TO FACILITATE THE STUDY OF BOTH LANGUAGES, BY THE LATE ALEXANDER ADAM, L. L. D. Grammatice est ars, necessaria pueris, jucunda senibus, dulcis secretorum QUINCTILIAN, i. 4, 5. SECOND NEW-YORK, FROM THE NINTH ENGLISH EDITION, Recommended by the University at Cambridge (Mass.), to be used by NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY EVERT DUYCKINCK, AND GEORGE LONG. ADVERTISEMENT OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY. WHEREAS the University in Cambridge for several years past has suffered much inconvenience, and the interest of letters no small detriment, from the variety of Latin and Greek Grammars used by the students, in consequence of that diversity, to which, under different instructors, they have been accustomed in their preparatory course; to promote, so far as may be, the cause of Literature, by preventing those evils in future, the Government of the University, on due consideration of the subject, has thought it expedient to request all instructors of Youth, who may resort to Cambridge for education, to adopt " Adam's Latin Grammar,” and the " Gloucester Greek Grammar," with reference to such pupils, as Books singularly calculated for the improvement of students in these languages. The University has no wish to recommend, much less to dictate, to any other institution, but only to facilitate the acquisition of Literature, by promoting uniformity within itself. These being the Grammars which will be used at this College by all classes, admitted after the present year, it seems necessary, to prevent future difficulty, by giving this public and timely notice; for though a knowledge of the Grammar is not at present made indispensably necessary to admission into the University, yet every Scholar who may be accepted after the present Commencement without such knowledge, will be required immediately to form a radical and intimate acquaintance with them, as no student will be permitted at the classical exercises to use any other Grammar. Cambridge, July 7, 1799. gift * PREFACE. THE Compiler was first led, at an early period of life, to think of composing this Book, by observing the hurtful effects of teaching boys Grammar Rules in Latin verse, which they did not understand; while they were ignorant, not only of the principles of that language, but also of those of their mother-tongue. Experience has since afforded him the most convincing proofs of the impropriety of this practice; and his opinion has been still further confirmed by perusing the writings of the old Grammarians, and of the most eminent among the moderns. The old Grammarians, Charisius, Diomedes, Priscianus, Probus, Donatus, Servius, Victorinus, Augustinus, Cassiodorus, Macrobius, Beda, Alcuinus, &c. have no verse rules; and so in later times, Perotte, Manutius, Erasmus, Valerius, Buchanan, Milton, &c. Nicolaus Perotte, was one of the chief restorers of learning in the fifteenth century. He died Archbishop of Siponto in 1480. The Compiler has a copy of the first edition of his Grammar, printed at Brescia, anno 1474. It is composed by way of question and answer, but without any verse rules. Soon after the invention of printing, and perhaps before, for the Compiler has not been able to ascertain the precise period, the custom was introduced of expressing the principles of almost every art and science in Latin and Greek verse. The rules of Logic, and even the aphorisms of Hippocrates, were taught in this manner. Among the versifiers of Latin Grammar, Despauler and Lily were the most conspicuous. The first complete edition of *TERENTIANUS MAURUS, a learned Grammarian, by birth an African, who is supposed to have lived under Trajan,and wrote in verse, treats only of poetry, |