changes of position we please, and we shall not make a shade of difference in its meaning. Puellam amabant pueri, Puellam pueri amabant, Pueri amabant puellam, Pueri puellam amabant, all have the same meaning-the boys loved the girl. For puellam shows by its form that it must be the object of the action; amabant must have for its subject a plural substantive, and which must therefore be, not puellam, but pueri. The connections of the words being therefore absolutely determined by their forms, their position in the sentence is a matter at least of minor importance. The reader who has not learned Latin will yet, by referring to a preceding paragraph, have little difficulty in constructing a Latin sentence, which represents the reverse of our first example; i. e., the girl loved the boys. For in that the girl is the subject, and the boys are the objects of the action, and the verb must have its singular form, which gives us Puella amabat pueros. In the corresponding English sentence, the words are exactly the same as those in the sentence of exactly opposite meaning; in the Latin they are all different. And again, their position has no 'effect on the meaning of the sentence; for these words, whether given as above in the order, the girl loved the boys, or in the more elegant order, Puella pueros amabat or, [The girl the boys loved], Pueros amabat puella can have but one construction, and therefore but one meaning; i. e., the girl loved the boys. If we extend the sentence by qualifying either the subject or the object, or both, the operation of this rule of construction will be more striking. Let the qualification be goodness. The Latin for good is bonus; but in this form the word qualifies only a subject of the singular number and masculine gender; singular feminine and neuter subjects are qualified as good by the forms bona and bonum. A singular feminine object is qualified as good by bonam; a plural masculine subject by boni, a plural masculine object by bonos. If, therefore, we wish to say that the boys were good, the sentence becomes Boni pueri amabant puellam, The good boys loved the girl. By merely changing the position of the adjective in the English sentence, we say, not that the boys were good, but the girl : The boys loved the good girl. But a corresponding arrangement of the Latin words Pueri amabant boni puellam, means still that the boys were good, and the girl was loved; because boni, from its form, can qualify only a plural masculine subject - here pueri. If we wish to say that the girl was good, we must use the form of bonus which belongs to a singular feminine object, and write bonam puellam. Then, wherever we put bonam, it will qualify only puellam. Thus, in the sentence, Bonam puellam amabant pueri, the order of the words, represented in English, is The good girl loved the boys; but the meaning is, the boys loved the good girl. It is not even necessary, in Latin, that the adjective and the noun which it qualifies should be kept together. Thus, in the sentence, Puella bonos amabat pueros, the order of the words, represented in English, is The girl good loved the boys; and in this arrangement, the order is, Pueros amabat bonos puella, The boys loved the good girl; but the meaning in both is the same, and is quite unlike that conveyed by the English arrangement The girl loved the good boys. The reason of this fixed relation is simply that bonos, whatever its place in this sentence, qualifies pueros only, as appears by the number, gender, and case of each, which are shown by their respective and agreeing forms; that pueros must be an object of action, which is shown by its form; and that puella and amabat are subject and predicate, pertaining to each other, which is also shown by their forms. Bonos cannot belong to puella, because the former is masculine plural, and belongs to an object; and puella is feminine singular, and a subject; pueros cannot be the subject of amabat, because the former is plural in its inflection, and the latter singular. In Juvenal's noble saying, Maxima debetur puero reverentia, The greatest reverence is due to a boy, the order of the words is this: greatest is owed to a boy reverence; and there is nothing in this order to preclude the application of the word meaning greatest to the word meaning boy, which would give us, Reverence is due to the biggest boy. But in Juvenal's sentence, the Latin word for boy has the dative inflection, which shows that the boy is the recipient of something, and is the object of the verb debetur; it is also masculine; and as maxima agrees in case and in gender with reverentia, the feminine subject of the verb, it must qualify that word. If we should find the following collocation of words, "Thy now doings of my of mistress with weeping swollen redden pretty eyes," we should pronounce it nonsense. It is not even a sentence. And yet it is a translation of the beautiful lines, in the order of their words, with which Catullus closes his charming ode, "Funus Passeris." "Tua nunc opera meæ pullæ Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli." And the words, reduced to their logical or English order, are, Now the pretty swollen eyes of my mistress redden with weeping thy doings. The Latin arrangement is as if we were presented with the figures 819457263, and were expected to read them, not eight hundred and nineteen million four hundred fifty-seven thousand two hundred and sixty-three, but one hundred twenty-three million four hundred fifty-six thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine; the order 123456789 being indicated by some peculiar and correspondent form of the characters known only to the initiated. Enough has been said in illustration of the difference between the construction of the Latin and that of the English sentence. The former depends upon the inflectional forms of the words; and its sense is not affected, or is affected only in a secondary degree, by their relative positions. In the latter, the meaning of the sentence is determined by the relative positions of the words, their order being determined by the connection and interdependence of the thoughts of which they are the signs. Syntax, guided by etymology, controls the Latin; reason, the English. In brief, the former is grammatical; the latter, logical. English admits very rarely, and only in a very slight degree, that severance of words representing connected thoughts which is not only admissible, but which is generally found in the Latin sentence; of which structural form the foregoing examples are of the simplest sort, and are the most easily resolvable into logical order. Milton is justly regarded as the English poet whose style is most affected by Latin models; and the opening passage of his great poem is often cited as a strongly-marked example of involved construction. But let us examine it briefly. "Of man's first disobedience [and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed |