ed Singular and Plural; and is found in all languages.

Q. What is gender?

A. The distinction of sex; and is either Masculine or Feminine. Most things not thus naturally distinguished, are said to be of the Neuter Gender; though, in most languages, men have ranked a great number of inanimate objects under the distinctions of Masculine and Feminine.

Q. What is Case ?

A. A variation in the termination of nouns, to express the relations which objects bear to one another.

Q. Do all languages agree in the use of Cases?

A. The Greek and Latin use them; but the English, French and Italian do not; or, at most, use them very imperfectly.

Q. In place of the variations of cases, how do these modern tongues express the relations of objects?

A. By Prepositions, prefixed to the name of the object.

Q. What are Pronouns ?

A. They are Representatives or Substitutes of Nouns.

Q. Were these of early invention ?

A. Probably not. Their places were supplied by pointing at the object when present, and naming it when absent.

Q. What are Adjectives?

A. Terms of quality; they are found in all

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languages, and are the simplest of all that class of words which are termed attributive.

Q. Which is the most complex of all the parts of speech?

A. The Verb.

Q. How many things are at once implied in the use of the Verb?

A. Three; the attribute of some substantive; an affirmation concerning that attribute; and time.

Q. How early were Verbs formed?

A. They must have been coeval with men's first attempts towards the formation of language; for no perfect sentence can be formed without a Verb expressed or implied.

Q. What was probably the radical Verb, or the first form of it?

A. The Impersonal Verb; as " it rains ;" "it thunders."

Q. What do the tenses of Verbs imply?
A. The several distinctions of Time.

Q. What are the three great divisions of Time?

A. The past, the present, and the future.
Q. Are these Tenses subdivided?

A. The first and last are, in order to represent things past, as more or less distant; and things future as more or less remote, by different gradations.

Q. What other distinction, besides Tense, do Verbs admit of?

A. The distinction of voices, the Active and Passive, as 66 I love," or "I am loved ;'

and of moods, which are intended to express the perceptions and volitions of the mind under different forms.

Q. What language is most regular and complete in the Tenses and Moods?

A. The Greek; the most perfect of all the known tongues.

Q. What are auxiliary Verbs?

A. Words, like prepositions, of a general and abstract nature, implying different modifications of simple existence, without reference to any particular thing.

Q. Of what have they taken the place?

A. Of varieties in the termination of the Latin verb. They render language more simple and easy, but more prolix and less graceful.

Q. What is an Adverb ?

A. An abridged mode of speech, expressing by one word, what might be resolved into two or more words, belonging to the other parts of speech.

Q. What is the use of Conjunctions?
A. Conjunctions connect sentences or mem-

bers of sentences.

Q. What is the use of Prepositions?

A. They show the relation which one substantive noun bears to another.

Q. Are these connective particles of great importance?

A. Yes. As they point out the relations and transitions by which the mind passes from one

idea to another, they are the foundation of all reasoning.

Q. What language most abounds in them? A. The Greek, in consequence of the acute and subtile genius of that refined people.

Q. Is the language at present spoken throughout Great Britain, the original speech of the Island ?

A. No; nor is it derived from it.

Q. What was the original language?
A. The Celtic or Gaelic.

Q. By whom was this expelled?

A. By the Saxons, who conquered the Britons and drove them into the mountains of Wales, A. D. 450.

Q. What was the Saxon language?

A. A dialect of the Gothic or Teutonic.
Q. Was this the present English?

A. Not purely. William the Conqueror afterwards introduced the Norman or French, which became united with the Saxon, and formed the English Tongue.

Q. What has been the effect of this union? A. Irregular construction: imperfect declension; and narrow syntax.

Q. Is the English language copious?
A. Yes. Few languages are more so.
Q. For what is it most ditinguished?

A. For its strength and energy, and its adaptedness to the higher subjects of composition.

Q. In what does it excel the French?

A. In the language of poetry.

Q. In what does the French language surpass the English?

A. In expressing the nicer shades of character. It is the happiest language for conversation in the world.

Q. What effect does national character have upon language?

A. Great. The gaiety of the French and the gravity of the English are clearly visible in their respective Tongues.

Q. On what depends the flexibility of a language, or its power of accommodation to different styles and manners ?

A. On its copiousness; the different arrangements of which its words are susceptible; and the variety and beauty of the sound of those words.

Q. What language possesses this quality in the highest degree?

A. The Greek.

Q. What is the flexibility of the English? A. Inferior to the Italian, but highly reputable.

Q. In what has it been thought most defective?

A. In harmony of sound.

Q. Is it so to an extreme?

A. No. Our verse is, after the Italian, the most diversified and harmonious of any of the modern dialects; it far exceeds the French verse in variety, sweetness, and melody.

Q. How does the English compare with the other European dialects?