_Q._ In what case will a grain of barley joined to an adjective stand
for the name of an animal?
_A._ In the dative case of unus-- uni-corn.
_Uni_ nimirum tibi rectè semper erunt res.
_Hor. Sat. lib. ii._ 2. 106.
_Q._ Why is the above verse like all nature?
_A._ Because it is an _uni_-verse.
The word alius, another, is declined like the above-named adjectives,
except that it makes ali_ud_, not ali_um_, in the neuter singular.
The difference of unus from alius, say the London commentators, like
that of a humming-top from a peg-top, consists of the _'um_.
N.B. Tu es unus alius, is not good Latin for "You're another," a phrase
more elegantly expressed by "Tu quoque."
[Illustration: TU QUOQUE.]
There are some adjectives that remind us of lawyer's clerks, and, by
courtesy, of linen-drapers' apprentices. These may be termed _articled_
adjectives; being declined with the articles hic, hæc, hoc, after the
third declension of substantives-- as tristis, sad, melior, better,
felix, happy.
It is not very easy to conceive any thing in which sadness and
comicality are united, except Tristis Amator, a sad lover.
[Illustration: TRISTIS AMATOR.]
Melior is not _better_ for comic purposes. Felix affords no room for a
_happy_ joke.
Decline these three adjectives, and others of the same class, according
to the following rules:
If the nominative endeth in _is_ or _er_, why, sir,
The ablative singular endeth in _i_, sir;
The first, fourth, and fifth case, their neuter make _e_,
But the same in the plural in _ia_ must be.
_E_, or _i_, are the ablative's ends,-- mark my song,
While _or_ to the nominative case doth belong;
For the neuter aforesaid we settle it thus:
The plural is _ora_; the singular _us_.
If than _is_, _er_, and _or_, it hath many more enders,
The nominative serves to express the three genders;
But the plural for _ia_ hath _icia_ and _itia_,
As Felix, felicia-- Dives, divitia.
+COMPARISONS OF ADJECTIVES.+