EESE LIBRA "Una lingua deve avere 1' uso por base, l' esempio per consiglio, HRSITYCESAROTTI. BOSTON: CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN. LONDON: RICHARD JAMES KENNETT. M DCCC XXXVIII. 779 Fi22 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1838, by PIETRO BACHI, in the Clerk's office of the District Court, for the District of Massachusetts. 24915 Bax 1538 "DE exteris hominibus jam nunc dicam, quorum demerendi, si tibi id cordi est, persanè ampla in præsens oblata est occasio. Ut enim apud eos ingenio quis forte floridior, aut moribus amoenis et, elegantibus, linguam Etruscam in deliciis habet præcipuis, quin et in solidá etiam parte eruditionis esse sibi ponendam ducit, præsertim si Græca aut Latina vel nullo, vel modico, tinctu imbiberit. Ego certè istis utrisque linguis, non extremis tantummodo labris madidus, sed, si quis alius, quantùm per annos licuit, poculis ma joribus prolutus, possum tamen nonnunquam ad illum Dantem et Petrarcam, aliosque vestros complurimos, libenter et cupidè comissatum ire. Nec me tam ipsæ Athenæ Atticæ cum illo suo pellucido Ilisso, nec illa vetus Roma suâ Tiberis ripâ retinere valuerunt, quin sæpe Arnum vestrum et Fæsulanos illos colles invisere amem." MILTON. Epist. ad Benedictum Buommattei ; PREFACE TO THE FORMER EDITION. AS A NATURAL consequence of the general advancement of this country in literature, the importance attached to an acquaintance with the Italian Language, as a part of polite education, has considerably increased. Not only does it now enter into the circle of the elegant studies of females, as the handmaid and ally of the ornamental arts, but the spirit of its higher literature begins to be understood by the cultivated of both sexes; and within a short time a place has been conceded to Dante and Tásso in the same academic course with Homer and Virgil. But while the other languages of the continent of Europe have possessed the advantage of a variety of good grammars written in English, the Italian Instructer has had the mortification to see in almost universal use the farrago of Veneróni,* to the disparagement of his native tongue and the perplexity of those who would learn it. It is true, that other grammars are extant of various degrees of merit, and those of Galignáni, Santagnéllo, and Vergáni are entitled to much praise; the first two, however, are hardly known here, * Veneróni was a native of Verdun, a small town of Burgundy, in France; his real name was Vigneron; but, having learnt Italian, and wishing to teach it in Paris, he Italianized his name and called himself a Florentine. The Complete Italian Master by Signór Veneróni was written for a few crowns by Roselli, the extraordinary adventurer, who has left us his history in the romance entitled The Unfortunate Neapolitan. and the last, which is perhaps the best of them all, has been confined principally to New-York; where indeed the want of a suitable grammar has been far less felt than in other places, from the singular good fortune of that city in enjoying the living instruction of the venerable Da Pónte, whose own writings, in prose as well as in verse, form an integral and permanent part of the noble literature, which he has done so much to propagate in America. The field, therefore, was open for attempting to treat in English the Grammar of the Italian Language in a manner better suited to the wants of the public; and the author, in entering it, has flattered himself that he should render an acceptable service, if, after a thorough study of Italian writers on their own tongue, and a diligent examination of the labors of his predecessors both in Great Britain France, and Germany, he should be able to produce a more complete, and methodical, and, at the same time, strictly practical treatise, than now exists in English, however far he might fall short of that perfection of which he has the idea. In the Introduction are given very summarily the principles of general grammar, and the terms are defined in which those principles are afterwards applied to the Italian tongue. The Part devoted to Pronunciation affords, it is believed, more full information on the subject than can elsewhere be found; and, as the words are carefully represented by English combinations of letters of equivalent sound,* students who can The vowel a is represented by the combination of letters ah, pronounced without aspiration as in the words sirrah, hallelujah, &c. : e, by ay, as in day, except when it occurs before certain consonants with which in English it has what is called the short sound, nearly resembling the sound in Italian, as in the syllables em, el, &c.; before r, however, e is sounded long, like ay: i, by ee, as in sleep: u, by oo, as in ooze. In the combinations k,y-gyl,y-n,y, a comma is inserted to prevent the letter before it from coalescing with the y, which is to be pronounced with the following vowel as if it began the syllable. |