only word to be used there." I have now the evidence of this before me, in the entire manuscript, which I carefully preserve among my richest literary treasures. The acute and energetic author, Dr. Crombie, who "has done more to simplify the structure of the English Language than any writer living or dead," thus expresses himself; "Of all languages to which the attention of the student can be directed, that is first entitled to consideration which will be called into most frequent exercise in active life; and of his proficiency, in which almost every individual, with whom he may in future chance to be associated, will be competent to form an opinion." "It is an egregious error to imagine, that a perfect knowledge of Greek and Latin precludes the necessity of studying the principles of English Grammar. The structure of the ancient and that of the modern languages are very dissimilar. Nay the peculiar idioms of any language, how like soever in its general principles to any other, must be learned by study, and an attentive perusal of the best writers in that language. Nor can any imputation be more reproachful to the proficient in Classical Literature, than with a critical knowledge of Greek and Latin, which are now dead languages, to be superficially acquainted with his native tongue, in which he must think, and speak, and write.” And in the words of him, "who has gone on with a series of intellectual achievements so brilliant and so rapid, that there is no contemporary analogy to be found for them except in the military conquests of him who sleeps at St. Helena": "The English writers who really unlock the rich sources of the language, are those who used a good Saxon dialect with ease, correctness, and perspicuity,-learned in the ancient classics, but only enriching their mother tongue, where the Attic could supply its defects," "Those great wits had no foreknowledge of such times as succeeded their brilliant age, when styles should arise, with a needless profusion of ancient words and flexions, to displace those of our own Saxon, instead of temperately supplying its defects. Least of all could those lights of English eloquence have imagined that men should ap pear amongst us professing to teach composition, and ignorant of the whole of its rules, and incapable of relishing the beauties, or indeed apprehending the very genius of the language, should treat its peculiar terms of expression and flexion, as so many inaccuracies, and practise their pupils in correcting the faulty English of Addison, and training down to the mechanical rhythm of Johnson, the lively and inimitable measures of Bolingbroke." Terms, Participles or Adjectives, generally considered as Participial termination d, changed to t......... Participial termination d, ed, and en, affixed to the end of Ed, en, and y, Adjective terminations...... ........... Past Participle formed by adding ed or en either to the Indicative mood of the Verb, or to the Past Tense..... Past Tense employed as a Participle....................................... Past Tense formed by a change of the characteristic Instances of the usage of the Past Tense.................... Instances of the Past Tense or Past Participle............. Past Tense of Verbs, whose characteristic letter was i or y, written either with o or a broad, or ou, or u, or Participles formed by a change of the characteristic let- ters i and y of the Verb............ Substantives in th, asserting a Passive Sense, are formed Latin and Saxon Prepositions used in Composition....... 58-60 Greek Prepositions to which reference is made............. 59—60 OF THE C. GRAMMAR OF THE ANGLO-SAXON TONGUE. THE ARTICLE. Articles were invented to denote the class, and to point out the individual object referred to. Se, seo, that, (o, e, to) the, that, is of three Genders, and declined as follows: For Se, sometimes is used Seo, thone, thæne. That, neuter, is sometimes prefixed for the sake of greater emphasis to Masculine and Feminine nouns. See Sacon Derivatives, page 21—Analysis of the Style of Chaucer, page 62, and my English Grammar. NOUN SUBSTANTIVE. Noun is that part of speech which expresses the subject of discourse, as sunu, a son. The first Declension makes the Genitive in es, the second in an, the third in ne, the fourth in a: See the termination of the other cases. B |