From Clair James Grece   29 December 1867

Dear Sir,

There has lately appeared a learned and elaborate English grammar, very far beyond aught of its kind which has been published before. In fact there is no other grammar of the English language with which it can be at all compared. It is a work of prodigious research and erudition, the author having traced in the historical manner, the descent of the finest shades of usage from the teutonic and romance sources whose confluence formed the English tongue.

It is marvellous how a foreigner could ever come to discriminate shades of usage whose subtlety almost baffles the apprehension of a native. He has brought to his work a thorough acquaintance with the science of language, and of thought, its counterpart, and an intimate knowledge of eight tongues. It can be compared only with Kuehner’s Greek or Grimm’s German grammar;¹ and, like these, it is the production of a German, Professor Maetzner of Berlin, and it is written in the German language.²

This work, which can scarcely fail to take rank, sooner or later, as a leading authority on our tongue, and as an indispensable complement to Webster’s, Wedgwood’s or Richardson’s dictionary,³ in every well-stocked library, ought not, I think, to be confined to such Englishmen and Americans as can read German, wherefore I have conceived the project of devoting my unoccupied time to translating it. But, as this would entail a very considerable expenditure of effort, the work consisting of three octavo volumes, each of about 500 pages, it is important, on commencing it, to ensure that I shall be able to unite myself with a publisher, as else much time and labour might be consumed in vain. I have been recommended to negotiate with M^r. Murray, and, it was hinted that if I were sustained by an introduction from one of his authors, his attention would be more likely to be fairly bestowed upon the project than if I approached him abruptly.⁴

It at once occurred to me that you would not object to give me a letter to M^r. Murray in which you might refer to me as the person mentioned in the note to your “Origin of Species”.⁵ Of my competence to render the ideas from the High Dutch into the English idiom so far as they are capable of being transfused, you can, of course, say nothing.

I am, Dear Sir, | yours very truly, | Clair J. Grece

Redhill, Surrey;

29^th. December, 1867