John William Donaldson (1811 61), though somewhat unorthodox in his methods, was an important, if controversial, figure in the development of comparative philology. In this 1844 publication, he attempts to supply young English scholars of Latin with an introductory guide to Latin philology by outlining the origins of the Roman people and, through this, explaining the foundational structures of the Latin language and how they gave rise to Classical Latin. Epigraphic evidence, drawn from the Twelve Tables in particular, is examined as part of the enquiry into Old Latin, and other Italic languages such as Umbrian, Oscan and Etruscan are considered as part of the development of a more standardised Latin language. Although many of the conclusions Donaldson draws are based on limited evidence, the book remains an interesting specimen of early comparative philology. His earlier work on Greek, The New Cratylus (1839), is also reissued in this series."

The philologist and biblical critic John William Donaldson (1811 61) published this pioneering work in 1839. It is an attempt to apply the principles of comparative philology to ancient Greek, elucidating the grammar and syntax of the language by comparing it with actual or conjectural cognate languages. As well as producing a great deal of original research on the subject, Donaldson was the first British philologist to bring the work of continental scholars to the attention of English readers. In the book's first section, he gives a history of philology, surveys its present state and expounds a philosophy of language. Here he sets Greek in the context of other Indo-European languages, and outlines a theory of the Greek alphabet and its origins. In the second section, he examines pronouns, numerals, prepositions and particles before considering the noun in the third section, and finally the various tenses and moods of the verb in the fourth section.

General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1856 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Quadrivium itself, naturally led to the substitution of examinations, -- in which the relative merit of mathematical students was more accurately tested, -- for the school disputations, in which the logic of the Trivium played a prominent part; and the influence of Newton, Cotes, and Smith, not unassisted by the more general scholars, Barrow and Bentley, paved the way for the establishment of the mathematical tripos in the middle of the 18th century. The literary tendencies of Trinity College, and the great scholars produced by that institution, began about the same time to assert the claims of classical learning to similar encouragement in the examinations. First, Chancellor's Medals were instituted for the two best classical scholars in the first mathematical tripos list. Then, Bishop Monk, the immediate successor of Porson, after improving the classical examinations of Trinity College and of the University at large, contrived, with great difficulty, to effect in 1824 the establishment of a classical tripos open to all Bachelors whose names had appeared in the mathematical tripos. And, at last, the students of classical literature are about to be allowed to compete for places in a tripos of their own, without the previous necessity of appearing as class-men in mathematics. By these examinations a broad foundation has been laid for the re-establishment of the school of arts at Cambridge; and the Trivium and the Quadrivium, appearing in a modern dress as learning and science, literature and philosophy, grammar and geometry, philology and physiology, may now be regarded as receiving, or about to receiv...

Sometimes accused of privileging controversy over scholarly restraint, the philologist John William Donaldson (1811 1861) was a precocious talent. Only twenty-five when this book was first published in 1836, he was already a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and would live to see his book appear in numerous editions. Revisiting the subject of a successful book published a decade earlier by P. W. Buckham (died 1829), a fellow of St. John's College, Donaldson's colourful new approach proved popular with readers. The appeal of his writing endures, and few can resist his invitation to 'strip our thoughts of their modern garb' and escape into a world of dramatic comedy and tragedy. From the historical account of Thespis, the forefather of Western acting, to an engaging analysis of Euripides and Sophocles, this introduction retains all of the appeal that made it a standard text on the Victorian student's bookshelf.