit, and knew well how to remove all the difficulties ; I remembered what it was that had puzzled and retarded . me; and I have taken care, in this, my Grammar, to prevent the reader from experiencing that which, in this respect, I experienced myself. This Grammar, as well as the former, is kept out of schools i owing to the fear that the masters and mistresses have of being looked upon as Cobbettites. So much the worse for the children of the stupid brutes who are the cause of this fear, which senstoh people laugh at, and avail themselves of the advantages tendered t( them in the books. Teaching French in English Schoolsis, geneially 1 mere delusion; and as to teaching the pronunciation by rules, it li -
