98 brooks' ROSS. 



claim the honor,) till he was induced by Mentes, a foreign merchant, to 

 depart from his fatherland, and like his own Ulysses make it true of him- 

 self, 



JJoXXu^ (5"' avB-^wx-atv iS'ii ccrreci^ kcci vooi c/vu. Odys. Lib. 1. 3. 

 Vieler Menschen Stlidte gesehn, und Sitte gelernt hat. Voss. 



BROOK S ROSS' LATIN GRAMMAR. 

 ,j9 Lahn Grammar — by James Ross, L. L. D., edited by N. C. Brooks, A. M., 

 Professor in the Latin High School, Baltimore, Md. Philadelphia : Thomas, 

 Cowperthwait, &. Co. 



James Ross was undoubtedly one of the most thorough classical 

 scholars, and one of the most successful teachers of his day, and the 

 service which he rendered to classical literature in this country, cannot 

 be too highly estimated. His Latin Grammar is a highly interesting 

 and valuable work, if we consider it only as the exponent of his system 

 of instruction. But besides this, it has high merit. It is short, clear, 

 practical, and, what all elementary works of this kind ought to be, a 

 book that can be committed to memory without exacting from the 

 scholar any greater effort than will be beneficial to him. 



But that Ross' Grammar is not perfect, and that Latin philology has 

 made some progress since his day, (we are almost ashamed to acknow- 

 ledge how little,) we may take for granted. Ross' work is a purely 

 elementary one ; although it contains all the grand and prominent facts 

 of the language, it does not enter into the region of higher criticism, or 

 give its results, or unfold the philosophy of the language. In addition 

 to this, it is not sufficiendy systematic in its arrangement. Thus, the 

 rules for the declension of nouns, variation of verbs, &c. are divided 

 and thrown into very different parts of the book, and what is still more 

 objectionable, the definitions of various terms of frequent recurrence, 

 such as " simple, collective, verbal, jmrliiive,'''' &c. is put into an appen- 

 dix which comes long after the student has had frequent occasion to 

 use these terms. 



These and similar imperfections Prof Brooks has very satisfactorily 

 remedied, and having remodeled the whole work, has succeeded in 

 bringing order out of confusion, and has thrown a great deal of light 

 upon the subject, and given material assistance to the young student in 

 wending his way through the mysteries of Latin Grammar. But he has 

 done more than merely re-arrange the materials of Ross, he has added 

 a great deal of valuable matter which the original work did not contain. 

 As instances of this we may mention his additional examples in the de- 

 clension of nouns, his chapter on Latin idioms, and the prosody. 



