Take which of those two things you had rather.

So Queen Eleanor gave Fair Rosamond her choice between the dagger and
the bowl of poison. This, to our mind, would have been like choosing a
tree to be hanged on.

Primus fidicinum fuit Orpheus:

Orpheus was the first of fiddlers.

He is said to have charmed the hearts of broomsticks.

Momus lepidissimus erat Deorum:

Momus was the funniest of the Gods.

Other deities may have made Jupiter shake his head. Momus used to make
him shake his sides.

Sequimur te, sancte deorum:

We follow thee, O sacred deity.

Namely, the aforesaid Momus. He is the only heathen god that we should
have had much reverence for, and certainly the only one that we should
ever have sacrificed to at all. The offering most commonly made to the
god of laughter was, probably, _a sacrifice of propriety_.

But the above nouns are also used with these prepositions, a, ab, de, e,
ex, inter, ante; as,

Primus inter philosophos Democritus est:

Democritus is the first amongst philosophers.

And why? Because he alone was wise enough to find out that laughing is
better than crying. He it was who first proved to the world that
philosophy and comicality are, in fact, one science; and that the more
we learn the more we laugh. We forget whether it was he or Aristotle who
made the remark, that man is the only laughing animal except the hyaena.

_Secundus_ sometimes requires a dative case, as

Haud ulli veterum virtute secundus:

Inferior to none of the ancients in valour.

[Illustration]

Surely Virgil in saying this, had an eye to a hero, whose fame has been
perpetuated in the verses of a later poet.

"Some talk of Alexander, and some of Pericles,
Of Conon and Lysander, and Alcibiades;
But of all the gallant heroes, there 's none for to compare,
With my ri-fol-de-riddle-iddle-lol to the British grenadier!"

An interrogative, and the word which answers to it, shall be of the same
case and tense, except words of a different construction be made use of;
as

Quarum rerum nulla est satietas? Pomorum.

Of what things is there no fulness? Of fruit.

Dr. Johnson used to say that he never got as much wall fruit as he could
eat.

[Illustration]

THE DATIVE CASE AFTER THE ADJECTIVE.

Adjectives by which advantage, disadvantage, likeness, unlikeness,
pleasure, submission, or relation to any thing is signified, require a
dative case; as