260 



Life and Writings of Father Beschi. 



Works written in Tamil and Latin, by Father Bkschi, cJiieJli/ intended 

 for the use of the European missionaries, ^c. 



12. Low Tamil Grammar in Latin, entitled Grammatica Latino- 

 Tamulica, in qua de vulgari Tamulicse Linguae Idiomate OsirCB^^L^g^ 

 dicto, Fusius Tractatur. Auctore P. Constantio Josepho Beschio, E Soci- 

 etate Jesu, et in Regione Madurensi, apud Indos Orientales, Missionario. 



This is a complete Grammar of the low, and an excellent key to the 

 high dialect. It contains moreover, in a supplementary chapter, "De 

 variis quotidiano usiii praecipue necessariis," a variety of information 

 of the greatest practical utility to those, who, by their situation, are 

 compelled to daily intercousre with the Tamil natives. This Grammar 

 was printed for the first, and I believe, the last time at the Protestant 

 Missionary Press at Tranquebar, in 1738, and f om copies of this im- 

 pression, which is not common, an English translation, which, however, 

 cannot be recommended, has lately been published at the Vepery Press. 



The College Board printed Beschi's Low Tamil Grammar in Latin, in 

 1813. 



Shen Tamil Grammar. 



The Author's Introduction. — C. J. Beschi — To the pious Missionaries 

 of the Society of Jesuits, Greeting. 



When I last year presented you with a grammar of the common 

 dialect of the Tamil language, with the view of aiding your labours as 

 ministers of the gospel, I promised that I would shortly say something 

 respecting the superior dialect; but my time being occupied by more 

 Important duties, the work was deferred longer than I had at first ex- 

 pected. Urged, however, by the pressing solicitations of my friends, 

 no longer to delay making public the information which I had amassed 

 by a long and ardent study of the abstruse works of ancient writers, 

 but to communicate the fruit of my labours, I resolved to avail myself 

 of the little leisure which I could spare from more weighty avocations, 

 and freely to impart what it had cost me no inconsiderable pains to 

 acquire. 1 was further encouraged to the task, by my sense of the 

 very favourable reception which my introdviction to the common dialect 

 had universally met with. Let me intreat the same indulgence for the 

 present work. That the study will be one of considerable difficulty, I 

 do not pretend to deny; but the labour will not want its reward. 

 Among the natives themselves, very few can now be found who are 

 masters of the higher dialect. He among them who is acquainted 

 even with its rudiments, is regarded with respect ; but should he quote 

 their abstruse works, he is listened to with fixed admiration ; what 

 praise, then, would they not bestow on a foreigner, whom they should 



