accomplish this effect than any other language; for, whereas Greek is more delicately organized, more beautiful and poetic, the Latin is perhaps the more systemically elaborated tongue. In its severe syntax it participates in some of the striking qualities of the Roman character, which seems to have been fitted to legislate, to govern, and to command, as the great poet has it:
The study of Latin requires such application of various rules and laws that it forces the student to the closest attention, to rigorous mental discipline. The processes of reasoning which are, at least implicitly, to be gone through, in translating an English sentence into Latin, are ample proof of this statement. Suppose a pupil has to render the following sentence into correct Latin: "As soon as you arrive at Philadelphia, give him the letter, to prevent him from going to New York." He will probably start: As soon as: ubi primum; arrive is pervenire, or advenire. Now what tense? Ubi primum, together with postquam, etc., is construed with the Perfect Indicative. But wait, does it always take the Perfect? No, only when a single past fact is related; is this the case here? That depends on the tense of the verb in the principal clause: it is give. What tense? It is properly the present tense, but has reference to the future. Therefore, the whole clause does not express a past but a future fact. In English arrive is present tense, but in Latin the use of tenses is much more accurate; if the action of principal and dependent clauses are both
- ↑ Virgil's Aeneid, VI.
