Grolier Club shows how fury, plagiarism, hypocrisy, and madness once plagued grammarians John Leechs caricature as the frontispiece to The Comic Latin Grammar. Collection of Bryan A. Garner. NEW YORK, NY .- The exhibition Taming the Tongue in the Heyday of English Grammar (17111851), is on display March 4 through May 15, 2021, at the Grolier Club. It offers a revelatory glimpse into a time when English grammar was taught and studied with a grim fervor unthinkable to us now. Sales of books on grammar were second only to those of the Bible. The subject was so serious that grammar books, when illustrated, often showed pictures of children being caned or whipped, perhaps for sins such as dangling their participles.