Chronic Intestinal Stasis.

J. Matlock's Young ladies guide to the knowledge of the English tongue (1715): contextualising the first grammar of English for ladies

“…In over fifteen other texts on ECEG, 'true' tends to collocate with spelling or pronunciation, and later to relate to examples of bad English: The Expert Orthographist (1704), for instance, teach[es] to write true English exactly, by rule, and not by rote. Good English and classical learning were often collocated, though the assumption was debunked by authors including Lane (1706Lane ( [1700Rix 2008: 547) and the Expert Orthographist, who claimed that 'True English' was rare in this 'Learned Age' (e.g. 1704: A3r).…”

“…Jones 1953: 293ff). Moreover, in an increasingly commercial society, even the 'educated classes' increasingly valued 'modern subjects' for their own sake (Holmes 1982: 45); interest in English was anticipated by educators like Lane (1706Lane ( [1700Rix 2008: 550). A trawl of texts from this period confirms both that an advanced introduction to English was a potentially popular commodityand also that rising anxiety about good English had not yet been matched by authoritative codification.…”

“…As applied to English, the Latin tradition was both modified and challenged: indeed, several of Matlock's predecessors had ostentatiously rejected categories and terms associated with Latin. Lane (1706Lane ( [1700) was the first to use only four grammatical categories, likely influenced by the Port-Royal tradition that used the (French) vernacular and 'universal' or 'general' grammar rather than Latin (Lane 1706(Lane [1700Michael 1970: 167-9, 254, 498-9, 510;Rix 2008: 549). Similarly influenced by the Port-Royal tradition, Gildon & Brightland introduced new terms, innovatively describing the four parts of speech as 'Names, Qualities, Words of Affirmation, The Manners of Words' (Gildon & Brightland 1711: 69; Michael 1970: 255, 508-11).…”

“…Although it is beyond this paper's scope to identify all the influences on Matlock's Guide, the discipline of logictaught along with grammar and rhetoric in the classical triviumseems to have furnished some material in this section, likely by unacknowledged borrowing. Like Lane (1706Lane ( [1700: 74) and Gildon & Brightland (1711: 141), Matlock heads this section 'Of SENTENCES' (1715: 58) rather than 'Syntax' (e.g. Greenwood 1711: 209).…”

“…This 'Port-Royal Logic ' (195-6) is seemingly also the source for Matlock's three 'Sentences compounded of two subjects' (1715: 61-4). Alexander, as the subject of conquered objects, does appear in other grammars, for instance Lane's (1706Lane's ( [1700: 109). Indeed, Lane also used the term 'Subject' and linked it with 'Logick' (Lane 1706(Lane [1700Rix 2008: 548).…”