Lowth was both academic and (Anglican) churchman -- both Professor and
Bishop at various times.
Father of the English prescriptive tradition. His book was hugely
influential well into the 19th century. Aimed to do for grammar what
Johnson had done for the lexicon.
He probably began the tradition of listing "grammatical errors" to be
found in the work of "the best authors". Perhaps also the inventor of
rules such as not ending a sentence with a preposition.

Crystal mentions a book about Lowth's book:
Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, The Bishop's Grammar: Robert Lowth
and the Rise of Prescriptivism (OUP,2011)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lowth

On 2024-02-08, Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote:

> He probably began the tradition of listing "grammatical errors" to be
> found in the work of "the best authors". Perhaps also the inventor of
> rules such as not ending a sentence with a preposition.

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1989) traces this
"cherished superstition" back to John Dryden a century earlier, but
lays the more immediate blame on the later trio of Hugh Blair,
Lindley Murray, and Noah Webster: "So the 19th century began with
three widely used, standard school texts formidably opposing the
preposition at the end of the sentence."

Here's the Lowth quote:

This is an idiom, which our language is strongly inclined to: it
prevails in common conversation, and suits very well with the
familiar style in writing: but the placing of the preposition
before the relative, is more graceful, as well as more perspicuous;
and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated style.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

On 10/02/2024 3:17 a.m., Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2024-02-08, Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
>> He probably began the tradition of listing "grammatical errors" to be
>> found in the work of "the best authors". Perhaps also the inventor of
>> rules such as not ending a sentence with a preposition.
>
> Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1989) traces this
> "cherished superstition" back to John Dryden a century earlier, but
> lays the more immediate blame on the later trio of Hugh Blair,
> Lindley Murray, and Noah Webster: "So the 19th century began with
> three widely used, standard school texts formidably opposing the
> preposition at the end of the sentence."
>
> Here's the Lowth quote:
>
> This is an idiom, which our language is strongly inclined to: it
> prevails in common conversation, and suits very well with the
> familiar style in writing: but the placing of the preposition
> before the relative, is more graceful, as well as more perspicuous;
> and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated style.
>

Nice. So it's just better style, more "perspicuous" (i.e. doesn't
separate preposition from its object?), and, of course, more like Latin.