ess will depend in no small degree in your choice of adjectives.

[Illustration: MACER PUER.]

[Illustration: PINGUIS PUER.]

+NUMBERS OF NOUNS.+

Be not alarmed, boys, at the above heading. There are numbers of nouns,
it is true, that is to say, lots; or, as we say in the schools,
"a precious sight" of nouns in the dictionary; but we are not now going
to enumerate, and make you learn them. The numbers of nouns here spoken
of are two only; the singular and the plural.

The singular speaks but of one-- as later, a brick; faba, a bean; tuba,
a trump (or trumpet); flamma, a blaze; aethiops, a nigger (or negro);
cornix, a crow.

The plural speaks of more than one-- as lateres, bricks; fabae, beans;
tubae, trumps; flammae, blazes; aethiopes, niggers; cornices, crows.

Here it may be remarked that the cynic philosophers were very _singular_
fellows.

Also that prize-poems are sometimes composed in very _singular numbers_.

+CASES OF NOUNS.+

Nouns have six cases in each number, (that is, six of one and half a
dozen of the other) but can only be put in one of them at a time. They
are thus ticketed-- nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative,
and ablative.

The nominative case comes before the verb, as the horse does before the
cart, the "lieutenant before the ancient," and the superintendant of
police before the inspector. It answers to the question, who or what;
as, Who jaws? magister jurgatur, the master jaws.

The genitive case is known by the sign of, and answers to the question,
whose, or whereof; as, Whose breeches? Femoralia magistri-- the breeches
of the master, or the master's breeches.

The dative case is known by the signs to or for, and answers to the
question, to whom, or to or for what; as, To whom do I hold out my
hands? Protendo manus magistro-- I hold out my hands to the master.

In this place we are called upon to consider, whether it be more
agreeable to have Latin or the ferula at our _fingers' ends_.

Observe that _dative_ means _giving_. Schoolmasters are very often in
the dative case-- but their generosity is chiefly exercised in bestowing
what is termed monkey's allowance; that is, if not more kicks, more
boxes on the ear, more spats, more canings, birchings, and impositions,
than halfpence.

[Plate:
A DATIVE AND A VOCATIVE CASE.]

The accusative case follows the verb, as a bailiff follows a debtor,
a bull-dog a butcher, or a round of applause a superna