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LATIN GRAMMAR;

SIMPLIFIED,

BY MEANS OF AN

INTRODUCTION

RICAN

MIAN

SOCIEFF.

DESIGNED TO FACILITATE THE STUDY OF

Latin Grammær,

BY SPREADING BEFORE THE STUREN.

RCESTY

TASS

IN THE COMPASS OF A FEW PAGES, WHAT IS MOST ESSENTIALLY NECESSARY TO BE
REMEMBERED:

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PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY CHARLES STARR :

SOLD ALSO BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS THROUGHOUT
THE UNITED STATES.

STEREOTYPED BY A. CHANDLER.

D. Fanshaw, Printer, 20 Slote-Lane..

..........

1822.

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
047*172

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW-YORK, ss.

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the 12th day of April, in the forty-sixth year of the (L. S.) Independence of the United States of America, CHARLES STARR, of the said District, hath deposited in this office the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

Adam's Latin Grammar; Simplified, by means of an Introduction: designed to facilitate the study of Latin Grammar, by spreading before the student, in the compass of a few pages, what is most essentially necessary to be remembered: with appropriate exercises to impress on the memory the declensions and inflections of the Parts of Speech, and to exemplify and illustrate the Rules of Syntax. By Allen Fisk.

irritant animos

quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quæ
HOR.

Ipse sibi tradit spectator.

In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled “An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled "an Act, supple. mentary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therei mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."

JAMES DILL,

Clerk of the Southern District of New-York

PREFACE.

THE Grammar of ALEXANDER ADAM, LL. D. Rector of the High School in Edinburgh, first published in 1772, is too well known, and too generally approved, to need, at the present day, either advertisement or encomium. In 1799, it was adopted by the University at Cambridge, (Mass.) and publickly recommended to be used by those intended for that Seminary," as a book singularly calculated for the improvement of students in the Latin Language." It has passed through numerous editions, both in Europe and in this country; and is, unquestionably, the most complete Grammar of the Latin tongue, especially in its Syntax, that has ever yet been published. The great variety of notes and observations annexed to the Rules, the frequent and comprehensive lists of exceptions, and the numerous explications of anomalous and intricate constructions, discover an intimate acquaintance with the Latin classics, and give a clue to the resolution of the most difficult passages.

But, as an elementary school-book, the Grammar of Dr. Adam has one fault; a fault, however, by no means peculiar, but common, it is believed, to all the Latin Grammars hitherto published. Its arrangement is better suited to a book of reference, for the use of those who have already studied the language, than for the inexperienced tyro, who knows nothing of the subject. The student is obliged to commit his whole book to memory, or at least the principal parts, Etymology and Syntax, before he understands a word of it. This, at best, is a most odious and disgusting task. To crowd the memory with page after page of unintelligible matter, to wade through a whole volume without any apparent design or utility, and be required to repeat a multitude of rules and definitions of no obvious meaning or application, blunts the curiosity of youth, disheartens their ambition, and not unfrequently leads to fatal discouragement. Nor are the difficulties of the student at an end when he has got through his Grammar. To prove his skill and try the fidelity of his memory, he is then set to parsing in promiscuous exercises, in long and intricate sentences, to resolve which requires a knowledge of the Grammar and of the idioms of the language, to be acquired only by practical illustration and patient research. However apt, therefore, he may have been in conning by rote, when the learner comes to apply the rules and definitions promiscuously, he finds himself in a labyrinth; his judgment is bewildered; his memory, in many instances, fails him; and thus he is often compelled to begin with his Grammar anew.

To remedy these inconveniences, to relieve the student from the irksome and unprofitable task of committing to memory what he does not understand, and to furnish easy exercises adapted to the illustration of the several parts of speech and rules of syntax, in progressive detail; presenting, at one view, the example of declension, the lesson for parsing, and the appropriate rules, to the eye of the student, have been the Compiler's aim in this publication. And these facilities he has endeavoured to afford with as little innovation upon the usual arrangement of the several parts of Grammar as was deemed consistent with the design of the undertaking, and the nature of the subject; thus attempting to render the book suitable for the young beginner, without rendering it inconvenient for the more advanced scholars. In conformity with these views, Dr. Adam's Grammar has, in general, been left unaltered; and an introduction, containing examples of the various declensions and conjugations of the Parts of Speech, and the Rules of Syntax, with appropriate exercises successively adapted to those rules and examples, has been prefixed to his work. In a few instances, indeed, the order and phraseology of the rules have been altered, with a view to render them more convenient for parsing, and more conformable with the arrangement of the introduction; and that part of Dr. Adam's work, relating exclusively to English Grammar, has been entirely omitted, as being superseded by later and more popular treatises; and, (if it were not) as being generally useless to scholars, in this country at least, on account of their having studied English Grammar before they commence the study of the Latin.

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