There are some singular beings who think for themselves, and belong

to no party:

"Bob Peel pretends to rule the State,

But good he never did yet;

Jem Graham, I thinks him a hass,
And Harry Broom a hidiott.
Its if I could get in the House,
The thing I'd bet a guinea on,

I'd make 'em all shake in their shoes;
I'm for Freedom of opinion.

Tol de rol."

The following is from the pen of one who modestly says:

"I think I'm a judge of music,

At least, so have been said."

It is certain, that he has an original idea of true poetry; or, at least, of that element which is one of its constituents-harmony :

"There is music in man and woman,
Especially in man and wife;

There is music in a butcher

When he's sharpening of his knife.

There is music in a schoolmaster
When him flogging of the boys;
And there's music in a policeman

When the thieves do make a noise."

It really makes one feel sad to find so many of our good old English ballads so villanously parodied :

"Joe Muggins was buried that very next day,

And Sally in less than a week;

When out of her ashes a carrot there grew,
And out of his bosom a leek, leek, leek.
And out of his, &c.

Now they grew and they grew to the top of the grave,
When they was'nt let grow any more;

For down they was cut to season the soup,

That was given away to the poor, poor, poor.

That was given away to the poor."

Of what manner of men are they who thus disfigure our old models?

"In a garret I show'd my nob,

In Earl Street, Seven Dials;

My father was a snob,

My mother dealt in wials.

But my mind took higher flights,

I hated low-life things;

Made friends with a cove wot writes,

And now I'm a chap wot sings."

[In concluding these extracts from the Diary it may here be mentioned, that the specimens now given from" the Literature of our Alley," are not

so numerous as we originally intended. Some have been omitted in consequence of their irreverent allusions to sacred subjects; and concerning them it must suffice to say, that they appear to be the most graphic, and the least likely to be effaced from the memory. It may be asked, What has the Literature of the Alley to do with the business of education? In drawing attention to it, our object has been to afford some information upon a state of things, of which at present little is known, but with which it is requisite to become acquainted, before it is possible either to devise or apply a remedy. How great and extensive the evil is, can be but imperfectly inferred from the extracts we have given. Still, as it has been already observed by the writer of the Diary, some important particulars may be gleaned from them; such as, that the inhabitants of the Alley have a literature of their own, though they seldom read; and that that literature represents correctly their feelings and ways of thinking. Further we may collect, that, if they do not read, they certainly do not write, and that they therefore must have literary purveyors-writers and publishers-to provide for their peculiar tastes. These purveyors must act upon the same principle as those for the other classes of society-they must provide what is most likely to pay them best. And we find, accordingly, that the form of literature which best suits the Alley, is the ballad--a striking proof of the influence which poetry combined with music possesses over the human mind, even when most hardened and depraved. The principles introduced into these ballads are most immoral, and dangerous to society. Hence the obvious duty of instilling into the minds of the young principles of an opposite character, and of doing so under the most engaging and impressive forms. The fact, that the obscene ballad, which is sung and hawked in the alley, is first produced and tested as to its popularity in the night-house, shows how these hot-beds of vice spread their baneful influence abroad, and what timely care should therefore be taken to rescue the young at the very earliest moment from the moral pestilence which, as it were, floats in the very atmosphere which they breathe. This can only be done by gathering them into schools, and training their tongues, and attuning their ears to other sounds and words; and, as far as practicable, habituating their hearts and consciences to other impressions than such as must be produced by the effusions which we have quoted, and by others infinitely more noxious. The very thought of such poison being poured into the ears of thousands of young children, whilst their minds are yet, as it were, "prepared blanks," capable of taking any impression, and as pure and innocent as those of children more happily circumstanced, might suffice to rouse the least philanthropic to some exertions in their behalf. And, if the perusal of these extracts should induce a single individual to apply himself to such a task, or to increase his endeavours to fulfil it, we shall feel that we are abundantly justified in the course which we have taken in publishing them.]

ON THE CRUDE-FORM METHOD OF TEACHING THE CLASSICAL LANGUAGES.

(Continued from Vol. VIII., p. 449.)

In our last paper we dealt only with the substantives, but so far as regards declension, what was then said is applicable to the adjective. As regards the verbs, the question is exceedingly simple. No one will have any difficulty in assigning ama, mone, reg, and audi, as the essential elements in the conjugation of the verbs ama-re, mone-re, reg-ere, and audi-re. The only parts of the verb amare which fail to exhibit an a after the m are the first person amo of the indicative present, and the whole of the present subjunctive, amem, &c. But a contraction of ama-o into amo would be perfectly parallel to what is seen in the Greek grammar in τιμαώ, τιμω, and the compression of ama-am, ama-as, ama-at, &c. (which the analogy of scrib-am, scrib-as, scrib-at, &c., would have led us to expect) into amem, ames, amet, &c., is a matter of no extraordinary character, considering the intimate connection between a long vowel e and the simple a. A Greek scholar is of course familiar with this fact; and in the Latin perfect eg-i (as compared to the present ag-o) we seem to have a word which has been contracted from a perfect of reduplication a-ag-i. In the second conjugation we should have been able to trace the vowel e throughout all the deduced forms, if we had taken for our example any of the verbs, fle-re, ne-re, de-le-re, or ex-ple-re, for in these the perfect and so-called supines still exhibit an e in the base of the word. And even among those verbs which commonly form the perfect in -ui, as moneo, habeo, &c., the archaic forms, such as habessit, seem to imply an old perfect habevi; for habessit must have been a contraction of habevesit, just as amasso and amassim are admitted to be contractions from old forms, amaveso and amavesim, which preceded amavero and amaverim. Lastly, the conjugation of audi-re in no single instance fails to retain the i.

Thus, we reduce the four conjugations to the four heads, of verbs in a, in e, in consonants, and in i. The question here suggests itself, how is it that there are not six conjugations to correspond to the six declensions? in other words, what has become of the conjugations in o and in u? To speak first of the verbs in u: the class exists, and as examples of it may be taken the verbs nu-ere, plu- ere, acu-ere, metu-ere; but the vowel u is rarely subject to contraction with a following vowel, so that it was found unnecessary to separate verbs of this class from those which ended in a consonant. On the whole, however, it is perhaps desirable, for simplicity's sake, to make a u conjugation; and, in fact, in the third person of the plural of the present indicative these verbs have a peculiarity which distinguishes them from such verbs as reg-ere, scrib-ere; we mean that metuunt and sequuntur, though supported by the authority of our grammars and ordinary editions, are not so legitimate, if manuscripts are to be trusted, as metuont and secuntur. Secondly, an advantage is gained by the separation of verhs in u from

verbs in a consonant in the complete analogy of the perfects col-ui, audi-vi, ne-vi, ama-vi, gno-vi, plu-vi, where we have the same suffix added without distinction to a verb ending in a consonant, and to verbs in all the five vowels, i, e, a, o, u. Pluvit was the only perfect known to Livy; and the older writers generally adopted either the form annuvit, or at least annuit, with a long u, thus distinguishing the perfect from the present. But there still remains a vacancy caused by the non-appearance of a class of verbs in o. Such vacancy can only be filled by a wretched remnant of a conjugation. The forms gno-vi, gno-tum, (novi, notum,) the participles potus and aegrotus, all point to bases in o, viz. gno-, po-, aegro-. The present of the first has chosen to take to itself the termination of an inceptive gno-sc-o. That there was once a verb po-, 'drink,' is proved by the substantives po-tion-, po-culo- (nom. potio, poculum), by the frequentative po-ta-re, and by the Greek яw-σw, πεπw-кα, Again, a verb aegro-o from the adjective aegero- (nom. aeger, aegra, &c.) would be in perfect keeping with the Greek verb dovλo-w, from the noun covλo- (nom. dovλos). Unfortunately, there was a tendency in the Latin language to force all those verbs which are formed from substantives or adjectives of the second declension into the first conjugation. Thus, from the substantives dono-, domino- (nom. donum, dominus), and from the adjectives misero-, denso- (nom. miser, densus) were deduced the verbs dona-re, domina-ri, misera-ri, densa-re. The readiness which exists in the Latin language to interchange the vowels a and is well seen in ignora-re, from an adjective ignaro- (nom. ignarus), while the simple adjective gnaro- (nom. gnarus), grows out of a root gno-.

The application of the crude-form system to verbs was virtually adopted in the Latin grammar which was used in the Charter House during the headship of the Rev. Dr. Russell, as the three conjugations of amare, monere, and audire were treated as contract verbs, amao amo, amais amas, amait amat, &c. It has at times been objected to this view that a contraction of amait to amat ought to have led to a long vowel in the last syllable of amat. The argument is valid, but yet no way damages the theory, for the syllable was originally long, as indeed is seen in the passive amatur, monētur, auditur, whereas from regit comes regitur. It is thus that the old writers, as Plautus, Terence, &c., never hesitate to treat the third person of a tense as having a final long syllable, whenever the corresponding vowel is long in the first and second persons of the plural. Examples may be seen in the prolegomena to Ritschl's Plautus, p. 182, &c., such as velit, audiet, fit, solet, attinēt, habēt, sīt, dēt, fuât, mavelīt, afflictat, eget, desiderēt, it, lubēt, though followed in every example he quotes by a word with an initial vowel. There are not wanting similar examples in Virgil and Horace, but editors and teachers complacently get over the difficulty by attributing the unusual length to the so-called principle of cæsura. What therefore at first view appeared as a defect in the theory of crude-forms, only tends to prove the validity of the system.

In the irregular verbs the system of crude-forms has its usual superiority. The conjugation, for example, of the so-called substantive verb, in both Greek and Latin, becomes more intelligible, and therefore more easy to remember, when attention is paid to the form of the

base. Sum and eu, when examined by themselves, appear utterly unconnected; but a light is thrown even upon these, and still more decidedly on many other parts of the conjugation, when es is regarded as the point of departure. Varro, for example, tells us, that esum, esumus, esunt, were the old forms, which, losing their initial vowel, became severally sum, sumus, sunt. That εσ-μι, * in Greek, should be changed to a was to be expected, from the habitual tendency of that language to suppress the sibilant. Further, an attention to the crude-form es at once explains the so-called adjectives, but really participles, absens, præsens, which are but reduced forms of ab-es-ens, præ-es-ens. Again, the beginner in Greek is somewhat confused at times by the similarity in many parts of the verbs eu, "I am," and ειμι, 'I go." He will have most of his doubts at once solved by the knowledge that the former has es, the latter, for its base.

We now pass from the familiar matters of declension and conjugation to a part of grammar usually much neglected-the general dọctrine of derivation; and we shall still find that the crude forms of nouns and verbs give us a safer foundation on which to build. Thus, from the substantives civi-, fide-, vita-, tribu-, we more readily proceed to the adjectives civi-li-, fide-li-, vita-li-, tribu-li-, than we can from the nominatives civis, fides, vita, tribus. Still more decided is the advantage in deducing directly from the crude forms mari-, Roma-, belio-, tribu-, rather than from the nominatives mare, Roma, bellum, tribus, the derivatives marino-, Romano-, Bellona-, tribuno-. Again, the diminutives navi-cula, virgun-cula,+ die-cula, su-cula, ratiun-cula, are at once referred to the crude-forms navi-, virgon-, die-, su-, ration-. So also the doctrine of quantity gains much in simplicity if we take our departure from the crude forms. Thus, leni-mentum, supple-mentum, delirā-mentum, cognō-mentum, argu-mentum, which retain the vowel of the verb, have all of them that vowel long; whereas al-i-mentum, teg-u-mentum and doc-u-mentum, having no original claim to a vowel i or u, but employing it merely as a sort of connecting sound, are not permitted to dwell upon it.

The light which the study of Latin throws upon the etymology of our own tongue is a secondary but still an important consideration. Here again the crude-forms have a marked advantage over the nominatives. Thus, our English adjectives re-al, reg-al, gradu-al, munual, vertic-al, nation-al, are less easily referred to the nominatives res, rex, gradus, manus, vertex, natio, than to the crude forms, which present themselves at once to the eye. The same, or nearly the same, is true of the words lapid-ary, avi-ary, sanguin-ary, salut-ary, station-ary.

We shall next proceed to examine the proposition that all the Latin declensions in reality belong to one type. In the process of wordbuilding the chief difficulty arises from the fact, that if vowels are brought together, contraction commonly results; while if consonants

* The modern Lithuanian, or the language now spoken around Memel and Riga, conjugates its substantive verb, esmi, essi, esti, &c.

Zumpt, through looking to the nominatives, speaks of virguncula as formed by the addition of a suffix uncula.