Particularly of the LETTER SIT MA. 139 



If a farther apology ftill be requifite for a long difcourfe upon 

 a fubject feemingly fo frivolous as a fingle letter, I might deny 

 that the fubject is frivolous. Nothing, it might be faid, is fri- 

 volous, which has for its object an investigation into the mod 

 minute caufes of the cultivation of that faculty, which, next 

 to our intellectual powers, is the moft important the human 

 fpecies enjoys ; without which indeed our intellectual- powers 

 themfelves would, in a great meafure, be deftitute of the means 

 of improvement, but with the elegant and correct: ufe of which, 

 elegance and correctnefs in fcience rnuft ever go hand in hand. 

 I may add, that it is an exercife furely of no illiberal fort, to 

 explore, and to produce to view, thofe marks of minute atten- 

 tion which the moft accomplished people in the world beftowed 

 upon the conflituent elements of their language, and which 

 contributed to render that language of all others the nobleft in 

 every refpect, and to all thofe who attain to a knowledge of it, 

 the object of enthufiaftic admiration. 



PART II. 



ALTHOUGH the letter Viypot, be of fuch effential ufe in 

 the inflections of the Greek language, as I have endea- 

 voured to explain, yet when it happens, either in profe or in 

 poetry, to be frequently introduced without neceflity, the re- 



S 2 peated 



' imo addo, Imperatores. Messala orator, e clariflima Corvorum gente, non librum 



' integrum De unica litera S compofuit ? et cum laude quidem nominis fiii, aded fine 



' fraude. Claudius Imperator, quanta cura, et paene dicam ambitione, tre? novas 



* literas invexit. iifque Romanam linguam auxit ? non alia, quam fi totidem regnis im- 



' perii fines. Jam Caesar ille Julius De Analogid, id eft de infimis Grammaticorum 



' ineptiis, binos libros confcripfit : et triumphales illas epulas variare et interflinguerc 



' non erubuit fcholica ifta dape.'' Lipsius de recia pronunc. Ling, Lot, 



