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answering to the modern needs.
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REBILIUS CRUSO:
ROBINSON CRUSOE, IN LATIN;
A BOOK TO LIGHTEN TEDIUM
TO A LEARNER.
BY
FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN,
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON;
HONORARY FELLOW OF WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD.
LONDON:
TRÜBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL.
M.DCCC.LXXXIV.
NOTTINGHAM:
PRINTED BY STEVENSON, BAILEY, AND SMITH,
LISTER GATE.
PREFACE.
This book was composed when the writer was a Professor of Latin,
as part of a larger scheme. He has long been convinced that the
mode of teaching Latin has become less and less effective in
proportion as it has been made more and more scientific. The
effort has been general to confine the pupil to the most
elaborate styles and the most approved classics, and the
exercise of memory has been superseded by minute accuracy in the
study of very limited pieces. In the natural mode we have
enormous endless repetition and much learning of the names of
things. We begin with short sentences and a very limited number
of verbs; and we learn with the least possible number of rules.
If we could talk in Latin, that would be of all best; but as we
cannot get exercise in talking it for practical needs, no
teacher can hope to gain adequate readiness and facility: or if
a few might, yet this could not be counted on in any general
system. It has long been my conviction that we ought to seek to
learn a language first, and study its characteristic literature
afterward. Greek and Latin literature plunge us into numerous
difficulties all at once, inasmuch as their politics, their
history, their geography and their religion are all strange to
the young student. To take difficulties one by one is obvious
wisdom; and with a view to this I elaborately maintained in an
article of the Museum (No. iv., Jan., 1862, Edinburgh) that we
ought to teach by modern Latin. As parts of such a system I have
executed and published a Latin “Hiawatha,” and Latin Verse
Translations of many small pieces of English poetry. If I could
write Latin conversations that would interest learners, I should
gladly have undertaken this: but when I tried, I could not
invent matter that seemed interesting enough. This indeed is my
objection to Erasmus’s “Colloquies,” which also are not easy
enough in idiom to satisfy me. This “Robinson Crusoe” I thought
I could make very interesting, and it includes a far greater
variety of vocabulary than can be obtained from any of our
received classics of the same length. I hope also the style is
easy.
I surely need not apologize for taking only the general idea
from Defoe. His tale is far too diffuse, too full of moralizing
and with too little variety. He was very ignorant of the Botany
and Zoology of the tropics, and when his tale is faithfully
abridged, its impossibilities become too glaring. The Arabic
“Robinson Crusoe” published by the Church Missionary Society
cuts down Defoe’s story unmercifully.
I am indebted to my former colleague, the late Professor T.
Hewitt Key, for the translation of Robinson into the name
Rebilius. He also approved of Ignipulta for a gun, not as
strictly grammatical, but as good enough to pass with Latins who
were familiar with the word Catapulta. From him also I adopted
Cannones, for cannons, and Pistola a pistol. The word Canna, a
cane (or hollow tube) seems to be the root of Cann̄on, a tube or
cannon, in Spanish, whence the American can̄on for a tunnel, or
larger tube.
After I had executed my own Rebilius (finally completed in
1861), I learned that a Frenchman, Goffaux, had published a
“Robinson Crusoe” in Latin and French. On discovering this, I
stopped the printing which I had begun, and after some delay
succeeded in getting the book. But on perusing it I found his
principles of remodelling the tale to be fundamentally the
opposite of mine, concerning which I need not enlarge. I like
his Latin, yet do not think his book supersedes mine. But if
teachers can practically use his with advantage, I shall be well
satisfied.
I wish here to renew my protest, that no accuracy of reading
small portions of Latin will ever be so effective as extensive
reading; and to make extensive reading possible to the many, the
style ought to be very easy and the matter attractive. To enable
us to talk, we ought to have a vocabulary that includes all
familiar objects,—which the Classics of our schools cannot give
us. Terence, though somewhat too difficult, would have great
excellencies for the learner; but the substance of his plays is
low, and eminently unedifying.
In the near future, some universal tongue will be sought for by
the educated. If Latin be still learned in England, France,
Italy, Germany, Hungary, Spain, this is still, as three
centuries ago, the best for all Christendom. But perhaps even
Latin will be beaten out of the schools.
It may be well to remark, that inasmuch as the grave accent has
been very widely used in school books as indicative of an
adverb, I adopt the mark in this sense; and think it no
objection to say that the Latins never so used it. Neither had
they our stops. We do not pretend to follow their writing in
detail. We usefully distinguish the vowels u i from the
consonants v j; they did not. What should we gain, by writing
the Iliad as its author wrote it? So too, I think it well
occasionally to add long or short marks, as ēgēre ĕgēre ēgĕre,
vēnēre vĕnĕre, lătēre lătĕre lātere, to obviate ambiguity. Nay I
write fluctûs for gen. sing., fluctūs for plural, but fluctus
for nomin. sing. When et means both or even, I set an acute
accent over it, not doubting that it then received some
emphasis.
I also borrow from the marks used in Hebrew an under-parenthesis
for coupling words that are in grammatical union. This mark is
often very effective in explaining the structure of complicated
Greek sentences.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
1 Robinson’s parentage. 2 His first adventures. 3 His
slavetrading voyage. 4 The shipwreck. 5 They take to the boat. 6
It is swamped. 7 His narrow escape. 8 His forlorn position. 9 He
sleeps in a tree. 10 His mental struggles. 11 The dog and long
boat. 12 He swims to the ship. 13 Its condition. The skiff. 14
He makes a raft. 15 He loads it, first with food; 16 next, with
other necessaries. 17 He tows off the raft by the skiff. 18
Favouring weather. 19 It is all but wrecked. 20 He sleeps again
in a tree. 21 His first supper. 22 He fastens the raft; 23 and
visits the long boat. 24 Second visit to the ship. 25 He plans a
raft on water-tight empty boxes. 26 He carries off a few costly
articles in the skiff; 27 and tows off whatever will float. 28
He lands his train at the nearest point; 29 and explores a
natural harbour. 30 His dog-and-cat meat. 31 He ascertains that
he is in an island. 32 Its character. 33 His precaution against
panthers. 34 He puts his first raft in safety. 35 Third visit to
the ship. 36 He brings away his new raft. 37 Second expedition
the same day.