THOSE WHO ARE DESIROUS OF ACQUIRING OR RECOVERING A OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE. BY C. SMART, A. M. OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. PHILADELPHIA: URIAH HUNT & SON, No. 44 N. FOURTH STREET. PREFACE. THE following version being the work of a man who has made poetry, perhaps, too much the business of his life, some account of his motives for undertaking it may seem necessary. In the first place, then, there was reason to believe that a thing of this kind, properly executed, would be very useful to those who were desirous of acquiring or recovering a competent knowledge of the Latin tongue. Secondly, the extraordinary success which attempts of this kind have met with, though by men who manifestly did not understand the author, otherwise than through a French medium; though printed in large volumes, and sold at a proportionable price, gave sufficient reason for the translator to hope that his labour would not be in vain : I say labour, for genius, if he had any pretensions to it, could not have been exerted in the work before us. |
