OCRed data provided
for searching only. 584 SMALL LATINE AND LESSE GREEKE
Aduerbe; then the case which the Verbe properly gouerneth: and lastly, all the other eases in their order; first the Genitiue, secondly the Datiue, &c. Z. What if there be not all these words?
A. Then I must take so many of them as be in the sentence, and in this order.
Z. Is this order euer to be obserued?
4. No: it may be altered by Interrogatiues, Relatiues, Infinitiues, Genitiues of partition, and Conjunctions.
What special] things must bee obserued in construing?
A. That the Nominatiue case be set before the Verbe, the Accusatiue case after the Verbe, the Infinitiue moode after another moode: the Substantiue and the Adiectiue must be construed together; except the Adiectiue do passe osier his signification vnto some other word, which it gouerneth.
The Accusatiue, before an Infinitiue moode, must haue the word (that) ioyned with it.
The Preposition must be ioyned with his case."
As an example of proper construing Brinsley gives,
Scipio S Scipio, & and, Laeli 8 Lelius, artes arts, exercitationes4; and exercises, airtutum of vertues, sun: are, omnino altogether, arma aptissima the fittest weapons, senectutis of old age: quae which, cultae being exercised [or vsed] in aetate omni in euery age, [or in all our life] afferunt do bring, fructus mirificos maruellous fruits, cam when, vixeris you haue hued, multdm much, diciq; and long, &c.u
Brinsley then shows how to parse the passage.
Scipio] is the first word to be parsed, because it is the first in construing; for that we begin commonly of a Vocatiue case, if there be one. h is the Vocatiue case, knowne by speaking to, & by the Interiection 0 vnderstood; gouerned of the Interiection 0, by the rule 0 Exclamantis Nerinatiuo, 1lccusatiuo, & Vocatiuo iungitur. In English, Certaine a Vocatiue, &c."
Brinsley's pet hobby was grammatical translation. By giving the boy a translation in this grammatical order, he thought it would be easy for the boy to learn to construe correctly with very little help from
the master.
The reader will notice the powerful shaping effect that this method of construing would have upon the pupil's idea of sentence structure. For Brinsley's method, as he himself points out, is only a more perfect stage in a long evolution. How early the process began I do not know, but the reader may find an early instance of it in the commentary of Guido Juvenalis upon Terence, first published in 2492, and to be found in almost any of the variorum editions of Terence in the
u Brinsley, Ludes L,Ierarius (16x7), PP. 92-93-
u Brinsley, Ludes Literarius (1627), p. iox. n Brinsley, Ludes blowier (1627), p. jot.
[ Volume
One ] 
