they may have in view," is equally an English turm of expression, the meaning of which is fully included in these few words, unde velit deducere: the whole sentence being thus simplified, will now appear plain and easy, and will quickly assume an elegant and Ciceronian dress. "Neque verò mihi quidquam, inquit, præstabilius videtur, quàm posse dicendo tenere hominum cœtus, mentes allicere, impellere quò velit, unde autem velit, deducere."

And as the young Latin writer is apt to follow too closely the literal order of the English, it may be necessary to guard him against this common error, by the following observation, which, though coming more properly under the head of the order and arrangement of words, may be introduced in this place, as being applicable to almost every example in this book. It is the genius of the Latin language, that the order and position of words are not bound by so strict and immutable laws as in other languages, though certain rules must be followed, and such an arrangement preserved, that the style may not be confused, puerile, and inelegant. Seldom therefore does the nominative case come first in the sentence; but other cases, unless the sense and perspicuity absolutely require it, are generally placed

before it.

EXAMPLES.

1. C. Julius far surpassed all his elders and contemporaries in pleasantness, and facetiousness, and though he was not a vehement and impetuous orator, yet no man's speeches were ever more seasoned with urbanity, wit, and elegance. (Begin by the ablatives and then the nominative.)

2. Those men appear to me very fortunate indeed, while I

revolve in my mind, and retrace in my memory, the annals of qur ancestors, who in a well constituted republic, after having arrived at the summit of glory and honors, could follow such a mode of life, as to be able to pursue their high employments without danger, for live in ease and retirement with honor and dignity. (Here begin by the dative, and change the verbs revolve and retrace into participles to agree with the dative: but in order to see the necessity of this transposition, begin by the nominatives and preserve the grammati cal order of the English, in these two examples, and their inelegance, when compared with the other, will immediately appear.)

But though elegance of style depends very much on this transposition, care must be taken to avoid a confused intermixture of words: that, for instance, what belongs to a clause of a sentence in which the relative, qui, quæ, quod, occurs, and is dependent upon it, may not be intermixed with the clause which contains the antecedent; as,

The man who has once transgressed the bounds of modesty must be completely and perfectly impudent.

It may not be inelegant to say,

Qui semel verecundia fines transierit, eum prorsus oportet esse impudentem. But to say,

Qui semel verecundia, eum prorsus oportet esse impudentem, fines transierit,

would render the sense obscure and unintelligible.

Besides this obscurity, whoever wishes to acquire an elegant style will be careful to avoid a too frequent repetition of the same word, if it does not tend to give greater weight or perspicuity to the subject. The same syllable too closely and fre

quently repeated cannot but be harsh to the ears and therefore inelegant, as monet et hortatur. I would not say, per perbreve tempus, but per tempus perbreve; though Cicero himself sometimes falls into this apparent negligence, as sed multò etiam magis monente et denuntiante te. Several words following each other with the same termination should be carefully avoided; as etiam æternos multos claros viros nominarem; and what can be more offensive to the ears than these words, flentes, plorantes, lacrymantes, obtestantes? To this negligence must be referred a too great concourse or clashing of the same letter, which either must produce a disagreeable harshness in the sound, if a repetition of the same consonants, as Rer Xerxes, or if they are vowels, must cause such a hiatus as will produce some difficulty to pronounce, as magno operto ore. Where it is possible to give a strict attention to the smooth concourse of the words without endangering the force of the idea, when the preceding word terminates with a consonant the next should begin with a vowel, and vice versâ. There are a few words, however, the succession of which is not arbitrary, but which has been fixed by the unvaried usage of the ancients. Ac is not found before a vowel, but always before a consonant: we do not say ac ego, but atque ego; seldom neque autem, but neque verò.-It will also be very necessary to guard against poetical endings of a prose sentence, which though not very culpable or disagreeable in themselves, yet will not fail to displease, as they carry an appearance of affectation and studied conceit. This fault indeed

was much sooner observed by the ancients, who are supposed in their common conversation to have pronounced the language more according to metre, than it can be by us, who pronounce many syllables different from their quantity: as this hexameter of Tacitus:

Urbem Romam à principio reges habuere.

Or this line from the same author, which is still a more complete verse:

Auguriis patrum, et priscá formidine sacram.

Every kind of ambiguity should also be carefully avoided, as for instance in the case of adjectives, where multorum, if used instead of multarum rerum, might be mistaken for the masculine gender.

A List of Latin Prose authors, whose authority may be safely followed by the young scholar, and whose style may be imitated with advantage, as exhibiting the purest standard of Latin elegance:

CICERO, CASAR, LIVY, NEPOS, SALLUST, TERENCE, florished during the golden age, which is commonly computed from the time of the second Punic war, to the year 14 after Christ. These writers afford the best specimens of classic purity, with respect to the selection of words. At the same time it may be observed, that words which occur only once or twice in Cicero, as munitare, invalitudo, may be considered of doubtful authority; and words which occur in Livy, Cæsar, C. Nepos, or Sallust only, as famæ, arum, equally doubtful.

QUINTILIAN, TACITUS, CURTIUS, JUSTIN, VAL. MAXIMUS, PLINY the younger, florished in

the silver age, which is computed from the year 14 to about the year 140 after Christ. These authors may be safely followed, as the most reputable of this age, and though the Latin language began to decline in their time, yet it exhibited in their writings no unfavorable model of the purity and elegance of the Augustan age.

The word vir is used when the praise or excellence of any one is mentioned, never when blame is expressed Homo is used indiscriminately.

EXAMPLES.

1. A man of the greatest virtue and honor, has been cruelly put to death by a man of the most abandoned and infamous character.

2. I am very intimate with Fabius, that most excellent and learned man. (To be intimate with; familiariter uti.)

3. He put them in mind, that as Darius had a greater number of persons, so he had a greater number of men.

The same distinction is generally made between the pronouns ille and iste; ille denoting praise, and iste blame or contempt, as vir ille maximus, iste furcifer.

EXAMPLES.

1. Behold that liberty, which you have so ardently desired. 2. These things (cruelty and insolence) are to be attributed to arms and victory, not to Cæsar.

Speaking of an obscure or contemptible person the Latins generally make use of nescio quis for quidam. Though they also use nescio of quid, not merely to vilify, but to magnify any thing.

1. What have you to dread, when you are defending your