1859. June 23. Gift of Lowry J. Juncan, of Lexington, Ky(Class of 1859) HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE: ALLEN AND FARNHAM, PRINTERS. 44131 43-176 PREFACE. IN presenting this Grammar to the public, the Author is fully aware that he has undertaken a very difficult work, and one demanding all the labor which he could faithfully bestow upon it. Several grammars of much merit were already in use, among which he would especially designate that of his deceased friend and predecessor at Cambridge, the learned and lamented Doctor Bachi. But in his own experience he has found that of the several text-books used in this country, no one exactly meets the present want. Some are too diffuse, too strictly classical, too averse to modern usages. Others aim only to teach the spoken language; or rather a few useful conversational phrases, or forms of bargaining, etc., useful to travellers or to mercantile gentlemen; at the same time so monotonous and uninteresting as to repel the most zealous student. From neither class would the scholar derive much appreciation of the great writers of modern Italy, and while he might be aided to turn a stanza of Tasso, or possibly to conclude a few purchases in a mosaic-shop, he would remain ignorant of the genius of Gioberti, Guerrazzi, Azeglio, Leopardi, and many others. In this work the object has been to supply the deficiencies, and to combine the advantages of these opposite systems, and to modi |