to intrude among the stately measures of a language, commonly esteemed to convey to the ear a sense of its dignity.

But both Walker and Adam have omitted, what, in a future edition, we recommend to the present editor to supply. On page third of the Grammar, the remark of Walker is repeated, that 'in dividing words into syllables we are chiefly to be directed by the ear.' But no answer is given to the question what directs the ear itself. The answer is obvious; the ear is directed to form a syllable by a determinate sound, which the analogy of our own language gives to every vowel so situated as it is in that syllable. Rules founded on this analogy, must first show the sound of the vowel to be either the long or the short. If this be done, the rule for the formation of syllables will be simple. When the sound is

long, the vowel ends the syllable; when the sound is short, the consonant, next following, ends the syllable. On the accent, and its place, we find but one opinion. For scholars and grammarians have had reason to conclude, that the accent was determined by the quantity of the word, when it consisted of more than two separate vowels; that if the quantity of the penultimate vowel was long, it was accented, (Diomedes, Putsch, p. 426,) but if otherwise, the antepenultimate, (Diomedes gives a tribrachys in proof, melius;) that the first of only two separate vowels, (id. p. 427,) that is, in a dissyllable, whatever its quantity, is accented; and that these, whatever were the popular corruptions in speaking, were probably acknowledged to be the legitimate places for the accent in the of Cicero. age 6 Apud Latinos duo tantum loca tenet [sc. accentus acutus] penultimum et antepenultimum.'*

The rule, therefore, is established; although undoubtedly, while a language is vernacular, the deviations from it must be frequent; from motives of convenience, (as, for example, two senses of the same word, with the same quantity, could be marked by a different accent, causa discretionis,' Diomed. p. 428, that is, for the sake of distinguishing the sense; see Zumpt's Grammar, p. 390,) or in consequence of the vulgar cant, which always soils, in some degree, the flow of a spoken language. But when that tongue is no longer in use, and the occasion for such deviations, for convenient intercourse with various classes of men, has passed away with themselves, we can recur to the plain principle which is definite, while the departures from it are not capable of being distinctly traced out.

We will dwell on the subject of Latin pronunciation only a moment longer. If any one aim at a degree of accuracy, beyond what these rules of analogy supply, he might as well aim his

* Diomed. Priscian almost copies him, pp. 1186, 1287-8. Donatus, p. 1739. Cledonius Victorinus, p. 1888. Beda, 2358.

arrow, with the Indian, to bring down one of the stars. Professor Zumpt, of Berlin, supports the necessity of a distinction in dissyllables, between the sound of Roma and homo, which is to indicate that in Roma the penultimate is long, and in homo it is short. 'We must endeavor' he says, (page 390, of Kenrick's Translation of his Grammar,) to give the first syllable [of dissyllables, he means, in which it has the short quantity] that percussion of the voice which constitutes the accent, without lengthening the vowel, or yet doubling the following consonant.' That is, the proper sound of homo, is neither hom-mo, nor ho-mo, but an unknown something between them! If one wishes to be satisfied of the futility of such an endeavor, we beg leave to refer him to a note of Perizonius, on Sanctius, (Minerva, p. 22, et seqq. Amst. 1714). He will be able to judge, with what wisdom a modern would strive to obey these teachers of uncertain sounds; where one tells us, that suaveque, (with the accent on e, on account of the enclitic,) is to be pronounced not suavéque, much less, suavêque, but something different from both; and a second, Vossius, (a great name,) thinks, that the ancients gave two primary accents to the antepenultimate and penultimate, in the words exadversum and aliquando, in opposition, however, to the authority of Cicero and Quintilian, who state that in every word there can only be one primary accent, (τόνος). It is not, however, to be denied, that some distinction of this kind may have existed; but the proper ground is, that it is now lost, unattainable, and needless. Edo and esito, (as the critic has cited from Gellius,) were distinguished by a sound of the former, which was neither the nor the of the Greek. It was probably a provincialism. Those who employed it are in `their graves. Let it lie buried with them, since they have neither told us why ror how we are to use it. But lest any presumption should be laid to the charge of the followers of Walker, in his view of the vowel sound and accent, we will add, for their solace, a passage from the critic now cited, who has a claim to be heard, if only because he was the pupil of that High Treasurer of literature, old Grævius. The following, then, are the words of Perizonius, on those distinctions of sound above described. 'Certe talia hæc sunt, quæ melius forsan ex continuo pronunciandi auditu et usu cognosci diu potuerunt, quam a nobis nunc ex grammaticorum præceptis percipi.' And respecting accent, his words are, 'illi [sc. Priscianus, etc.] oinnem rationem accentûs seu toni in pronunciando retulerunt ad quantitatem syllabæ penultimæ. Quod et antiquiores Romanos fecisse nullus dubito.' Perizon. in Minerv. p. 25.

n

Mr Gould has furnished the rule of accent, in correspondence with what seems to us the only rational view of the subject. In general, too, it is with judgment, that the minor changes, and less

important additions, on which the editor has spent his diligence, have been made. It was desirable to omit that lumber, the English part of this Grammar, which no English scholar would be content with, and no Latin scholar could want. After a careful examination, we venture an opinion, that to every instructer it will appear the best edition of Adam, which can be obtained. The pupil, from the almost perfect accuracy of the quantity of each syllable, will escape the danger of needing, perhaps, a month's correction of an error, which has been forced on him by the printer's carelessness, after having formed his ear to it by frequent repetitions, in committing the word to memory.

It might be less useful than invidious to bring into a very close comparison, the more recent grammars of the Latin tongue. But a class of books have borne this name, which have affected great philosophical nicety in arranging the various sentences, with an eye much more to system, than to the age, power, and disposition of the pupil. We presume that the grammar of our own language (and probably that of the Greek,) has been neglected, in consequence of that air of abstraction, which too studiously accurate definitions, and general remote deductions from many particulars, have imparted to many elementary books. The language, too, of many of these, is apparently addressed to those whose minds are in some respects opened to metaphysical speculation. Some relics of this creep through the best of our manuals.

In Adam's Grammar a few defects yet remain. The use of some words is either obsolete, or only known to readers of metaphysics. Affections, for example, are one thing to a boy who loves his mother affectionately, and quite another to one who has just read Adam Smith, or Cogan on the Passions. It is true, that the meaning in our language is restricted, from that of the primitive. Whatever the mind did, no less than what it was affected by, was undoubtedly expressed, to a Roman ear, by the primitive.* But is any boy awake to this notion, when he repeats, 'Verbal adjectives, or such as signify an affection of the mind, govern the genitive?' And well may he pause in wonder to find ignarus, and stupidus, arranged among the words which signify affections.

The language of a book for boys should be simple and explicit. It will not answer to speak of words in concord, or under government, when common usage confines these words to different occasions. It is enough to say, that a verb is of the same person and number as its nominative, (to show a correspondence in two points;) that an adjective assumes a form corresponding to the gender, number, and case of the substantive which it qualifies; and

*Afficio, i. e. ad and facio. What the mind does to a thing, as well as what the thing does to or makes for the mind.

that two substantives meaning the same thing correspond in case. But fortunately, the good sense of most pupils, by means of studying examples, struggles through the darkness of rules, in which common words are used in uncommon senses. The exceptions to be made to the language of Adam's Grammar are the less important, as it is abounding in examples, which teach the syntax sometimes in despite of the rule.

Å grammar for schools should be distributed in a simple order; and experience must determine each instructer for himself, which of several methods of arrangement is to be preferred. It has appeared to us, that, in some more recent Latin grammars, the nice care to preserve a scientific order has pleased scholars, who made no account of the difference, in the power of receiving pleasure or benefit from it, between boys and men. The arrangement in Adam is natural and perspicuous. And in one respect, decidedly, the grammar of Dr Adam has an advantage above every other within our knowledge. He has been uniformly faithful to an object, ever to be kept in view by the writer of grammars for schools, namely, to make the pupil familiar with established rules, and the no less established exceptions, in which all writers are alike; and a failure in making the exception is no less, than in transgressing the rule. In other grammars of merit, and especially in some by German authors,* the rule is either not exhibited distinct from the exceptions, the memory flies from rule to rule, and cannot alight; or else the exceptions, which make the very idiom of the language, are mingled with a crowd of those, which, if not ǎzağ deyóμeva of a single author, and which a new recension of manuscripts may exclude, are peculiar to only a few writers, and those not perhaps among the safest authorities.

But, while we thus prefer Adam's Grammar for an advantage of so much moment, we may be expected to admit, that others have traced infrequent idioms with a delicacy of critical tact, and collected them with a degree of industry, not found nor required in the grammars for schools. It is far from us to underrate the services which men, whose time has been spent in such inquiries, have rendered to the cause of letters. Grammar, in its wide sense, forms a branch of subtle philosophy.

* This fault has impaired the value of the grammar of Professor Zumpt; but Brüder's Abridgment of his own has some advantage over it, in point of clearness. It is the best of the smaller school grammars, which we have had an opportunity of seeing.

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