rendered as easy as possible to the reader, cannot be doubted: and the very frequent occasions of pronouncing Scripture proper names, in a country where reading the Scripture makes part of the religious worship, seem to demand some work on this subject more perfect than any we have hitherto seen. I could have wished it had been undertaken by a person of more learning and leisure than myself; but we often wait in vain for works of this kind, from those learned bodies which ought to produce them, and at last are obliged, for the best we can get, to the labours of some necessitous individual. Being long engaged in the instruction of youth, I felt the want of a work of this kind, and have supplied it in the best manner I am able. If I have been happy enough to be useful,-or only so far useful as to induce some ableṛ band to undertake the subject,I shall think my labour amply rewarded. I shall still console myself with reflecting, that he who has produced a prior work, however inferior to those that succeed it, is under a very different predicament from him who produces an after-work, inferior to those that have gone before. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. THE favourable reception of the first edition of this work has induced me to attempt to make it still more worthy of the acceptance of the Public, by the addition of several critical observations, and parti cularly by two Terminational Vocabularies, of Greek and Latin, and Scripture, Proper Names. That so much labour should be bestowed upon an inverted arrangement of these words, when they had already been given in their common alphabetical order, may be matter of wonder to many persons, who will naturally inquire into the utility of such an arrangement. To these it may be answered, that the words of all languages seem more related to each other by their terminations than by their beginnings; that the Greek and Latin languages seem more particularly to be thus related; and classing them according to their endings, seemed to exhibit a new view of these languages, both curious and useful: for as their accent and quantity depend so much on their termination, such an arrangement appeared to give an easier and more comprehensive idea of their pronunciation than the common classification by their initial syllables. This end was so desirable as to induce me to spare no pains, however dry and disgusting, to promote it; and if the method I have taken has failed, my labour will not be entirely lost if it convinces future prosodists that it is not worthy of their attention. 2 CONTENTS OF THE INTRODUCTION. PACE ix - ibid. The pronunciation of Greek and Latin not so difficult as The English pronunciation of Greek and Latin injurious to quantity No sufficient reason for altering the present pronunciation on these accounts Rule for accenting Latin words X ibid. xiii xiv XV Rule for accenting Greek proper names Probable conjecture why the termination tia and tio in Greek appellatives have not the same sound as in Latin-(Note) xvi Importance of settling the English quantity with which we pronounce Greek and Latin proper names, and particularly that of the unaccented syllables XX a 4 |