PREFACE.

THOSE, who have undertaken to compile exercises in Latin Prose, have often confounded two objects, which differ as widely as the mere beginner differs from the more advanced and mature student. These two objects are (1) an acquaintance with the Latin language, which may be limited to a familiarity with the idiom, and a power of understanding the authors who have written in it; and (2) a practical facility or habit of writing Latin. The latter object is attainable only by those who have mastered the ordinary resources of Latin Scholarship; and many scholars, who know Latin very well for their own purposes, have no wish or intention to acquire and exercise the accomplishment or faculty of expressing their thoughts in the diction of Cicero. Now it is obvious that students, whose ambition is confined to the former of the two objects which I have mentioned, will require no Latin exercises except those which are necessary to confirm their knowledge of the grammar. For most of them, the little book, which I recently published, and further exercise of the same kind in Ellis' Ciceronian examples, will be amply sufficient. And if to this they add occasional practice in translating and retranslating the best Latin prose-writers, as they extend their acquaintance with classical literature, they will do as much as is necessary for learning Latin thoroughly. Those, however, who wish to go farther than this, and to make a practical use of their knowledge, by employing the

Latin language as a medium of literary communication, must accustom their wings to higher and longer flights; and the experience of all, who have been most successful during the last hundred years as habitual Latinists, assures us that a careful study of the best models of revived or modern Latin is a necessary supplement to our perusal of the Augustan authors. The reason for this is easily stated. In writing Latin nowa-days we do not attempt to vie with Cicero or Sallust, but to use with correctness and elegance a modification of their language, which the labours of three generations of scholars have rendered admirably adapted for clothing in words the range of thoughts, which, though foreign to the ancient Romans, is the peculiar field of the modern philologer. In this sense, as Zumpt has well remarked, Latin is not a dead language; but that which we now write as Latin differs materially, though in a manner which is rather felt than described, from the old idiom; and while we cannot write like Cicero, because we live in a different literary and social atmosphere, we can, by a reasonable amount of practice, attain to that facile, perspicuous, and pleasant mode of expression, which is found in all the really good modern Latinists. To do this, the simplest course is to endeavour to reproduce their language from translations of select passages, and I have tested the utility of this practice by many years use, with my own pupils, of the body of exercises which is now submitted to the public. As it will be observed, these consist of extracts from every author who has obtained any great celebrity as a modern Latinist; and I have added some, which, belonging to writers of the present day, are recommended by the novelty and freshness of the ideas, which are there expressed in a Latin garb. The two passages from Appuleius and one from Macrobius, which find their place in

this selection of extracts, were chosen on account of their subjects, which are lively and entertaining; and we must allow that these later authors, who wrote Latin with effort, and as an acquired language, stand on the same footing with the moderns. Appuleius in particular is as much a centoist as Dr. Parr. To complete the work, as a manual for students, I have also given some specimens of translations into Latin from books written originally in English or German, following in this the example of Dr. M. L. Seyffert, from whose Palæstra Ciceroniana (2nd Ed. Brandenb. 1847) the German extracts have been translated, and to whom the commentary upon them is due. Many of the extracts from the modern Latinists will be found also in Zumpt's Aufgaben zum Uebersetzen aus dem Deutschen ins Lateinische (5th Ed. Berlin, 1844), and in these instances I have availed myself of his notes. But I commenced this collection long before I had heard of his book. I am aware that Mr. Kenrick has added to his Latin exercises some selections, possibly derived from the same source, and that a few trifling specimens from Muretus and others are to be found in Mr. Davis' Latin exercises. But these anticipations do not interfere with the plan of this more extensive series of examples. In venturing to introduce two passages taken from my own Latin writings, I have been influenced by a wish not to evade the responsibility incurred by the publication of a book like the present. Some feeling of the same kind induces modern organists and composers to place their own anthems in the same selection with those of Handel and Mozart; and the object in both cases is, not to provoke an unfavourable comparison, but to perform a duty incumbent on all teachers, whether of Music or Latin, namely, to give an éides of their competency to instruct others. After all, there is not more presumption in referring to these

examples of the simplest and most unpretending Latin prose, than in contributing specimens of Latin verse to the Arundines Cami. And in the case of the translations from modern authors, which form a part of this book, it was absolutely necessary, that I should offer myself as a guide to the student; for I can find no such translations by other hands.

As an imitation of the modern Latinists is the object proposed in these exercises, it was desirable that they should be accompanied by occasional references to the originals. The private student will of course abstain from looking at these suggestions, until he has completed the exercise. And the notes at the end will be found sufficient to furnish the philological information suggested by the text, and to supply all the assistance which the advanced student can require for the successful performance of his exercise, while those, who may happen to use this book under the guidance of a competent teacher, will learn from him the nature and extent of any errors into which they may have fallen.

In selecting the passages translated or given for translation in this book, I have wished, not only to collect a number of extracts interesting, amusing, or instructive on their own account, but also to show, by these examples, that a scholar may employ this modern Latin, with ease to himself and satisfaction to his readers, for the proper treatment of every kind of subject, from the congenial topics of criticism and theology, down to the familiar letter on business, or the description of an explosion of gunpowder. I need hardly say that I do not consider all these specimens as equally admirable. On the contrary, some, especially of English scholars, are infected with poetical idioms, and Dr. Parr's style is little more than a cento. The most perfect and finished specimens of modern