THE PRINCIPLES OF LATIN GRAMMAR: COMPRISING THE SUBSTANCE OF THE MOST APPROVED APPENDIX. FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. BY REV. PETER BULLIONS, D. D. LATE PROFESSOR OF LANGUAGES IN THE ALBANY ACADEMY; AUTHOR OF THE FIFTY-FOURTH EDITION-REVISED AND IMPROVED. NEW-YORK: PRATT, WOODFORD & COMPANY, 4 COURTLANDT-STREET. .... HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF NEWTON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY LIBRARY ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-three, by PETER BULLIONS, D. D., in the Clerk's Office of the Northern District of New York. PREFACE. In the study of any language, the foundation of success must be laid in a thorough acquaintance with its principles. This being once attained, future progress becomes easy and rapid. To the student of language, therefore, a good Grammar, which must be his constant companion, is of all his books the most important. Such a work, to be really valuable, ought to be simple in its arrangement and style, so as to be adapted to the capacity of youth, for whose use it is designed; comprehensive, and accurate, so as to be a sufficient and certain guide in the most difficult as well as in easy cases; and its principles and rules should be rendered familiar by numerous examples and exercises. The fundamental principles are nearly the same in all languages. So far as Grammar is concerned, the difference lies chiefly in the minor details in the forms and inflections of their words, and in the modes of expression peculiar to each, usually denominated idioms. It would seem, therefore, to be proper, in constructing Grammars for different languages, that the principles, so far as they are the same, should be arranged in the same order, and expressed as nearly as possible in the same words. Where this is carefully done, the study of the Grammar of one language becomes an important aid in the study of another;—an opportunity is afforded of seeing wherein they agree, and wherein they differ, and a profitable exercise is furnished in comparative or general grammar. But when a Latin Grammar is put into the hands of the student, differing widely in its arrangement or phraseology from the English Grammar which he had previously studied, and afterwards a Greek Grammar different from both, not only is the benefit derived from the analogy of the different languages in a great measure lost, but the whole subject is made to appear intolerably intricate and mysterious. By the publication of this series of Grammars, English, Latin, and Greek, on the same plan, this evil is now remedied probably as far as it can be done. The work here presented to the public, is upon the foundation of ADAM'S LATIN GRAMMAR, so long and so well known as a text book in this country. The object of the present undertaking was, to combine with all that is excellent in the work of Adam, the many important results of subsequent |