age, when it is necessary for you to learn grammar, which teaches you how to express your ideas by words. You know what words are; but you do not exactly understand what is meant by the word idea. It shall, therefore, be the object of my first lesson to explain it to you. "You see in your grammar that an idea is the mere representation, or image, in our own mind, of any thing external that came to our knowledge through the five senses. And that you may perfectly understand what this means, let me ask you some questions. "Miss Adèle, do you see your grand-mamma?-No, Sir. --Why not?-Because she is not here.-Then, my dear child, shut your eyes. Do you see her now?-No, Sir, I do not.-But cannot you imagine that you see her?-Yes, I can.-How is she dressed? In a white gown, with a white cap and black ribbands.-Well, this is an idea; it is because you have seen your grand-mamma before, who is very good to you, because you have spoken to her and kissed her, that you have now a representation or image, of her; and this representation or image is called an idea. "Miss Emily, will you think of something; but do not tell it; have you done so ?—Yes, Sir.--Does any one know what Miss Emily thought of?-No.-Will you have the goodness to tell us? I thought of a plum-cake.-Well, now we all know your idea, because we have often seen, touched, and tasted plum- cakes." The succeeding lessons are on the plan of the Abbé Gaultier, and the author has contrived to carry on his pupils so rapidly, that his little book contains nearly all that is necessary to be learnt of the grammatical construction of the English language. The introductory French work ought rather to have been called a vocabulary; though the auxiliary verbs conjugated negatively and interrogatively, and the excellent selection of phrases, render it a very useful first book. But the new French grammar is certainly the author's most important work. Of the perfect arrangement and dependence of the different parts of speech, in which consists perhaps its greatest merit, we can of course give no example; and we regret that the form of our pages precludes our inserting a specimen of his tables of irregular verbs, or of his method of conveying the French pronunciation to those who cannot procure a master. We can only transcribe one of the dialogues in which pure and grammatical English has been translated (if we may be allowed so to use the word) into English literally adapted to the French idiom. Instead of introducing the French in the opposite column of the familiar phrases which beginners learn mechanically, without paying the least attention to the difference of idiom and construction, the author has given the English only, with such transposition of the words as corresponds to the French construction; that the scholar, by being obliged to construct the English and commit the French to memory, may be enabled to discern and compare their different idioms, and thus acquire more speedily, and retain more accurately, the knowledge of the language. From this manner of learning French there will be no danger of corrupting the English. 1st. Because it requires a certain accuracy and precision, which will oblige the learner to attach to each word its own idea; an accuracy which will wonderfully facilitate the acquisition of any language. 2d. Because this method exactly shows the difference of both languages; and the more the French construction differs from the English, the less it is to be feared that it will be imitated in conversation. VII. Did you walk yesterday? You had a long walk. What a delightful walk we had last We have had a very mild winter. Do not walk so fast, it quite tires me. How the dogs are barking! Do you ride on horse-back? I am very fond of it. I shall go home on horse-back. Will you give me leave to go on horseback? I am afraid you will fall off. Do not be afraid, I know very well I shall go by the stage-coach. My parents will fetch me in their car riage. I shall ride home in my uncle's chariot. Let us take a ride. Let us take an airing in the coach. I like better to go on horse-back. I think it is the wholesomest exercise VII. Yourself are you walked yesterday? How the walk of Friday last was We have had a winter very (fort) sweet. (') * March not so fast, that me fa- How (comme) the dogs bark! Go you at horse? or, mount you at I it love much. I shall-go to the house at horse. Will you me give the permission of to-mount at horse? I have fear, (peur) that you from. it fall. * Have not fear, I know very well How yourself away go you? I myself away will-go to the house in I love much of to-go in carriage. I love better to-go at horse. I shall-go then too at horse. I think that that is the exercise the most healthy of-the world. The asterisk is the sign of the first negation ne-see the Grammar, page 190. OBSERVATIONS ON THE "Examination of a Criticism on Falconer's Strabo." As the Editor of the Classical Journal has inserted in his Eleventh Number, p. 45-74. an extract from a pamphlet on the Oxford Strabo, his candor will of course admit a reply to it. The Examiner in the first place accuses the Critic of want of logic, and to support the accusation, alters his text by substituting "because" to "for" but even allowing him the benefit of his own fabrication, if there be any violation of logic in expressing disappointment of what was expected from the University, because, though much had been borrowed, little had been done, it is only of that sort of logic, by which the Examiner proves the University not answerable for what issues from its press, because the selection of it is left to eleven Delegates. Unfortunately for many proprietors of private presses, judges and juries do not admit such logic; but decide by the old maxim of common sensequi facit per alium, facit per se. In the next place the Critic is stated to have intimated, "that the late Mr. Tyrwhitt took no degree at Oxford, and was not even a Member of the University:" in answer to which, he begs merely to refer the reader to his words, which are, " that Mr. Tyrwhitt resided in London, in business, and in society, and that his name stands in the title-page plain Thomas Tyrwhitt, without any decorative adjunct, or title of degree." This is all that he said on the subject; and as this is all correctly and confessedly true, on what grounds does the Examiner assure his readers," that there is not any truth in the intimation with respect to Mr. Tyrwhitt?" If, however, it be a crime not to know that he had obtained an University title, which he did not think worth affixing to his name, the Critic must plead guilty to it; but as he asserted nothing on this important point, he cannot justly be accused of any misrepresentation. With regard to Mr. Falconer, it appears that he has fallen into an immaterial error, in supposing that he had taken a degree but really when writers do not think their degrees worth the initials in a title-page, it is impossible for distant strangers to impute them correctly; and when the person, who publishes a Greek Classic at the University press, announces himself of a particular College, such stranger may surely be excused for considering him as a graduate in some stage of advancement; nor is it any thing but ludicrous to represent so natural and almost unavoidable an error as either calumnious or disgraceful. : Observations on the « Examination of a Criticism," &c. 158 When he mentioned the Oxford Homer as containing all the errors of Clarke's, and the Strabo all those of the Amsterdam edition, he distinctly stated, at the same time, that he had not collated either; and also, that he had examined only a few pages of the first, an intimation, which must have conveyed, to every candid mind, a sufficient qualification of the word all, to show that it was applied generally, with reference to the parts, which he had collated, taken as a scale for the rest; and from these he did certainly produce examples sufficient to warrant such general inference. The direct charge of untruth, which follows, he directly retorts, and asserts, that Auraire, taken and accented as the second person plural of the optative in the active voice, and followed by dexers, is an arbitrary innovation, sanctioned by no authority; for though, in the compressed writing of manuscripts, the conjunction may have been joined to the verb in Auσaire, as in other instances, yet the infinitive déxerta, which follows in all those manuscripts, shows that an infinitive was meant. For this reason he ventures to assert, that no manuscript of any authority has aúσaire, either joined or separated-either accented or unaccented-followed by δέχεσθε ; and that the two old readings are λυσαί τε-δέχεσθαι, and Aúrate déxeote; both sense, though the last is not metre. The garbled and corrupted mixture of them, producing solecism and nonsense, as in Clarke's and the Oxford editions, he maintains to be entirely unauthorised; and, if it be not so, let its defender show the authority, instead of imperfectly quoting half the Vene➡ tian, and half the Leipsic reading, as a parallel; and then fabricating a charge of falsehood against others out of his own deceptions. (see Il. A. 20.) In slowly and reluctantly admitting the validity of the critic's objections to expressions, which even he does not venture to defend, he directs his attack to the principles on which they are founded, in two prolix digressions on "nescio quis," and "quod,” in which the observer's limits preclude him from following him. He would otherwise undertake to show, (what may perhaps hereafter be shown) that it is not the particular meaning of the preceding verb which regulates the respective uses of the indicative and subjunctive following the latter; but the mode and degree of influence given to that verb by the general meaning and structure of the sentence. He might also undertake to show, that, whereever an indicative appears to be subjoined to another verb, there is either no subjunction at all, but merely parenthesis; or that it is produced by means of a pronoun or subjunctive understood; and that the sentence is consequently elliptical. On the principle laid down by the Examiner, what would he make of such a passage as the following? "Loci autem, qui ad quasque quæstiones accommodati sunt, deinceps videndum." Cic. de Inv. i. 23. Will he construe it, "videndum loci qui," &c. or admit « qui sint" to be understood? There can be no other alternative; and that such words were understood, we have positive proof in sentences of a similar structure, where they are retained, or omitted, as technical accuracy, or colloquial brevity, respectively required. "Quærere, quid sit, quod sibi velle debeant demonstrari." Cic. Ib. 52. "Quæritur et quibuscum vivat." Ib. ii. 9. Had the occasions been transposed, "quærere quid sibi velle debeant demonstrari," would have been in the first; and "quæritur et qui sint, quibuscum vivat," or "vivit," in the second. Upon the same principle, in a technical statement, instead of a familiar letter, for, "quæso scribas quid nobis faciendum, aut non faciendum putas," there would have been "scribas id quod," or "quid sit quod," &c.; and for " quid nobis faciendum est ignoro," "quid sit, quod nobis faciendum est, ignoro." Ep. ad Att. lib. ix. Ep. xii. et lib. xiv. Ep. xiii. But as ellipsis or abbreviation is the principal cause of all the seeming anomalies of languages, a complete analysis of it would require a volume in addition to what Vossius has so ably written on the subject. At present, therefore, let us meet another charge of direct falsehood, in calling a gross violation of idiom systematical, after having produced three instances of it in the use, and one in the omission of the single conjunction "ut." The answer is, that it is such uniform repetition, which makes an error systematical; so that when the accuser, in what he means to be English, uses the ungrammatical vulgarism," according as," three times in thirty-five pages, he uses it systematically. We add, too, that when he uses the local barbarisms, " classified," and "classification," only once each, he uses them systematically; for they are so connected with each other. We call them local barbarisms, because we know no other title descriptive of them. In milliners' and barbers' shops, indeed, they may possibly pass for gallicisms; but if the Revolution have tainted the French tongue with any such redundancies of anomalous jargon, it has not yet raised them into any more respectable circle of society. Our author, however, is no less original in translation than in composition; and that no northern libeller may again censure the omission of "ut," or misunderstand, or misrepresent the reconditum et exquisitum of English latinity, he renders the subjunctive" videatur," placed absolutely and subjoined to nothing, "to the eye it may seem." Most poetically potential indeed! Where did the Critic ever express a doubt that the causal "cum," might, in some cases, be used with an indicative; or that in the warmth of poetical, oratorical, or historical narration, past actions might be spoken of as present, and consequently the tenses be |