THE POPULAE EDUCATOR. 



LESSONS IN ITALIAN. I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



I PROPOSE to teach the grammar, structure, and vocabulary of 

 the Italian language by a method not commonly adopted by 

 the learned. A considerable experience in tuition has con- 

 vinced me that a strict adherence to scientific forms, though 

 all-important in the cultivation of a language, does not tend to 

 the advantage of the learner. Writers of practical grammar 

 err, for the most part, in studying system too much. They 

 teach grammar as they would the pure mathematics, as if an 

 abstract science of itself, and not as a practical guide through 

 the idiomatic intricacies of living languages. Such instructions 

 may be very scientific in form, but they do not follow nature : 

 there is no due separation of that which is the foundation, or, 

 as it were, the skeleton of a language, from those things which 

 are the ornaments, the delicacies, the accidents, and exceptions 

 of speech. A language should be taught as anatomy is taught. 

 We must first thoroughly study the bones, if we would success- 

 fully trace the intricate ramifications of nerves and arteries. 

 The learner of a foreign tongue cannot for himself judge of 

 what is material or immaterial to his sure and rapid progress. 

 It will be my endeavour to instruct by a colloquial and natural, 

 rather than a grammatical and purely scientific method. 



The Italian language has for a long time been regarded in 

 this country as a fashionable branch of education. Knowledge 

 of it has been reckoned an indispensable accomplishment of 

 cultivated society, but rather, as it would seem to mo, as a 

 serviceable attendant at Italian picture galleries and operas, 

 than as a guide to the philosophy of a Dante, the invention of 

 an Ariosto, or the sagacity of a Machiavelli. The present is 

 perhaps the first considerable attempt that has been made to 

 popularise this noble and melodious tongue. 



The Italian is the first-born of the old language of Rome, 

 and owns a strength and beauty worthy of its noble origin. 

 In cultivation, it is the oldest of European tongues. When 

 Dante wrote, English, French, and German were comparatively 

 rude dialects. To Italy the world owes the preservation and 

 regeneration of learning and the arts ; and its fine soil, the 

 fertile mother of great spirits of old, has produced to the latest 

 times men who have enriched every intellectual pursuit alike by 

 their genius and learning. The language in which they expressed 

 that infinite variety of thought and sentiment, contains a lite- 

 rature, the rich mine of which is in foreign countries only known 

 to solitary and toilsome explorers. The time may not be dis- 

 tant when the increased intercommunication of nations, and 

 the progress of popular education, will lay these rich treasures 

 open to the many. 



For its own intrinsic merits, however, as a language, Italian 

 deserves to be studied by every one who would enjoy the 

 pleasures of style, inexhaustible in variety : the energy of Dante, 

 the graphic power of Boccaccio, the lyrical grace of Petrarca, 

 the refinement of Ariosto, the ornament of Tasso, the satire of 

 Berni and Aretino, the historical dignity of Guicciardini and 

 Botta, the point and perspicuity of Machiavelli, the hilarity of 

 Casti, the music of Metastasio, and the Roman manliness of 

 Alfieri. And they who would cultivate language for its excel- 

 lence must seek that of Italy for the ideal beauty of expression. 



My method will be a natural, a simple, and, I trust, an easy 

 one. I shall discard, as much as possible, all the conventional 

 terms of grammar. I shall not travel by the old beaten path- 

 way through the parts of speech. My grammatical progress 

 will imitate the action of the mind in the formation of a sen- 

 tence, with a due regard to peculiarities of idiom. As a child 

 first learns the name of a thing, I begin with the noun, as soon 

 as I have clearly explained the principles of pronunciation ; and 

 as the child demonstrates its progress in thinking by connecting 

 an action or suffering with the object named, I shall proceed at 

 once to the verbs. The verb is the life of a language, and he 

 who knows the verbs thoroughly has mastered the chief diffi- 

 culty of his task. The remaining kinds of words will be taught 

 and discussed in the same natural order. 



These lessons will contain, if I may so speak, two grammars. 

 Presuming that I may find two classes of readers one anxious 

 for knowledge by the most easy and rapid manner, the other 

 with more preparation, inclination, and leisure for study I 

 have so shaped my labour as to combine in a form sufficiently 

 marked, though not separated, an elementary grammar which 



shall give the before-mentioned indispensable foundation and 

 skeleton ; and a grammatical treatise which shall, with philo- 

 sophical reasons, satisfactorily explain the ornaments, the 

 delicacies, the accidents, and exceptions of the language. 



As I have said, I shall not divide my grammar into parts of 

 speech, but into paragraphs. In the paragraphs I shall dis- 

 tinctly mark the line of separation between the elementary 

 grammar and the grammatical treatise by the title of " ADDI- 

 TIONAL REMARKS." The student who only desires to learn the 

 language sufficiently to enable him to read, speak, and write 

 with tolerable accuracy, need only attend to the numbered pa/ra~ 

 graphs; but he who would learn the language thoroughly, must 

 follow me closely and carefully in all I may find occasion to say 

 in the additional remarks. 



Each paragraph will be complete in itself a decided step in 

 the knowledge of the language. Every principle of the language 

 will be clearly illustrated by examples, including vocabularies 

 and exercises. 



I have now only to ask the earnest and patient attention of 

 my pupil readers. 



I. ON THE PBONUNCIATION OF ITALIAN. 



I shall teach the pronunciation of the Italian language in 

 more detail than is generally pursued in English tuition. The 

 profit to be derived from the study of any living language is 

 much less if we are unable to pronounce it correctly. We can 

 make little practical use of our theoretical acquirements, if in 

 communication with those to whom this language is the mother 

 tongue; we can neither make ourselves understood when we 

 speak, nor understand when we are spoken to. And besides, 

 no man, though he may gather the sense, can relish or even 

 comprehend the beauties or delicacies of great poets, and prose 

 writers, too, in any language, and more especially in that of 

 Italy, without an accurate knowledge of the sounds. In reading 

 such poets as Ariosto or Tasso, the pleasure does not consist 

 altogether in appreciating the thoughts, or even shades of 

 thoughts, but in the faculty to enjoy that divine harmony to 

 which they have attuned the language. One may relish the 

 beauty of the rose, but if he be deprived of the sense of smell, 

 he can admire only a lifeless beauty. Such students of the 

 Italian poets, to use a more homely figure, may read their poetry 

 with the satisfaction with which one might admire a Turkey 

 carpet, who has seen the reverse side only. There is no insu- 

 perable or even very considerable difficulty in mastering Italian 

 pronunciation ; but a thoughtful attention to some leading 

 principles, and a student-like diligence, are conditions essential 

 to success. My thoughtful and industrious pupils will very 

 soon find that a prolixity in this the very outset of my labours 

 which might seem trifling, is really most important one of the 

 fundamental parts of the language. 



I am aware that I am writing for the most part for adult 

 readers ; but let them for a little space forget the dignity of 

 manhood ; for every learner of a language, be he as old as Cato 

 was when he learnt Greek, should be regarded as a child learning 

 to express his thoughts. Indeed, the more he is taught a foreign 

 tongue as the child his mother's speech, the better for him. 



A living language can never be accurately and completely 

 expressed by signs. They who profess the contrary only mis- 

 lead the uninformed. But a tolerable approach to accuracy in 

 fixing pronunciation may be made by letter-signs representing 

 analogous sounds familiar to the ear in one's own language. 

 If one has made himself so familiar with the imitated sounds, 

 as to have acquired a considerable vocal command of the 

 leading ones, he may very soon accurately and permanently 

 acquire them, by a few brief communications with an educated 

 native. 



Perhaps the most useful beginning I can make, is to point out 

 the leading errors which Englishmen commit in pronouncing 

 Italian. The reason of this is, that men are apt to transfer 

 involuntarily the peculiarities of their own language to that 

 which they are studying. The first effort, therefore, in learning 

 to pronounce Italian, should be to forget your native peculiarities. 

 In the mastery of the pronunciation of the continental lan- 

 guages, and particularly of Italian, the Englishman's great 

 difficulty is in ttie vowels. 



The Englishman, perhaps from childhood, has heard no vowel 

 sounds but those of his own island his four sounds of a, his 

 four sounds of o, his three sounds of u, his two sounds of c, and 



