A

GREEK AND ENGLISH

LEXICON;

ADAPTED TO THE

AUTHORS READ IN THE COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS

OF THE

UNITED STATES,

AND TO

OTHER GREEK CLASSICS.

SECOND EDITION,

WITH MANY ADDITIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS.

41

BOSTON:

HILLIARD, GRAY, LITTLE, AND WILKINS.

1829.

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT:
DISTRICT CLERK'S OFFICE.

Be it remembered, that on the seventeenth day of January, A. D. 1829, and in the fifty-third year of the Independence of the United States of America, John Pickering, of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author and proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

"A Greek and English Lexicon; adapted to the Authors read in the Colleges and Schools of the United States, and to other Greek Classics. Second edition, with many Additions and Improvements."

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned;" and also to an act, entitled "An act supplementary to an act, entitled 'An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the author times therein mentioned;' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of and other prints."

and proprietors of such copies, during the signing, engraving, and etching historical JNO. W. DAVIS,

Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

Ir is a remarkable fact in the history of education, that we should have so long continued the practice of studying the Greek language through the medium of the Latin; and that until very recently we have not had Greek, as well as Latin dictionaries, with explanations in English. In the period immediately succeeding the revival of letters, while the art of printing was in its infancy and the number of readers was very small, no one kingdom of Europe would of itself have afforded a sale for any considerable work written in the vernacular tongue; it was therefore natural, and indeed necessary, that lexicons, as well as other books, should be published in Latin, which was a language common to scholars in all countries. But circumstances have long since changed; and it may justly excite our wonder, that we should, till within about three years past (long since the prospectus of the present work was published) have been destitute of the most important of all books for the acquisition of the language in question—A, Greek, and English Lexicon for the use of schools.

The fact seems the more extraordinary, because in the case of the modern languages we always begin our studies with dictionaries explained in our own tongue; nor should we think it practicable, in any other way, to master the niceties and peculiarities of a foreign idiom. Who, for example, would sit down to the study of French, or Italian, or German, with dictionaries written in Latin? And yet, what essential difference (except as to pronunciation, which must be learned from the living instructer) can be imagined between the proper methods of studying a modern and an ancient language? For our part, we can entertain no doubt, that one principal reason, we will not say the only one, why Greek is so much less familiar to us than Latin, is the circuitous and awkward practice of studying it through the medium of a third language. "A great deal of the difficulty," says a late English writer, "which the Greek language presents to the youthful student, is to be attributed to the circumstance of the best dictionaries and most of the best grammars being written in Latin; a language, into which it is impossible to transfuse the spirit or the idiomatic peculiarities of the Greek, and, in itself, more difficult of acquirement." Nor is this by any means a new opinion; for, so long ago as when the well known Port Royal Grammar was written, which is now more than a hundred and fifty years, the learned author of that work ascribed the superficial knowledge of Greek among his countrymen to the same cause. "It seems to me," says he, "that one of the things which most retards our progress in learning Greek is this, that we do not sufficiently accustom ourselves to compare it immediately with our own language, but always lead our thoughts in a circuitous way through a Latin interpretation." t

But it is unnecessary to extend the remarks upon this point any farther. The utility of Greek lexicons in the vernacular languages is now generally acknowledged. The Germans, who have so thoroughly studied the art of education, have for a considerable time had lexicons explained in their own langunge; and the French have followed their example. In England, too, besides Parkhurst's Lexicon to the

• Quarterly Review, for January 1820, vol. xxii, p. 348.

† Port Royal Greek Grammar, Pref. sect. vii.