The passage captures a historical trend of linguistic anxiety, highlighting Samuel Johnson's initial hopes to prevent what he perceived as the decline of the English language, only to realize the futility of such efforts. It reflects on the concerns of the 18th century when English was seen as unstable compared to Latin, leading to attempts by figures like Bishop Robert Lowth to impose grammatical rules, often based on personal preferences rather than linguistic principles. These attempts, though well-intentioned, resulted in the creation of arbitrary rules that found their way into grammar books.