FROM OVID AND VIRGIL: A SHORTER HANDBOOK OF LATIN WITH NOTES AND GRAMMATICAL references. BY J. H. HANSON, PRINCIPAL OF THE CLASSICAL INSTITUTE, WATERVille, me. PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR, LENOX AND Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by J. H. HANSON AND W. J. ROLFE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co., CAMBRIDGE. PREFACE. THE marked favor with which the Handbook of Latin Poetry has already been received, and the desire expressed by many teachers, who have no occasion for the Horace, that a smaller and cheaper edition, containing only the Ovid and Virgil, might be published, will sufficiently explain the appearance of the Shorter Handbook of Latin Poetry. The abridgment is in all respects like the corresponding parts of the complete work, the same plates being used in printing both. This will explain the slight irregularity of the paging, which will cause no inconvenience in using the book, as nothing in the notes and references is affected by it. The occasional references to the Horace are of little practical importance, as they are mostly on historical or mythological points: the teacher, however, should have the complete work. It is earnestly recommended to those teachers who are preparing students for college, to take their classes over a portion at least of the Ovid before entering upon the Virgil. The latter is a difficult author: his style is ornate and artificial, his sentences are often long and involved, their structure complicated, and the sense sometimes obscure. Ovid, on the other hand, is a comparatively easy author: his stories are brief and interesting, their structure simple, and the style narrative and loose. Besides, the notes on Ovid are specially intended for elementary drill. By adopting this course, the transition, always more or less difficult, from prose to poetry, is rendered much more gradual and easy; and, at the same time, the student is learning something of a valuable Latin classic, with which otherwise he might never become acquainted. April 15, 1866. J. H. HANSON, W. J. ROLFE. |