Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

Frederik Theodor Visser's An Historical Syntax of the English Language, published in four massive volumes between 1963 and 1973, is certainly one of the cornerstones of research in English linguistics. Visser's achievements can hardly be overestimated. Before the advent of modern corpus linguistics, he compiled a remarkable wealth of detailed philological data from all periods of English and combined this with current grammatical analyses of his time. This has made this publications an indispensable resource for anyone investigating the history of English syntax. This reproduction of Visser's volumes is more than welcome, and timely, as the volumes have been out of print for quite some time and were sometimes a little bit difficult to navigate. Having a searchable and easy-to-use online version, although maybe not perfect, available now means a revival for scholarship that celebrates its fiftieth birthday without losing any of its relevance.

1849. This volume is comprised of a series of essays whose purpose on one hand is to exhibit a tolerable sketch of the human mind; and, aided by the lights which the poet and orator so amply furnish, to disclose its secret movements, tracing its principal channels of perception and action, as near as possible, to their source: and, on the other hand, from the science of human nature, to ascertain, with greater precision, the radical principles of that art, whose object it is, by the use of language, to operate on the soul of the hearer, in the way of informing, convincing, pleasing, moving, or persuading. The Contents are divided into the following three Books: The Nature and Foundations of Eloquence; The Foundations and Essential Properties of Elocution; and The Discriminating Properties of Elocution.