GREEK PARTICLES.*
HOOGEVEEN'S work on Particles has always been considered a valuable aid in the study of the Greek language ; and Mr. SEAGER has com- pressed and translated it in a manner which we could not desire to be better.
Having said this, we can say no more in favour of an elaborate work on Greek particles ; for we are of opinion that such books con- tribute nothing to the learning of a language, and ought never to be put into the hands of a young student. The advanced scholar may refer to them ; he may even peruse them, for his own satisfaction, if he can prevail upon himself to undergo the task, and probably his knowledge may be increased : he must, however, bring considerable knowledge and habit of thought to the work.
The inutility, we may say the absurdity, of all such labours, may be demonstrated by the quotation of a single fact. Professor HERMAN wrote a treatise in four books, occupying- sixty-six folio columns, very closely printed in very small types, on the little particle alone. So numerous are the multifarious shades of the refinements of language, that to embody them in abstract works requires the most voluminous composition,—that is to say, it' they arc to be complete: if not com- plete, they are useless; for it may so happen that the particular case which may occur in the reading of the student is just one of those omitted.
And yet, such is the nature of the human mind and of language, that the delicacies which by their very delicacy require such a minute development, are felt and adopted in practice by the learner with the utmost facility. PORSON said; that no scholar of these times, not even himself, knew as much Greek as a Doric dairy-maid ; and what is more, they never could, by the devotion of their whole lives to the study of the language through the means of HOOGEVEEN, HERMAN, and Bos. This language may appear to many heretical ; it is never- theless true ; in twenty years it will be thought so by every body.
In the mean time, we ought to be grateful to Mr. VALPY for re- moving one absurdity out of two,—we mean that of being compelled to learn one unknown language by means of another. Many is the weary morning we have spent upon VIGER and HOG- GEVEEN ; and we declare, that when we have turned from a difficulty • in a Greek author, to the pages of these enlightened Greek scholars, we have almost invariably returned to our author as the least difficult of the two.
Be it observed, HOOGEVEEN and such works are not only written in Latin, but in German Latin, and what is more, in German Scholas- tic Latin. We ask any judge of these things, how far a thorough ac- quaintance with CICERO'S Orations and VIRGIL'S ./lucid would assist a youth in the study of VIGERUS de Idiotismis, or HERMAN de Metris. Many thanks, therefore, on the part of thousands of scholars yet un- matriculated, to our classical printer, for his exertions in the meritori- ous task of placing elementary instruction in the hands of the student couched in his vernacular tongue. Prosperity to the rides Valpianre * Hoogoveen's Greek Particles, abridged and translated into English by the Rev. John Seager, B.A. Rector of Welsh Bieknor, Sze. London, lee% N'alpy.
Previous page
