Some like quaint pedants, Good wit's true recreants, Ye cannot beseech From pure Priscian speech.

If a display of erudition were demanded, Ben was ready with the heavy artillery of the unities, and all the laws of Aristotle and Horace, Quintilian and Priscian, exemplified in tragedies of canonical structure, and comedies whose prim regularity could not extinguish the most delightful and original humorRobert Burton's exceptedthat illustrated that brilliant period.

V. use bad grammar, faulty grammar; solecize^, commit a solecism; murder the King's English, murder the Queen's English, break Priscian's head.

He thinks no language worth knowing but his Barragouin: only for that point he hath been a long time at wars with Priscian for a northern province.

According to the witness of Priscian, it was the custom of ancient writers to express obscurely some portions of their books, so that those who came after might study with greater diligence to find the thought within their words.

I would not lightly bruise old Priscian's head, Or wrong the rules of grammar understood; But, with the leave of Priscian be it said, The Indicative is your Potential Mood.

I would not lightly bruise old Priscian's head, Or wrong the rules of grammar understood; But, with the leave of Priscian be it said, The Indicative is your Potential Mood.

Some have taught that the parts of speech are only five; as did the latter stoics, whose classes, according to Priscian and Harris, were these: articles, nouns appellative, nouns proper, verbs, and conjunctions.

As it is, we are indebted to Priscian, a grammarian of the sixth century, for almost all we know about them.

Most of them, however, may yet be ascertained from Priscian, and some others of note among the ancient philologists; so that by taking from later authors the names of those letters which were not used in old times, we can still furnish an entire list, concerning the accuracy of which there is not much room to dispute.

"The semivowels, beginning with e, end in themselves; as, ef, ach, el, em, en, er, es, ex, (or, as Priscian will have it, ix,) eds."

To explain here the different views of the very old grammarians, as Charisius, Donatus, Servius, Priscian; or even to notice the opinions of later critics, as Sanctius, Scioppius, Vossius, Perizonius; might seem perhaps a needless departure from what the student of mere English grammar is concerned to know.

, how many, and what Priscian, ancient grammarian, delivers the names of most of the Lat.

Breaking Priscian's head; or, English as she will be spoke and wrote.

Breaking Priscian's head; or, English as she will be spoke and wrote.

This prefatory matter is written in a style of considerable obscurity, which the author defends by the example of the ancients, and quotes Priscian as her authority.

PRISCIAN.

PRISCIAN, Latin grammarian of the 6th century, born in Cæsarea; was author of "Grammatical Commentaries" in 18 books, a standard work during the Middle Ages, and in universal use at that time.

Mr. Offor is superbly Protestant and iconoclastic,not sparing, as we have seen, even Priscian's head among the rest; but, en revanche, Mr. Turnbull is ultramontane beyond the editors of the Civiltà Cattolica.

But they are bound to speak decent English,unless, indeed, they are rough old campaigners, like General Jackson or General Taylor; in which case, a few scars on Priscian's head are pardoned to old fellows that have quite as many on their own, and a constituency of thirty empires is not at all particular, provided they do not swear in their Presidential Messages.