of Analysis in use in schools appear charmingly simple and easy, but the result is obtained not by explaining but by evading the difficulties, as the unfortunate learners find to their cost at the various public examinations. It must be understood, therefore, that the present work will only enable the young student to analyse sentences of perfectly plain and ordinary construction. So much, however, it will do; and the learner will afterwards attack the more abstruse parts of the subject as they are introduced to him in the author's larger grammar, with interest and confidence. An Appendix takes the pupil for a short distance into the domain of etymology and derivation.

Great pains have been bestowed upon the exercises attached to this work. The author has endeavoured to make them as varied, useful, and lively as possible. Young learners hate prosy, stilted sentences, extracted from books or made up by the writer to introduce fine words and phrases. They understand and enter into the grammar of a sentence much better, if the subject-matter of it is something familiar to their daily lives and thoughts, and an occasional laugh at some homely topic does a good deal towards dispelling the listlessness that is apt to creep over a class. Comparison with the "First Steps" will show that this portion of the work has been considerably enlarged.

It is hoped that the teacher will demand rigid accuracy from his pupils with respect to definitions which involve a perception of the difference between things and the names of things. To establish this distinction clearly in the mind of the learner is really not difficult, if the teacher understands it himself; but a large proportion of the writers of English grammars, even to the present day, seem to find the comprehension of this point a task beyond their own powers; and so some of the newest elementary books keep telling us that the noun in the nominative case does the action,' or that 'a verb is a word which tells us something about a noun.' It is surely time to have done with this sort of trash.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE.

1. In order to understand the history and structure of the English language, we must keep in view the history and relations of three distinct branches of the great Aryan family of languages, viz.:-a. The Keltic; b. The Teutonic; c. The Latin.

2. The inhabitants of Gaul and Britain, when those countries were invaded by the Romans, were of Keltic race, and spoke various dialects of the Keltic group of languages.

The conquered Gauls adopted the Latin language, and the Franks and Normans, who at a later time established themselves in the country, adopted the language of the people they conquered. Thus it came about that French is for the most part a corrupted form of Latin.

The Keltic inhabitants of Britain did not adopt the Latin language, but retained their own Keltic dialects. One of these is still spoken by the Keltic inhabitants of Wales.

3. The Saxons and Angles, who conquered and took possession of the greater part of Britain in the fifth century, were a Teutonic race, coming from the lowland region in the north-western part of Germany. They spoke a language belonging to the Low* German division of the Teutonic dialects, and akin to Frisian, Dutch, Platt-Deutsch, and Moeso-Gothic. These Teutonic invaders, or at all events a large portion of them, called themselves Angles, their language English, and their new country England (Angle-land).

4. The Keltic Britons did not adopt the language of their Teutonic conquerors. They were for the most part either extirpated, or driven into the remote, mountainous corners of the island, where they continued to use their

*The High German dialects were spoken by the tribes occupying the mountainous regions of Central and Southern Germany.

B

own Keltic speech. The Saxons, however, adopted a few Keltic words from such Britons as they kept among them as slaves or wives. English was established as the predominant language in our island from the Firth of Forth to the English Channel, and has maintained its existence and position in unbroken continuity to the present time. Modern English is only a somewhat altered form of the language which was brought into England by the Saxons and Angles. The framework of the language is still purely Saxon, but the Saxon forms have been somewhat changed in the course of time, and many words of foreign origin have been adopted.

5. The source from which these foreign elements have been most abundantly derived is Latin. They were introduced in various ways and at various times, and now constitute about two-thirds of the words found in an English dictionary.

a. The Saxons adopted a few Latin names of places which they found in use in their newly-conquered territory.

b. A good many Latin words, relating chiefly to ecclesiastical affairs, were brought in by the Roman priests and monks who introduced Christianity among the heathen Saxons.

c. When the Normans conquered England they introduced their own Norman French, which was for the most part a corrupted form of Latin; and though they could not compel the Saxons to adopt this speech, it was used so long at Court and in legal proceedings, that it had a very powerful influence upon the English tongue that was spoken by the mass of the people, causing some alteration in its forms, and bringing in a great number of words of Latin origin.

d. On the revival of learning in the beginning of the sixteenth century, English writers enriched their language by adopting a great many words of Latin, and several of Greek origin.

6. Thus it has come about that the two chief constituents of modern English are Saxon and Latin, mixed with a small proportion of words of miscellaneous origin. The bulk of the Teutonic elements of English were introduced by the Saxons. But the Scandinavian races are also Teutonic, and a good many words of Teutonic origin were introduced into English by the Danes and Norsemen, who established themselves on the eastern coast of our island. Words relating to common natural objects, to agriculture and home life, and to common trades and processes, are for

the most part of Saxon origin. Words relating to religion, law, government, war, art, science, and philosophy, are chiefly of classical origin; some being adopted from Greek, but the greater part being derived from Latin.

7. The oldest form of English that we are acquainted with is commonly called Anglo-Saxon. Anglo-Saxon had many more grammatical inflections* to denote number, case, gender, mood, person, &c., than modern English. Sometimes these inflections have been simply dropped, sometimes they have been replaced by separate words, such as prepositions and what are called auxiliary verbs. AngloSaxon (or ancient English) was an inflectional language, modern English is an analytical language.

* Changes made in words by altering the letters of which they are composed, by adding letters to the end of the words, or by putting letters at the beginning of them to mark number, case, gender, mood, tense, &c., are called inflections. Letters placed at the beginning are called prefixes; letters placed at the end are called affixes. Inflections do not now exist as separate words, though they once were words having a signification of their own.