Page:The Compleat Linguist 1719-08 Issue One - A Grammar of Spanish.djvu/6

ij This is Inducement enough for me, and others, who are desirous of useful Knowledge, to spend some Time in a View of the Tongues; all of which contribute to give a mutual Light to one another. For the Alliance betwixt most of them (as the Eastern, Western, and Northern, among themselves, in each Class) is so very obvious, that one cannot be justly known, without some Acquaintance with the rest of that Family, or Species.

The only Bar to this Sort of Study, is That it is dry and tiresome, by the needless Length of Grammars, and the Multiplicity of Rules and Examples. I have in this Attempt, the first of this kind, endeavour’d to clear those Obstructions, and to lay down a short, clear, and full Institution of the Grammatical Principles of each Tongue; without clogging it with a Number of Definitions, that way be known at once from the Common Latin Grammars; or with an