DECANAL LATIN.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPEers.roal
S/12,—In Tuesday's Times Mr. W. Forsyth and another gentle- man protest against the use of " coram" otherwise than with a person. The Dean of Westminster has written " coram sepulchro ;" they say that he is certainly wrong, and should have written "ante sepukhrum." But if Tacitus wrote " Diisque et patrici coram obtestor " (Annalium, lib. 4, cap. 8), is it not allowable to suppose that he would also have written "coram patrid"?
True, Cicero says," Petrie, quae communis est omnium nostrum parens," and in that sense it is certainly personified. Can we not personify the tomb ? Is it not personified in 0 Grave! where is thy victory " ? I could conceive " coram sepulchro matris " being defended on the ground that " sepulchro matris" is to be taken as a personification, in the same way in which " patria" is one.
It appears however, to me, that both gentlemen have not caught the meaning intended to be conveyed by the word coram. They, by the use of the word ante, suppose the meaning to be "before the tomb," whereas it is rather, I conceive, near, close to (not necessarily before), or as the translation (which I presume is the Dean's), gives it, beside. "Ante sepulcrum " is used by Cicero, but not in the sense in question. Cicero would never have trans- lated "beside the tomb" by "ante sepulcrum," and Taoitus would certainly have said " sepukrum propter." I should have expected propter, not ante, to have been suggested, if objection were raised
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