Percival Leigh

“ The Latin letters, therefore, remind us of the greatest age that a fashionable lady ever confesses she has attained to,—being between twenty and thirty.
Six of these letters are called what Dutchmen, speaking English, call fowls—vowels; namely, a, e, i, o, u, y.
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A vowel is like an Æolian harp; it makes a full and perfect sound of itself. A consonant cannot sound without a vowel, any more than a horn (except such an one as Baron Munchausen’s) can play a tune without a performer. ”

“ Nothing can be taught that is not palatable, and nothing is now palatable but what is funny. That boys should be instructed in the Latin language will be denied by few (although by some eccentric persons this has been done) ; that they can be expected to learn what they cannot laugh at will, to all reflecting minds, especially on perusing the foregoing considerations, appear in the highest degree unreasonable. ”

“ DECLENSION OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE.
There are five declensions of substantives. As a pig is known by his tail, so are declensions of substantives distinguished by the ending of the genitive case. Our fear of outraging the comic feelings of humanity, prevents us from saying quite so much about them as our love of learning would otherwise induce us to do. We therefore refer the student to that clever little book, the Eton Latin Grammar, strongly recommending him to decline the following substantives, by way of an exercise, after the manner of the examples there set down. ”

“ To say nothing of the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Iron Age, and so forth, which, with all possible respect for the poets, can scarcely be said to be worth much in a grave argument; it is quite clear that the Augustan Age, the Middle Ages, the Elizabethan Age, and the Age of Queen Anne, were all of them very different, one from the other, in regard to the peculiar tone of feeling which distinguished the public mind in each of them. ”

“ Time in prosody is the measure of the pronouncing of a syllable.
Like whist, it is divided into Long and Short. A long time is marked thus, as sūmēns, taking: a short time thus; as pĭlŭlă, a pill.
A foot is the placing together of two or more syllables, according to the certain observation of their time, the organ of which should be well developed for that purpose.
Ordinary feet are long feet, short feet, broad feet, splay feet, club feet, and bumble feet, to which may be added cloven feet in the case of certain animals, and an “old gentleman.” ”

“ Women, indeed, instead of loving dearly, love, according to our own experience, particularly cheaply. Think of what they save, by taking their admirers “shopping” with them, in ribands, bracelets, and the like, to say nothing of coach-hire, pastry-cooks, and the price of admission, when they go with them to the play. And we should like to hear of the young lady who in these days would dispose of her hand at any thing less than a good round sum if she could help it—no, no. To love dearly is the precious prerogative of the lords of the creation alone.
But we are forgetting our participles. ”

“ An accusative case with a genitive is put after these verbs impersonal—pœnitet, it repents, tædet, it wearies, miseret, miserescit, it pities, pudet, it shames, piget, it grieves, as—
“Nihil me pœnitet hujus nasi”—Trist: Shand:
“My nose has been the making of me.”
A verb impersonal of the passive voice may be elegantly taken for each person of both numbers; that is to say, by virtue of a case added to it.
Thus statur is used for sto, stas, stat, stamus, 131 statis, stant. Statur a me; it is stood by me, that is, I stand; statur ab illis: it is stood by them, or they stand. ”

“ What an heroic young man he must have been.—What a duck, too, the fair Hero must have thought him as she watched him from her lonely tower, nearing her every moment, as he cleft with lusty arm the foaming herring-pond. ”

“ The offspring of the sciences—those pledges of affection which they present to art, almost all of them, come into the world with a caricature-like smirk upon their faces. Air-balloons and rail-roads have something funny about them; and photogenic drawings are, to say the least, very curious. The learned 11 professions are all tinged with drollery. The law is confessedly ridiculous from beginning to end, and what is very strange, is that no one should attempt to make it otherwise. ”

“ It may be termed the Age of Comicality. Not but that some traces of comic feeling, inherent as it is in the very nature of man, have not at all times been more or less observable; but it is only of late years that the ludicrous capabilities of the human mind have expanded in their fullest vigour. ”

“ A participle is a hybrid part of speech; a kind of mongrel-cross, between a noun and a verb. It is two parts verbs, and four parts noun; wherefore its composition may be likened unto the milk sold in and about London, which is usually watered in the proportion of four to two. The properties of the noun belonging to it, are, number, gender, case, and declension; those of the verb, tense, and signification.
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As a horse hath four legs, so hath a verb four participles. ”

“ An adjective of the neuter gender, put without a substantive, sometimes requires a genitive case, as
Paululùm honestatis sartori sufficit:
A very little honesty is enough for a tailor.
A genitive case is sometimes placed alone; the preceding substantive being understood by the figure ellipsis, as
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Ubi ad magistri veneris, cave verbum de porco:
When you are come to the master’s (house) , not a word about the pig.
The word pig is a very general term, and is used to signify not only the animal so called, and such of the human race as resemble him in habits, appearance, or feelings ”

“ The Construction of Nouns Adjective.
the genitive case after the adjective.
Adjectives which signify desire, knowledge, memory, fear, and the contrary to these, require a genitive case, as
Est natura vetularum obtrectationis avida:
The nature of old women is fond of scandal.
This particularly applies to old maids. As those delightful creatures now-a-days, not content with being grey aspire to be actually blue; we cannot help recommending to them a kind of study, for which their propensity to cutting up renders them peculiarly adapted; we mean Anatomy. ”

“ Green fat is the chief good.
Even among the ancients, turtles were the emblems of love; which, next to eating and drinking, has always been the first object of human pursuit. This fact proves, very satisfactorily, two things, first, their proficiency in the science of gastronomy; and, secondly, their extreme susceptibility of the tender passion.
Pileus vocatur tegula:
A hat is called a tile.
Likewise all verbs in a manner admit after them an adjective, which agrees with the nominative case of the verb, in case, gender, and number, as
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Pii orant taciti. ”

“ Not a few of the verbs mentioned in the last rule, sometimes change the dative into another case; as
Præstat ingenio alius alium:
One exceeds another in ability.
Thus one boy learns Latin and Greek better than the rest; another learns slang. One is a good hand at construing, another at climbing. Some boys are peculiarly skilled at casting accounts, others in casting stones. Here we have a boy of a small appetite and many words, there one of a large appetite and few words. Sometimes precocious talent is evinced for playing the fiddle, sometimes 110 for playing a stick ”

“ The subjunctive differs from the potential only in being always governed by some conjunction or indefinite word, and in being subjoined to some other verb going before it in the same sentence—as Cochleare eram cum amarem, I was a spoon when 45 I loved—Nescio qualis sim hoc ipso tempore, I don’t know what sort of a person I am at this very time.
The propriety of the above expression “cochleare,” will be explained in a Comic System of Rhetoric, which perhaps may appear hereafter.
5. The infinitive mood is like a gentleman’s cab, because it has no number. ”

“ The truth is, that people are tired of crying, and find it much more agreeable to laugh. The sublime is out of fashion; the ridiculous is in vogue. 13 A turn-up nose is now a more interesting object than a turn-down collar; and if it should be urged that the flowing locks of our young men are indicative of sentimentality by their length, let it be remembered that they are in general quite unaccompanied by a corresponding quality of face. ”

“ Note—That all nouns are of the third person except Ego, Nos, Tu, and Vos. Hence we see 49 how absurdly the man who drew a couple of donkeys acted in endeavouring to prevail upon us to call the picture “We Three”—Ille, he,—may, perhaps, have been qualified to make a third person in the group, and have “written himself down an ass” with some correctness. Ego, I, and Nos, we, have certainly nothing in common with that animal, and it is to be hoped that neither Tu, thou, nor Vos, ye, can be said to partake of his nature.
Note also. That all nouns of the vocative case are of the second person. ”

“ Adjectives, participles, and pronouns agree with the substantive in gender, number, and case, as
Vir exiguo conventui, sobrioque idoneus:
A nice man for a small tea-party.
The Spartans, probably, were men of this kind; their aversion to drunkenness being well known.
Observe how close the concord is between substantive and adjective. The ties of wedlock are nothing to it; for, besides that in that happy state there is very often not a little discord, it is quite impossible that man and wife should ever agree in gender. ”

“ Short,—for example—Pallăs, Arcăs—
And nouns increasing plural sport
An as accusative that’s short.
Es in the main’s a long affair,
Anchisēs, such, and patrēs are,
Though of the third declension you
As short such substantives must view,
The genitives of which increase,
Derived from nominatives in es,
And have an accent short upon
The syllable that’s last but one.
As milĕs, segĕs, divĕs, (which
Means what a Poet is n’t,) —rich:
But pēs is long, with bipēs, tripēs,
Like to a hermit munching dry pease. ”

“ Epicene nouns are those which, though declined with one article only, represent both sexes, as hic passer, a sparrow, hæc aquila, an eagle,—cock and 28 hen. A sparrow, however, to say nothing of an eagle, must appear a doubtful noun with regard to gender, to a cockney sportsman.
After all, there is no rule in the Latin language about gender so comprehensive as that observed in Hampshire, where they call every thing he but a tom-cat, and that she. ”

“ Before other verbs are declined, it is necessary to learn the verb Esse, to be. And before we teach the verb Esse, to be, it is necessary to make a few remarks on verbs in general.
In the first place we have to observe, that they are rather difficult; and in the next, that if any one expects that we are going to consider them in detail, he is very much mistaken.
But our skipping a very considerable portion of the verbs, is no reason why boys should do the 50 same. Were we all to follow the examples of our teachers, instead of attending to their precepts, where would be the world by this time? ”

“ THE ROMANCE OF NATURE: or, The Flower Seasons Illustrated. By L. A. Twamley. 3d edition, 8vo, 31s. 6d.
“This is a book of singular beauty and taste. Twenty-seven exquisite coloured drawings of favourite flowers are accompanied by graceful quotations from the various authors who have felt their ‘sweetest inspiration,’ and some charming original poems. Whether for tasteful decoration, originality, or grace, we have seen no superior to this most beautiful volume.” ”

“ There are several kinds of Latin feet; here, however, we shall only notice spondees and dactyls.
A spondee is a foot of two syllables, as īnfāns, an infant.
A dactyl is a foot of three syllables, as āngĕlŭs, an angel, pōrcŭlŭs, a little pig.
Scanning is measuring a verse as you are measured by your tailor—by the foot, according to rule. To scanning there belong the figures called Synalœpha, Ecthlipsis, Synæresis, Diæresis, and Cæsura.
Synalœpha is the cutting off a vowel at the end of a word, before another at the beginning of the next ”

“ A fourth of the future in dus.
Participles are declined like nouns adjective, as—but no! how can we ask our fair (blue) readers to decline a-man’s (amans) loving.
Now here we feel called upon to say a few words on the difference between a man’s loving and a woman’s loving. It has often been a question, whether do men or women love most dearly? To us the matter does not appear to admit of a doubt. We defy any of our male readers to be in love (when they are old and silly enough) for six months without finding themselves most grievously out of pocket. ”

“ The habitual pensiveness of the elevated eyebrows, mingled with the momentary gaiety of the rest of the countenance, is one of the most successful points in the picture, and is as true to nature as it is indicative of art. ”

“ You cannot give a more acceptable piece of information than the above, to any young lady. The fairer and more amiable sex always like to have something—if not to love, at least to pity.
Parsque tui lateat corpore clausa meo. —Eton Gram.
And a part of you may lie shut up in my body.
Or rather may it so lie! How forcibly a sucking pig hanging up outside a pork-butcher’s shop always recals this beautiful line of Ovid’s to the mind!
Meus, mine, tuus, thine, suus, his own (Cocknicè his’n) , noster, ours, vester, yours, are used when action, or the possession of a thing is signified ”

“ Communis, common; alienus, strange; immunis, free, are joined to a genitive, dative, and also to an ablative case, with a preposition, as
Aures longæ communes asinorum sunt:
Long ears are common to asses.
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Though musical ears are not. We even doubt whether they would have the slightest admiration for Bray-ham.
Non sunt communes caudæ hominibus:
Tails are not common to men.
Except coat-tails, shirt-tails, pig-tails, and rats’-tails—to which en-tails may perhaps also be added, though these last are often cut off. ”

“ Humanum est inebriari.
It is a human frailty—or an amiable weakness—to get drunk.
Lord Byron proves it to be a human frailty.
“Man being reasonable, must get drunk.”
A REASONABLE CREATURE.
Another poet (anon.) proves it to be an amiable one, by establishing the analogy which exists between it and an intoxication of another kind—
“Love is like a dizziness,
Never lets a poor man go about his business.”
Verbs of accusing, condemning, advising, acquitting, and the like, require a genitive case which signifies the charge; as
Qui alterum accusat probri, eum ipsum se intueri oportet. ”

“ Persons who have lived a long time in the world, are generally accounted sage; and are sometimes considered to have had a good seasoning.
Nouns which signify a part of time are put more commonly in the ablative case, as
Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit:
No mortal man is wise at all hours.
The excuse of a philosopher for getting married.
But nouns which signify the duration of time are commonly put in the accusative case, as
Pugna inter juvenem Curtium et Titum Sabinum tres horas perduravit. ”

“ We here find ourselves approaching the delightful subject of the three Concords, with which we shall make short work, first, for fear of further Accidence, and, secondly, because we are no fonder than boys are of repetitions, which, were we to follow the Eton Grammar in the Concords, we should be obliged to make in the Syntax. ”

“ Much may be said on both sides. Dishonesty, it is true, may lead to being taken up; but then honesty often leads to being taken in. Yet honesty is said to be the best policy. Policy is a branch of wisdom, and “wisdom” they say “is in the wig.” Certain wigs are retained at the head—of affairs, by a good deal of policy; perhaps the best they could adopt—a fact that throws considerable doubt on the truth of the old maxim.
Impersonal verbs which are put acquisitively, require a dative case; but those which are put transitively an accusative, as—
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“ Rest very much delighteth a married man—when he can get it.
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Verbs of comparing govern a dative case, as
Ajacem “Surdo” componere sæpe solebam:
I was often accustomed to compare Ajax to the “Deaf un,”—not because he was hard of hearing, but hard in hitting.
Sometimes, however, they require an ablative case with the preposition cum; sometimes an accusative case with the prepositions ad and inter, as
Comparo Pompeium cum globo nivali:
I compare Pompey with a snow-ball.
Pompey is called in the schools a proper name. Whether it is a proper name for a nigger or not, may be questioned. ”