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A

PLAIN AND EASY

GREEK GRAMMAR,

ADAPTED TO

THE USE OF LEARNERS,

AND OF

THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND NO OTHER LANGUAGE THAN ENGLISH.

A NEW EDITION, CORRECTED AND IMPROVED.

Minus sunt ferendi hanc Artem (Grammaticen scilicet) ut tenuem ac jejunam cavillantes, quæ nisi Oratori futuro Fundamenta fideliter jecerit, quicquid superstruxeris corruet: Necessaria Pueris, jucunda Senibus, dulcis Secretorum Comes, et quæ vel sola omni Studiorum Genere plus habet Operis quàm Ostentationis.

QUINTILIAN. Institut. Orat. lib. i. cap. 4. § 1.

Utinam essem bonus Grammaticus! Sufficit enim ei qui Auctores omnes probè vult intelligere,
esse bonum Grammaticum.-Non aliunde Dissidia in Religione pendent quàm ab Ignoratione
Grammatica.
Prima SCALIGERANA.

PREFACE.

BEING desirous of assisting my countrymen, to the best of my abilities, in learning the original Greek of the New Testament, I have thought proper to publish the ensuing Grammar, which is drawn up in the plainest and easiest manner I could devise, and adapted to the use of the mere English reader. It is true indeed that we already have several Greek Grammars written in our own language; and could I have found any one of these that would have answered my purpose, I should have been very glad to have referred my readers to it, and to have saved myself the trouble of compiling a new one; but all the Greek Grammars I have yet seen in English proceed upon a supposition that the learner already understands Latin. Thus, for instance, Dr. Milner, though in the preface to his third edition he remarks that he has offered to his countrymen THE FIRST GREEK GRAMMAR IN ENGLISH, yet in the course of his work he renders most of the Greek examples not into English but Latin, and at page 8 observes, that he has omitted the definitions of things common to Latin and Greek, because the young scholar is supposed to be acquainted with them from his Latin Grammar; and the author of the Port-Royal Grammar, at the beginning of the 7th book, which treats of the Greek Syntax, "professes to comprise no more precisely than what the Greek varies in from the Latin, judging it quite unnecessary to repeat how an adjective agrees with its substantive, or a verb with its nominative, and such other rules as are exactly uniform in both languages." Edit. Nugent, p. 315. Let me add, that every man who has thought much upon such a curious and extensive subject as grammar may justly claim some indulgence to his own notions concerning it, and ought to be allowed his own peculiar method of arranging his conceptions, and communicating them to others.

What I have just alleged (not to insist on other reasons that might be urged) will, I hope, be deemed a sufficient apology for my adding another Greek Grammar to those already published; and far from designing in the least to detract from the merit of the excellent grammarians who have preceded me, I very thankfully acknowledge the almost continual assistance I have received from them. Besides the common Greek Grammar, I have throughout consulted the Port-Royal, Dr. Busby's, Dr. Milner's, and Mr. Stackhouse's; but am most especially obliged to Mr. Holmes, though in deducing the tenses of verbs from their theme I have preferred the common method, as appearing to me more easy and simple than his; and have in the syntax endeavoured to illustrate the government of Greek verbs, by the force of a preposition

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