"of," and "by," and "from" first, directly you see them. How would you learn English if you were told that the little words did not signify; or French, if the " de" and "a" and " du," etc., meant anything or nothing? You will find instead that sometimes in the classical languages more is expressed than our more clumsy form of speech can cope with; as with that curious tense, the Greek aorist, which is, as its name tells us, of no time at all. And though the plan I have suggested may not be as amusing as guess-work at first, yet its unerring accuracy will soon more than compensate for the absence of the excitement of permutations and combinations. Listen now; I will decline you a word the root is "domin," found in Latin in "dominari," to rule; "dominatio," a ruling; "dominus," a master; found in English in dominion, domineer, dominant. But with us, unfortunately, when we have taken the root, and formed a substantive, or verb, or adjective from it, we can do no more; then they are fixed forever in one form, with only the slight inflection of the plural in the substantive, and in the verb the disused second person, domineerest, the participles active and passive. Now, if a Roman wanted to express the idea that

"lord " was the subject of the sentence, he made that unmistakable by adding "us" to the root; if he wanted to express "the property of the lord," he said "the property the lord-of," or "res domini;" putting the "of" after the word it qualifies, instead of before it, and inserting the "of" in the place of " us," which was not wanted any longer, as the word "lord" had ceased to be the subject. And he dealt exactly in the same way with the adjective; so exactly that the declension of substantives once well learned, the adjectives follow naturally. So with the verb: we say "I rule;" the Roman instead said with much more terseness "rule-I," "dominor;" instead of "we rule," "rule-we," "dominamur." But the powers of inflection ranged far beyond this: we have now to call in the aid of various clumsy auxiliaries; the Romans did this but seldom; the Greeks hardly To express the simple notion of the imperfect we must introduce "was," and turn the verb into the participle: "I was ruling," in Latin "ruling-was-I," "dominabar;" and far beyond this again, "a-man-likely-to-rule" is in Latin one word,

ever.

"dominaturus."

I was surprised, I must own, to think that a man

ifestly industrious man should never have had this simple and self-evident principle made clear to him. For I am sure that half a year's hard study of Latin on this principle would have opened to him the stores of ancient literature, which he so much desired to read in their original language.

You will understand, of course, that I have spoken of the simple sentence, or of separate clauses in a compound sentence; but very little more knowledge is required to enable you to analyze a compound sentence; hardly more than is contained in the simple rule that you must not on any consideration put the cart before the horse; that is to say, the relative before its antecedent, or the dependent and helpless subjunctive before the independent and autocratic indicative.

III.

ON ENTERING THE ARMY.

T has been the frequent remark of foreigners,

IT

after viewing-not without a little secret envy, perhaps our superlatively perfect collections of zoology and botany at the Regent's Park and at Kew, that it would be very much to our discredit not to possess such collections, considering our opportunities-considering that England stretches out her arms over every sea, and has carved out for herself some of the finest slices of every continent. The argument, which is unanswerable, may be applied with equal truth to certain points in connection with the gallant profession you have just joined. In two respects you have, as a young man, unrivaled opportunities over any equal of yours joining any other profession whatever. The first is time; the second, travel. Take the case of the ordinary professional man, whether barrister, townclergyman, solicitor, merchant, banker, medical

man, you will find their average of work from seven to nine hours a day; yours (after the first

few months' drill) is about three hours.

not, I think, understated at Now, I want you clearly to

realize this fact to yourself, that you may at least enter upon your profession with a knowledge of the advantages you have in it.

Secondly, as regards travel: it would be simply foolish to compare or rather contrast your opportunities with those of any other professional man; with them a six weeks' tour in Europe is generally the extent of their loosest tether. There are but two other professions to compare with yours in this respect, the English navy and foreign military service.

An English naval officer has certainly the richest opportunities of any man of "seeing the world;" but there is this counterbalancing disadvantagehis view must necessarily be a partial and in some respects a superficial one; he cannot be long absent from his ship, and must consequently confine his sight-seeing to the outside shell of the countries he visits. How many naval officers one meets who have been their four years on the Mediterranean station, but have had no opportunities of visiting