/NEW A NEW... METHOD OF LEARNING WITH FACILITY THE GREEK TONGUE, Lancelot, Containing Rules for the With a variety of solid Remarks, necessary for the attaining TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF THE MESSIEURS DE PORT-ROYAL, A NEW EDITION, CAREFULLY REVISED AND CORRECTED. LONDON: PRINTED FOR F. WINGRAVE, & J. COLLINGWOOD, STRAND. THE TRANSLATOR'S PRE F A C E. To illustrate the grammatical art, was the favourite employ ment of many of the greatest men of ancient and modern times; but none deserves a higher commendation than the author of the following performance. This was the learned Claude Lancelot, member of the celebrated society of Port-Royal, in the neighbourhood of Paris. He was born in that capital in 1613, and educated from the age of twelve in the seminary of St. Nicholas du. Chardonnier, where he entered himself in the year 1627. After he had finished his studies, he retired to Port-Royal, and was employed in the education of youth. This province he executed with the utmost diligence, and made such improvements in the art of teaching, as to draw up those excellent methods of learning the Latin, Greek, Italian, and Spanish tongues, generally called The Port Royal Grammars. He is likewise said to have written the Jardin des racines Grecques, and, last of all, The General and Rational Grammar. But of all our author's performances, the present work is generally reckoned to deserve the preference. The order and perspicuity that shine through the whole, and the profound knowledge of the principles and analysis of the Greek language, are not to be equalled in any other writer. He had made an excellent use of the grammarians that went before him; and by his method he far outstripped them all. This consists in drawing up his instructions in vulgar idiom, as more easy than Latin to young beginners; in distinguishing necessary rules from others, by way of text and annotations; in retrenching superfluities, by reducing the ten declensions of former grammarians to three, and the thirteen conjugations to two; in disposing the tenses in such a manner as to render it easier to ascend to the theme of the verb; in subjoining the dialects in their proper places; in comprehending the resolu tion of verbs within a few rules; in rectifying and methodizing the rules of syntax, and observing similar constructions between the Latin and the Greek; and lastly, in treating the subject in a rational and critical manner, so as not to proceed merely on the ground of authority, but to appeal likewise to the reason and judgment of the scholar. It is now about a dozen years since I undertook to translate this work, at the desire of several members of our two learned Universities. The many editions of the original abroad, and the several extracts and abridgments of it in most parts of Europe, were an encouragement to the undertaking. The success has answered, and I may justly say, exceeded my expectation; when I consider that the translation was printed at a time when I was in Germany, and incapable of superintending the press. It is trué, a person known in the literary world, was employed for that purpose; but either through want of being acquainted with my hand-writing, or through disuse of Greek literature, or. through some other cause which I cannot divine, he suffered the work to go abroad, too incorrect, I must own, for the use it was intended to serve. However, as the public have been so indulgent as to accept it with all its faults, I must return them my thanks; and I hope I have made some amends, by the extraordinary care bestowed upon this second edition; the whole copy has been carefully revised and compared with the original; the several errors have been corrected, and many passages altered and retouched, especially the preface, which may be said to be a new translation. The quotations from the classics have been also compared and corrected in a multitude of places. A strict adherence to the original has been observed throughout; except the rendering the rules into metre: for this not being an elementary introduction, but a complete system, if so I may express myself, of the Greek language, such puerile versification has been judged improper. With the revisal of this work I finish my translations of all the grammatical pieces of Messieurs de Port Royal ;* a task, I own, of more labour than reputation: yet if my labour has been of service to our British youth; and if in this toilsome province, I may be also said to have deserved well of this most useful art, my ambition is satisfied. * These are all printed for Wingrave and Collingwood in the Strand. |