42

TURNING OUT THE WORDS.

would rather stay at home and shoot my pop-gun, for that hurts nobody."

"You would make a good sportsman yourself, I think, Robert," interrupted William," for you seem to have killed Homer quite dead; for you said just now, in your construeing, that he was enclosed in a nut-shell." Ah, ah!" exclaimed John, "that's droll enough, I am sure he could not be put in a nut-shell alive, could he?"

66

"And so I would have killed him dead, if he was a Frenchman," replied Robert.

..

But," said William, "let us drop this, and get to our Latin, or you will get turned to-morrow, I'm sure, Robert." "Well, go on then," answered be.

"Look out Homeri," continued William, " it comes from the nominative Homerus, and makes Homeri in the genitive case singular, and signifies a Grecian poet, not a Frenchman, as you called him."

"Yes," said Robert, "it says he wrote two poems, called the Iliad and Odyssey."

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Very well then it cannot be in the nominative case as you read it; but let us find the verb first. Est, you know is a verb from sum, and inclusa I found to come from inclusus, a participle of three terminations like bonus, and signifies shut up or enclosed, Now, in order to know what a participle

TURNING OUT THE WORDS.

43

is derived from, I generally look just above it, or below it; and then, if I cannot find it out, I ask one of the senior boys or the assistants; looking just above inclusus, you will find includor, and the perfect tense of the participle is inclusus. That's the very word you want."

"O no," interrupted Robert, "that it's not I'm sure there's no inclusus in the sentence, so you're wrong for once."

"Stop! stop!" said William "I tell you it is; inclusus will make inclusa in the feminine gender; for you know participles are declined like adjectives." "Pish," replied Robert, still interrupting," how can it be feminine? Homer was a man; and besides it does not say any thing at all about females, and it's only the names of females that are feminine-I'll stick to that."

44

LATIN A STUPID LANGUAGE.

CHAPTER IX.

*

"If you go on like this," rejoined William, somewhat vexed, 66 we shall never do the sentence.Surely, Robert, you are joking, or else you forget that you are doing Latin; you know there are hundreds of words that are feminine in Latin besides the names of females."

Well then," said he in a pet, "the Latin is a downright stupid language; who is to know masculine from feminine, then?"

"You cannot expect to know in a day," replied John. "No to be sure," continued William, "you must study your genders of nouns; that's the way to learn."

"Ah!" said Robert, turning up his nose, "there's none of this nonsense in learning English; every body knows it without turning over the dictionary from beginning to end. I wish they'd let me translate English.

"What language would you translate it into ?" enquired one of his companions.

BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

45

"What language? Why into English to be sure," replied he; "that's the best language in the world. That's the language Lord Wellington fought the battle of Waterloo in, wasn't it? aye, to be sure it was! He did'nt say, make ready! present! fire! in Latin; they wouldn't have understood a word of it. Let me tell you, that if he'd only make me a colonel in his army, you might have all your Latin and French, and such like stuff, to yourselves.

"Ah!" said John, "but you cannot be a colonel all at once, you know; Lord Wellington himself was not a colonel at first, was he William ?"

"if he'd

"Never mind," continued Robert; let me be a fifer, and have a cap and sword, I would go, if mamma would give me leave, for I can play God save the King already on the flute.

"But," interrupted William, smiling at his valour," if you intend to make out your lesson with us, we must not stop to talk about fifers."

"Go on then," said he, "I will be steady." "Inclusa est," continued William, "is the verb, and is to be found in the preterperfect tense, the third person singular. Now if you ask the question what with the verb, or enquire what has been enclosed, the answer cannot be Homer, for

46

NOMINATIVES AND GENITIVES.

you must be sure he could not be inclosed in a nut-shell.

"It must be a good large one if he was," interrupted John.

"Then," returned William, "there must be some other word for the nominative; it is not far off. Let us find out Ilias; it is a noun of the third declension, from Ilias genitive Iliadis, signifying the poem of Homer, that contained an ac count of the Trojan war. And mark the gender!" "It is feminine," said Robert.

"Then you see," continued William, "other words are feminine besides the names of females. The participle inclusa will agree with it in gender." "And the verb est, taken with inclusa," said John, "will make both of them together as one verb; which will agree with its nominative case Ilias in number and person; according to the first rules of syntax-a verb must agree with its nominative case," &c.

"If you recollect," rejoined William, "we said we thought Homeri to be in the genitive case; and so it is, for the possessive or genitive case signifies possession; and the Iliad might well be called Homer's, as he composed it. Besides when two substantives come together, the latter is put in the genitive case."

"Yes," interrupted John, that is always the