Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/119

 sept pseaulmes, Ung Donast, Ungs accidens, Ung Caton, and Ung Doctrinal.”

Another famous Grammar was the Græcism of Ebrard, written in 1212. It was still in use at Deventer when Erasmus was at school there in 1476, and was popular in the Parisian schools until the end of the fifteenth century. This work, a bulwark of linguistic training in the fourteenth century, commences with a metrical treatise on grammatical forms, each of which is labelled with a Greek name. This is followed by chapters nominally on the declensions and the conjugations, but really on the exact meanings of words that resemble one another. Its editor, Johannes Vincentius Metulinus, who had a high opinion of its merits, introduces it as follows:—

Here is a sample of the draughts of grammar that he who stands on the brink may quaff. In chap. i., De figuris, we are informed that:

Pages of this stuff had to be learned by the unfortunate scholar, nor was his case much better when he came to the grammar proper. In chap. xvi., under the heading De verbis secundæ conjugationis, he was given the following information:—