(to borrow his own expression) "an illustrious humanist," who objects
in toto to German scholarship, and propcses to replace it by an article of his on manufacture. The principal objects of his attack are For-
biger, Grotefend, and Zumpt ; and the special point on which he falls
foul of them is, the use of the subjunctive mood in Latin in connection with Si and Qui. We are decidedly of opinion that Mr. Hamilton has
entirely failed to recommend satisfactorily the exchange which he so kindly proposes ; but, were his scholarship far better than it is, it would have no chance of making its way against the imperfections of his ayle. He is, in fact, diffuse and windy to a degree which is always objectionable, and, in a philological treatise, is simply intolerable. If, as he himself tells us, "style ought to reflect the mind of an author," Mr. Hamilton's mind cannot be in a very healthy condition. What can be said for a writer who prefaces a philological dissertation with a creed about "the accusers of Strafford," and perpetually interlards his critical remarks with pointless anecdotes of a would-be comic nature ? All that Mr. Hamilton really has to say, be it good or bad, on the subject which he has selected might easily have been compressed into less than one-fourth of the space which it occupies in the volume before us.
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