OR SELECT EXTRACTS, FROM SUCH LATIN AUTHORS AS ARE USUALLY READ IN NOTES, Grammatical & Explanatory, IN WHICH THE DIFFICULTIES IN PARSING, SCANNING, AND AND A VOCABULARY, BY THOMAS QUIN, MASTER OF THE CLASSICAL AND COMMERCIAL LONDON: PUBLISHED BY GEORGE COWIE & CO. POULTRY: PREFACE. IN presenting the following compilation to the public, the author does not pretend to have discovered a new way of teaching the Latin language. His aim is to render that method, which high authority has made the most popular, easier to the learner, and less troublesome to the teacher. Whether the plan, adopted for this purpose, will be as successful in the hands of others, as it has been in his own, it is not for him to determine. If the question be asked, why he has not confined his observations to some particular author, in preference to making extracts from several, a twofold reply is at hand. In most schools, so many authors are used, that it would be difficult to select one from the rest; not to mention the necessity of combining poetry with prose in a work of this description. On the other hand, where so many books are used, the expense of providing them becomes an object of consideration, which is the more reasonable, as only a small part of each is usually read in the classes, and that, frequently, in a hurried and slovenly manner, for the purpose of pushing the pupil forward. Were but one quarter of the pages thus hastily run over, impressed upon the memory of the pupil by repeated perusal and examination, his further progress would be attended with increasing pleasure to himself, and credit to his teacher. To remedy this disadvantage, several works, containing some detached sentences, and others portions of greater length, have appeared in print, and the favourable reception they have met with, sufficiently proves, how much the want of books of this kind has been felt. In the best, however, that has fallen in the way of the author, very little trouble has been taken to explain the construction of sentences, and declension of words according to the rules of Grammar; when, an acquaintance with these, and a constant familiarity with the parsing of words, and the proving of the quantities of syllables, is the only foundation, on which a perfect acquirement of a dead language can be built. The author flatters himself, that as far as the limits of an elementary work admit, this defect is now supplied; and that a slight inspection will show, that the notes are not only different in their nature from such as are usually added to works of this kind, but more calculated to afford legitimate help to the learner, and to relieve the tutor from that incessant attention, which is necessary to be paid to the classes, even during their studies. It is adviseable, that the whole of the Extracts from the Evangelia be twice read through with the closest attention to the parsing. Afterward the lessons may proceed, alternately, through the prose and poetry, the latter of which, commencing with Phædrus, constitutes the second part of the work. It may be easily seen that a previous acquaintance with the Eton Latin grammar is necessary to understand the notes; and those of maturer years, who, not having the advantage of instruction, have been deterred from studying the language, with the help of this grammar, from an idea of its difficulty, may here find every practical illustration of its rules, and how well adapted they are to establish the student in the most accurate principles of the language. MALDON, JUNE, 1st., 1822. |