any one other modern language with which you are acquainted, in respect of the following particulars: its vocal or musical character; the orthography in relation to the pronunciation, the vocabulary (in the degree in which it is homogeneous or composite), and the grammar (in the degree in which it is inflectional).

Question 4.-Compare the English language in its present state with any other ancient or modern with which you may be familiar, in general serviceableness and power as an instrument of expression.

Question 5.-Illustrate by a few decisive examples the manner in which the English language adopts words from the French, from the Latin, and from the Greek languages respectively, and the nature of the changes, whether in the spelling, in the pronunciation, or in both, by which it assimilates them and makes them its own.

Question 6.-Sketch the history of the employment of the French language in England as a separate form of speech, noting, as far as known, the date and circumstances of its introduction as such, the extent of its diffusion, both orally and in writing, the recorded facts relating to its discontinuance, and the traces of it that have descended to recent times and even to the present day.

Question 7.-Explain the following words with reference to their etymologies: alms, bishop, deck, doubt, fade, frail, hermit, journal, kind, minster, miscreant, monk, passion, patient, priest, surgeon.

Question 8.-State the changes of signification which the following words have undergone within

the period in which the language has assumed its. present form apprehend, censure, defend, disagreeable, Dutch, fear, graceful, imperious, ingenuity, kindly, let, lover, pretend, prevent, quick, resent, sad, tale.

Question 9.-Discriminate the meanings or legitimate applications of the following words: acute and sharp; eager and keen; great and large; language, tongue and speech; mortal, deadly and death-like ; grave, weighty, heavy and cumbrous; wicked, sinful and criminal; depraved and guilty.

Question 10.-State the objections that there are to the common spelling or received meanings of the following words: bridegroom, causeway, could, island, livelihood, miniature, posthumous, shamefaced.

Question 11.-Note and explain whatever seems to be obscure or peculiar in the expression of the following passages from Bacon's Essays:

'The mind of man is more cheered and refreshed by profiting in small things than by standing at a stay in great.'

'It is the solecism of power to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the mean.'

'Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch, therefore it is good to be conversant in them, especially the books of such as themselves have been actors upon the stage.'

'When things are once come to the execution, there is no secresy comparable to celerity, like the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the eye.'

'An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden.'

It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they

will set a house on fire, an it were but to roast their eggs."

'It is the care of some only to come off speedily for the time, or to contrive some false periods of business, because they may seem men of despatch.'

'Above all things, order and distribution and singling out of parts, is the life of despatch, so as the distribution be not too subtle.'

'Some are never without a difference, and commonly by amusing men with a subtilty blanch the

matter.'

'When a man's stock is come to that that he can expect the prime of markets, and overcome those bargains which for their greatness are few men's money, and be partner in the industries of younger men, he cannot but increase mainly.'

'It draws the eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure to desire to see that it cannot perfectly discern.'

'Upon the matter, in a great wit deformity is an advantage to rising.'

'Cast it also that you may have rooms both for summer and winter; shady for summer, and warm for winter.'

'It is better dealing with men in appetite than with those that are where they would be.'

Some embrace suits which never mean to deal effectually in them.'

'Kings had need beware how they side themselves, and make themselves as a faction or party.'

'In cases of great enterprise upon charge and adventure, a composition of glorious natures doth put life into business.'

'Virtue was never so beholding to human nature, as it received his due at the second hand.'

'Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverend than plausible, and more advised than confident.'

'As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely dissipate and destroy.'

6 There appear to be two extremes. . . . Both these extremes are to be avoided, which will be done ... if the points fundamental and of substance in religion were truly discerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention.'

Likewise glorious followers, who make themselves as trumpets of the commendation of those they follow, are full of inconvenience.'

'Glorious men are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts.'

'All rising to great place is by a winding stair, and, if there be factions, it is good to side a man's self whilst he is on the rising, and to balance himself when he is placed.'

'God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it.'

VI. PAPER FOR 1860.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

Examiner: G. W. Dasent, D.C.L.

1. 'Languages, so long as they are living and not dead, are always in a state of change and progression. Changes of position to other races by conquest or emigration, mutual relation, such as trade or alliance, all changes, in fact, in the position of a nation itself, will produce corresponding alterations in a greater or less degree in its speech; but besides all these accidental causes, there inheres in all languages an instinct of progression and simplification which in the course of centuries will inevitably produce mighty changes.'

Apply this statement to the English language by tracing rapidly its origin and development out of the various elements which enter into its composition.

2. To what parts of speech and forms of words would you first turn to trace the comparative affinity which exists between English and other languages of the same family?

3. What do you understand by a regular and an irregular verb in English? is there any ground for believing that a large proportion of the so-called irregular verbs are in reality regular ? how do you account for the forms am, was and be, in the verb substantive ?