(4) Concerning speech and words, the consideration of them hath
produced the science of grammar. For man still striveth to
reintegrate himself in those benedictions, from which by his fault
he hath been deprived; and as he hath striven against the first
general curse by the invention of all other arts, so hath he sought
to come forth of the second general curse (which was the confusion
of tongues) by the art of grammar; whereof the use in a mother
tongue is small, in a foreign tongue more; but most in such foreign
tongues as have ceased to be vulgar tongues, and are turned only to
learned tongues. The duty of it is of two natures: the one
popular, which is for the speedy and perfect attaining languages, as
well for intercourse of speech as for understanding of authors; the
other philosophical, examining the power and nature of words, as
they are the footsteps and prints of reason: which kind of analogy
between words and reason is handled sparsim, brokenly though not
entirely; and, therefore, I cannot report it deficient, though I
think it very worthy to be reduced into a science by itself.
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