A FIRST LATIN READING BOOK. CONTAINING AN EPITOME OF CÆSAR'S GALLIC WARS, AND LHOMOND'S WITH A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO ROMAN ANTIQUITIES; NOTES AND A DICTIONARY. BY WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D., EDITOR OF "A DICTIONARY OF GREEK AND ROMAN BIOGRAPHY AND MYTHOLOGY," CLASSICAL DICTIONARY," ETC.; AND HENRY DRISLER, LL. D., PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK; EDITOR OF : NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. Educ T 918,67.795 HARVARD COLLEGE 27 May 1924 Gift of Ms. Theador P. Bingess Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. THE following work is the second of a short series which I have undertaken with the view of facilitating the study of the Latin language. Its object is to furnish a Latin Reading-book suitable for beginners, sufficient in quantity while interesting and instructive in matter, so as to prepare them to read Cæsar or any other classical author with advantage and profit. No one, who has had much experience in examining boys, can have failed to notice how few acquire any degree of facility in translating a Latin passage which they have not previously seen. This arises, not only from their having read too little, but also from their beginning to read the classical authors too soon. It should be recollected that the great works of antiquity were written for men and not for boys, and that hence young people find it difficult to understand and enjoy them. The modern practice of placing Cæsar's Commentaries, for instance, in a boy's hands after he has painfully worked his way through a meagre Delectus or Exercise-book, is attended with the most injurious consequences. The transition is too great and too abrupt. He finds the language puzzling and the subject uninteresting; he meets at the very threshold all the difficulties of the obliqua oratio; and he knows next to nothing of ancient geography, Roman history, and antiquities. Consequently his progress is not only slow, but he conceives a positive aversion to the study. Our fore |