92 GRAMMAR OF THE LANGUAGE 



practice is the mark of true genius, and must ultimately pre- 

 vail. 



Before I conclude this preface, I bea; leave to say a few 

 words respecting; the present translation. When, eleven 

 years asso, I undertook to make it for the Philosophical So- 

 ciety I had never turned my attention to the Indian lan- 

 guages, and I was entirely ignorant of their forms and con- 

 struction. I therefore thought of nothing beyond a close 

 and literal translation of the manuscript. I soon per- 

 ceived, however, that it had been written on loose sheets, 

 which had been bound together after the Author's death 

 by persons not conversant with the subject. It also became 

 clear to me that Mr Zeisberger had not siven the last finish- 

 ing hand to his work. He probably meant to have con- 

 densed it, and to have exhibited the various forms of the 

 conjugations of the verbs in a lesser number of paradigms. 

 These observations struck me as I went on with the transla- 

 tion which I finished as I had heaiun it. 1 left out only one 

 chapter, in which the author explained the manner of ex- 

 pressing the German compound verbs into the Delaware 

 language; as it would have required too much labour to adapt 

 it to the English forms of speech, and would have participa- 

 ted in too great a degree of an original composition. I 

 regret, however, that I did not attempt it. It is now too 

 late, as Mr Zeisberger's manuscript has been returned to the 

 Bethlehem library. 



I had no idea at the time that this grammar would ever 

 be published. Since the Society came to a resolution to 

 commit it to the press, it became my duty to revise what 

 I had done; I saw that it would require to be almost entirely 

 recast, and above all to be considerably abridged, in order to 

 give it that form which alone could satisfy the taste of the 

 present age. But on this I could not venture. For more 

 than ten years, indeed, 1 have applied myself to the study of 

 the Indian languages, and have become more conversant 

 with their structure and forms than those who have not paid 

 a similar attention to the subject. Besides the usual helps 



