that the English and modern Greek should be alike in the peculiar circumstance of using the verb I WILL, Oλw, as an auxiliar to express the future tense.* That the Welch should resemble the Oriental languages, in having no present tense, and making the preterite the root of the verb. That the Italian verb substantive, contrary to all analogy, should be conjugated by itself. SONO STATO, Not HO STATO.† That there should be, at this time, three different languages spoken in this island, English. Welch, and Erse; and that the islands of Otaheite and New Zealand should have one common language, with a small variation of dialect only, though from their distance there seems to be no possible mode of communication. As there is no distinction in the cases of nouns, either in English or in French, Italian and Spanish, it seems very absurd to mention them at all in the grammars of those languages. To an Englishman, who has never learned Latin, the nominatives and genitive case must be unintelligible; and the English_classical scholar will surely not have so far forgotten the idiom of his mother tongue, as not to com * Might not one be tempted to deduce this corruption of the Greek verb, from the conversation of the Greeks of Constantinople with the Barangi, a body of English troops, who formed the emperor's life-guard; and whose attachment to their native language is confirmed by a quotation from Codinus, in Mr. Gib, bon's History. Πολυχρονιζεσι οι Βάραγγοι κατὰ τῶν πατριον γλῶσσον, ἡτόι Ιγκληνισί. † The fact is, in the Italian, like its mother the Latin, the verb substantive has no participle; and when it adopted the form of the northern conjugations, it was forced to borrow a particle from the verb STO, and SONO STATO literally means, I AM PLACED. In Spanish, both the verbs SER and ESTAR are considered as auxiliary, and the grammarians make this distinction between them; SER signifies simply, essence; ESTAR, position. For instance, 'SER quatre Jugares di Londra,' would not signify to be four leagues distant from London, but to be the substance of those four leagues. The proper word is ESTAR. Though the English translator of Mallet's Northern Antiquities says, the Welch and the Erse are the genuine daughters of the Celtic; yet, in the specimens he produces of each, we cannot trace the smallest resemblance. § By the way, the nominative case, like the positive degree, is a bull, and reminds one of the divine, who, preaching on the text, Sun, stand thou still,' opened his sermon by stating that there were three kinds of motion; the motion progressive, the motion retrograde, and the motion mentioned in the text. prehend his French or Italian master, when he tells him that nouns, in those languages, as in his own, have no inflexion, but the whole business is managed by prepositions and articles. To an ancient Roman, or a modern German, the mention of cases might be necessary. Though the English, in general, devote more of their time to the study of Latin than any people in Europe, they are the only people in Europe who never speak it; and the reason is obvious. The youth educated in our great public schools, are obliged to imitate the best models of antiquity so scrupulously in their compositions, and would so certainly be punished by their masters, as well as ridiculed by their school-fellows, either for using a barbarism or a false quantity; that they never can attain the facility of composition necessary for common conversation, since an error in either might procure the delinquent both a flogging, and a nickname for life. This must render the speaking Latin among us impossible, as we are not near so fastidious as to our own language; for the most accurate speakers of English will sometimes offend against the strict rules of Grammar. I was once told a remarkable instance of the severity of a country school-master on this account. A passage from a Greek author was cited. The master asked his pupils to tell him whence it was taken. All were silent but one, who answered Herodōtus. The boy was right; but the master gave him a blow for his erroneous pronunciation. When I was at Oxford, I remember a dispute about the quantity of the penult of Granicus, which produced a bett. It was referred to the three best scholars of the college, who unanimously decided for Granicus. The loser then produced a verse in Ovid, and another in Homer*, the only ancient poets in which it is found, where it is clearly Granicus. What was singular in the case, though the umpires themselves immediately bowed to this authority, it was determined that the person who was right had lost the bett, as he was condemned by those persons to whom he had appealed; and it was too late to alter their sentence after it was given. As we are very fond of abusing ourselves, it is a common thing to talk of the great sibilation of the English language. But is the * Γρήνικος τε, και Αίσηπος, διὸς τε Σκάμανδρος. Granico nata bicorni. HOMER, OVID. Latin freer from it? We could find few instances of it among our own poets, equal to these lines of Horace, where the s occurs in nine subsequent words, and twice in one word besides. 'Dum tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus, Res Italas armis tuteris, moribus ornes, Indeed it cannot be otherwise, if we recollect how much the inflexion of both nouns and verbs in Latin, depends on this letter. MILTON's IL PENSEROSO. THE following lines, first published in 1647, have some intrinsic merit; but if they were, as a learned commentator suggests, the occasion of the Il Penseroso of Milton, as "being the plan, which is there drawn out into larger dimensions," they have a merit beyond their own, in the opinion of every lover of English poetry. Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights, Wherein you spend your folly; Oh! sweetest melancholy! Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley. Q. Z. SAGACITY OF BRUTES. [Continued from page 88.] MAN is supposed to have been originally indebted, for several leading hints in points of considerable usefulness and importance, to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the field. Nor is it beneath the dignity of human rank, to derive instruction from nature, under whatever mode, or form, her exertions may appear, Unerring authority bids us, on some occasions, learn of insects themselves: Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. It seems extremely probable, for instance, that spiders and silk worms gave the primitive house-wives a notion of spinning. That birds and fishes suggested the practicability of sailing, in vessels constructed similarly to the shape of those animals. And that the hippopotamus*, or river-horse (which, when overcharged with too great a quantity of blood, strikes himself against the point of a sharp reed, until he has bled sufficiently, and then rolls in a particular kind of mud, until the bleeding is stanched), supplied the ancients with the original idea of phlebotomy. One of our best † cosmographers observes, that the cynocephalus, a species of monkey very common in Africa, is said to have furnished the first hint of dividing the day and night into twenty-four hours; this creature having been observed to make water, with a mechanical exactness, twentyfour times regularly, and at equal intervals, in the course of a day and night, when the sun is in the equinox. A goat is by no means considered as an animal of bright intellects. And yet some things are related of him, which indicate no small share of rationality, Luther's story is well known: who relates, that two goats, meeting on a narrow plank over a deep river, it being impossible for them to pass a-breast, one of them very prudently couched: that so, the other walking over him, neither of them might be in danger of falling into the stream. If a goat knows how to conduct himself with prudence, when cases of difficulty and danger call for the exercise of that talent; he can also prove himself no contemptible adept in the art of war, when either his own safety, or that of his family and friends, requires him to repel force by force. An instance of this occurs, • See Chambers's Dictionary, on the word bleeding. + Complete System of Ceography, vol. ii. p. 385. in the narrative of Lord Anson's Voyage*; nor can I better express it, than in the words of that authentic and well-written performance: premising, only, that the theatre of the following unsuccessful invasion was the island of Juan Fernandez, in Spanish West India. "We once had an opportunity of observing a remarkable dispute betwixt an herd of these animals [i. e. of goats], and a number of dogs. For, going in our boat into the eastern bay, we perceived some dogs running very eagerly upon the foot; and, being willing to discover what game they were after, we lay upon our oars some time to view them, and at last saw them take to an hil; where, looking a little further, we observed, upon the ridge of it, an herd of goats, which seemed drawn up for their reception. There was a very narrow path, skirted on each side by precipices, on which the master of the herd posted himself, fronting the enemy: the rest of the goats being all behind him, where the ground was more open. As this spot was inaccessible by any other path, excepting where this champion had placed himself, the dogs, though they ran up-hill with great alacrity, yet, when they came within about twenty yards of him, they found they dared not encounter with him (for he would infallibly have driven them down the precipice): but gave over the chace, and quietly laid themselves down, panting at a great rate." Could any commanding officer on the face of the globe have displayed more military skill, in taking all possible advantage of his ground; and more resolute prowess, in maintaining it, than this Leonidas of the herd? And, on the other hand, were not the invaders equally judicious, in sounding a timely retreat, and in not attempting to storm a fortress, which both the nature of the place, and the discreet valour of the defendants concurred to render impregnable? It is no impeachment of courage, but an argument of superior wisdom, to desist, in due season, from designs that are found to be impracticable. Plutarch, that nice observer of nature, in his entertaining dialogue concerning the different wisdom of aqueous and of land animals adduces many pertiment examples, strongly tending to corroborate his hypothesis, that an inward intelligent principle of action: is by no means the exclusive prerogative of men. I shall, here, select some of the most striking instances he brings; not marshalling them, according to the exact routine of methodical arrangement, but introducing them, for the most part, just as they occur in the disquisitions of the Greek philosopher. See that work, p. 121, 122. 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