SOME

Obfervations

UPON THE

FrenchTongue.

Concerning,

1. The Nature of the French Tongue. II. The Excellency of it.

III. The Extent of it.

IV. The Usefulness of it.

V. Remarks for those who have a mind to learn French.

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not underStand one another's fprech, Gen. xi. rer. 7.

Mr. MATTHEWS spoke as follows:

Early this month Mr. Brigham sent me this pamphlet which, he wrote, "seems to have been hitherto unnoticed by bibliographers," and asked, "Does a reading of it convince you that it is an American production?" He added that a short search had not revealed the name of the author. Though not important in itself, the pamphlet is of interest as being, so far as is known, the second book on the subject to be published in this country.1 An examination of the pamphlet indicates, though it does not prove, that it was written in this country, and if so, it is a natural presumption that the author was some one living in Boston or its neighborhood. The only clue lies in the dedication, which reads as follows:

I

To my Dear Brother

Mr. William Scott,3

Professor in the Greek Tongue, in the University

DEAR BROTHER,

of Edinburgh.

RECEIVED last Fall the Latin, English and French Grammar that you have composed, and sent to me: I thank you heartily for that Present that I have Read with pleasure; and which is indeed excellent in it's Kind.

in ink, "Elias Nason's from Chas. Whipple 1847- Made similar observations to my Class in 1847."

1 The first was Thomas Blair's Some Short and Easy Rules Teaching The true Pronunciation of the French Language, the colophon of which reads, "Boston: Printed by S. Kneeland, MDCCXX."

2 There are allusions to America (p. 1), to the East and West Indies (p. 11), and to the New and Old World (p. 11).

* This William Scott was Regent of the University of Edinburgh in 1695; was made Professor of Greek on June 16, 1708; became Professor of Moral Philosophy on February 26, 1729; and died in 1735. "AUG.... 9. Mr. William Scot, late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh" (Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1735, v. 500). His son, called William Scott Secundus, became Professor of Greek on February 26, 1729, and died the following December. "Dec. 29. Dy'd Mr. William Scot, Greek-Professor at the University of Edinburgh" (Historical Register, 1730, xv, Chronological Diary, p. 4). See Sir A. Grant's Story of the University of Edinburgh (1884), i. 233, 239, 242, 260262, ii. 322-323, 336; Catalogue of the Graduates of the University of Edinburgh (1854), pp. xii. xv, xvi. Curiously enough in the Catalogue (p. xvi) it is the son, instead of the father, who is stated to have been made Professor of Moral Philosophy on February 26, 1729.

...

This work is apparently not in Watt, Lowndes, or the British Museum Catalogue.

I vown to me that the author may well have been the Rev. Forew Le Merder, who came to this county in 1917 to become I of the French Protestant Church in Bustic and Sed here in IMA. The deletion to His Church History of Geners, Boston, 1762 in med A. L. M.,” and the dedication to his Treatise against Dowdon, Boron, 1783, is sizzed “A. Le Merder," though his Lame appeare in fill on the title-page of each of those volumes.? Mr. LINDSAY SWIFT spoke as follows

Mr. Tasle's paper brings to mind an interesting copy of Edward Widow's Good Nevves from New England (London, 1624), that I

*Ou nomadge of Le Mercier apparently comes wholly from the sketch of both in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xiii. 315-324. worms, we are told that he was "probably educated at the University of Geneva," though to wuthority is given for the statement. The exact connotation of the words "brother," "cousin," etc., as used in the eighteenth century is often difficult to determine; but from the dedication to the pamphlet it is fair to assume that, “A. L, M," and William Scott were brothers-in-law.