IX. CONJUNCTIONS…

IX. CONJUNCTIONS

The syntax of Conjunctions consists, not (as L. Murray and others erroneously teach) in "their power of determining the mood of verbs," or the "cases of nouns and pronouns," but in the simple fact, that they link together such and such terms, and thus "mark the connexions of human thought."--Beattie.

RULE XXII.--CONJUNCTIONS.

Conjunctions connect words, sentences, or parts of sentences: as, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we are brethren."--Gen., xiii, 8.

"Ah! if she lend not arms as well as rules. What can she more than tell us we are fools?"--Pope.

EXCEPTION FIRST.

The conjunction that sometimes serves merely to introduce a sentence which is made the subject or the object of a finite verb;[433] as, "That mind is not matter, is certain."

"That you have wronged me, doth appear in this."--Shak.

"That time is mine, O Mead! to thee, I owe."--Young.

EXCEPTION SECOND.

When two corresponding conjunctions occur, in their usual order, the former should generally be parsed as referring to the latter, which is more properly the connecting word; as, "Neither sun nor stars in many days appeared."--Acts, xxvii, 20. "Whether that evidence has been afforded [or not,] is a matter of investigation."--Keith's Evidences, p. 18.

EXCEPTION THIRD. Either, corresponding to or, and neither, corresponding to nor or not, are sometimes transposed, so as to repeat the disjunction or negation at the end of the sentence; as, "Where then was their capacity of standing, or his either?"--Barclay's Works, iii, 359. "It is not dangerous neither."--Bolingbroke, on Hist., p. 135. "He is very tall, but not too tall neither."--Spect., No. 475.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XXII.

OBS. 1.--Conjunctions that connect particular words, generally join similar parts of speech in a common dependence on some other term. Hence, if the words connected be such as have cases, they will of course be in the same case; as, "For me and thee"--Matt., xvii, 27. "Honour thy father and thy mother."--Ib., xviii, 19. Here the latter noun or pronoun is connected by and to the former, and governed by the same preposition or verb. Conjunctions themselves have no government, unless the questionable phrase "than whom" may be reckoned an exception. See Obs. 17th below, and others that follow it.

OBS. 2.--Those conjunctions which connect sentences or clauses, commonly unite one sentence or clause to an other, either as an additional assertion, or as a condition, a cause, or an end, of what is asserted. The conjunction is placed between the terms which it connects, except there is a transposition, and then it stands before the dependent term, and consequently at the beginning of the whole sentence: as, "He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second."--Heb., x, 9. "That he may establish the second, he taketh away the first."

OBS. 3.--The term that follows a conjunction, is in some instances a phrase of several words, yet not therefore a whole clause or member, unless we suppose it elliptical, and supply what will make it such: as, "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, AS to the Lord, AND not unto men"--Col., iii, 23. If we say, this means, "as doing it to the Lord, and not as doing it unto men," the terms are still mere phrases; but if we say, the sense is, "as if ye did it to the Lord, and not as if ye did it unto men," they are clauses, or sentences. Churchill says, "The office of the conjunction is, to connect one word with an other, or one phrase with an other."--New Gram., p. 152. But he uses the term phrase in a more extended sense than I suppose it will strictly bear: he means by it, a clause, or member; that is, a sentence which forms a part of a greater sentence.

OBS. 4.--What is the office of this part of speech, according to Lennie, Bullions, Brace, Hart, Hiley, Smith, M'Culloch, Webster, Wells, and others, who say that it "joins words and sentences together," (see Errors on p. 434 of this work,) it is scarcely possible to conceive. If they imagine it to connect "words" on the one side, to "sentences" on the other; this is plainly absurd, and contrary to facts. If they suppose it to join sentence to sentence, by merely connecting word to word, in a joint relation; this also is absurd, and self-contradictory. Again, if they mean, that the conjunction sometimes connects word with word, and sometimes, sentence with sentence; this sense they have not expressed, but have severally puzzled their readers by an ungrammatical use of the word "and." One of the best among them says, "In the sentence, 'He and I must go,' the word and unites two sentences, and thus avoids an unnecessary repetition; thus instead of saying, 'He must go,' 'I must go,' we connect the words He, I, as the same thing is affirmed of both, namely, must go."--Hiley's Gram., p. 53. Here is the incongruous suggestion, that by connecting words only, the conjunction in fact connects sentences; and the stranger blunder concerning those words, that "the same thing is affirmed of both, namely, [that they] must go." Whereas it is plain, that nothing is affirmed of either: for "He and I must go," only affirms of him and me, that "we must go." And again it is plain, that and here connects nothing but the two pronouns; for no one will say, that, "He and I must go together" is a compound sentence, capable of being resolved into two simple sentences; and if, "He and I must go," is compound because it is equivalent to, "He must go, and I must go;" so is, "We must go," for the same reason, though it has but one nominative and one verb. "He and I were present," is rightly given by Hiley as an example of two pronouns connected together by and. (See his Gram., p. 105.) But, of verbs connected to each other, he absurdly supposes the following to be examples: "He spake, and it was done."--"I know it, and I can prove it."--"Do you say so, and can you prove it?"--Ib. Here and connects sentences, and not particular words.

OBS. 5.--Two or three conjunctions sometimes come together; as, "What rests, but that the mortal sentence pass?"--Milton. "Nor yet that he should offer himself often."--Heb., ix, 25. These may be severally parsed as "connecting what precedes and what follows," and the observant reader will not fail to notice, that such combinations of connecting particles are sometimes required by the sense; but, since nothing that is needless, is really proper, conjunctions should not be unnecessarily accumulated: as, "But AND if that evil servant say in his heart," &c.--Matt., xxiv, 48. Greek, "[Greek: Ean de eipæ o kakos donlos ekeinos,]" &c. Here is no and. "But AND if she depart."--1 Cor., vii, 11. This is almost a literal rendering of the Greek, "[Greek: Ean de kai choristhæ.]"--yet either but or and is certainly useless. "In several cases," says Priestley, "we content ourselves, now, with fewer conjunctive particles than our ancestors did [say used]. Example: 'So AS that his doctrines were embraced by great numbers.' Universal Hist., Vol. 29, p. 501. So that would have been much easier, and better."--Priestley's Gram., p. 139. Some of the poets have often used the word that as an expletive, to fill the measure of their verse; as,

"When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept."--Shakspeare.

"If that he be a dog, beware his fangs."--Id.

"That made him pine away and moulder, As though that he had been no soldier."--Butler's Poems, p. 164.

OBS. 6.--W. Allen remarks, that, "And is sometimes introduced to engage our attention to a following word or phrase; as, 'Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer.' [Pope.] 'I see thee fall, and by Achilles' hand.' [Id.]"--Allen's E. Gram., p. 184. The like idiom, he says, occurs in these passages of Latin: "'Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit.' Virg. 'Mors et fugacem persequitur virum.' Hor."--Allen's Gram., p. 184. But it seems to me, that and and et are here regular connectives. The former implies a repetition of the preceding verb: as, "Part pays, and justly pays, the deserving steer."--"I see thee fall, and fall by Achilles' hand." The latter refers back to what was said before: thus, "Perhaps it will also hereafter delight you to recount these evils."--"And death pursues the man that flees." In the following text, the conjunction is more like an expletive; but even here it suggests an extension of the discourse then in progress: "Lord, and what shall this man do?"--John, xxi, 21. "[Greek: Kurie, outos de ti;]"--"Domine, hic autem quid?"--Beza.

OBS. 7.--The conjunction as often unites words that are in apposition, or in the same case; as, "He offered himself AS a journeyman."--"I assume it AS a fact."--Webster's Essays, p. 94. "In an other example of the same kind, the earth, AS a common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father's unkindness."--Kames, El. of Crit., Vol ii, p. 168. "And then to offer himself up AS a sacrifice and propitiation for them."--Scougal, p. 99. So, likewise, when an intransitive verb takes the same case after as before it, by Rule 6th; as, "Johnson soon after engaged AS usher in a school."--L. Murray. "He was employed AS usher." In all these examples, the case that follows as, is determined by that which precedes. If after the verb "engaged" we supply himself, usher becomes objective, and is in apposition with the pronoun, and not in agreement with Johnson: "He engaged himself as usher." One late writer, ignorant or regardless of the analogy of General Grammar, imagines this case to be an "objective governed by the conjunction as," according to the following rule: "The conjunction as, when it takes the meaning of for, or in the character of, governs the objective case; as, Addison, as a writer of prose, is highly distinguished."--J. M. Putnam's Gram., p. 113. S. W. Clark, in his grammar published in 1848, sets as in his list of prepositions, with this example: "'That England can spare from her service such men as HIM.'--Lord Brougham."--Clark's Practical Gram., p. 92. And again: "When the second term of a Comparison of equality is a Noun, or Pronoun, the Preposition AS is commonly used. Example--'He hath died to redeem such a rebel as ME.'--Wesley." Undoubtedly, Wesley and Brougham here erroneously supposed the as to connect words only, and consequently to require them to be in the same case, agreeably to OBS. 1st, above; but a moment's reflection on the sense, should convince any one, that the construction requires the nominative forms he and I, with the verbs is and am understood.

OBS. 8.--The conjunction as may also be used between an adjective or a participle and the noun to which the adjective or participle relates; as, "It does not appear that brutes have the least reflex sense of actions AS distinguished from events; or that will and design, which constitute the very nature of actions AS such, are at all an object of their perception."--Butler's Analogy, p. 277.

OBS. 9.--As frequently has the force of a relative pronoun, and when it evidently sustains the relation of a case, it ought to be called, and generally is called, a pronoun, rather than a conjunction; as, "Avoid such as are vicious,"--Anon. "But as many as received him," &c.--John, i, 12. "We have reduced the terms into as small a number as was consistent with perspicuity and distinction."--Brightland's Gram., p. ix. Here as represents a noun, and while it serves to connect the two parts of the sentence, it is also the subject of a verb. These being the true characteristics of a relative pronoun, it is proper to refer the word to that class. But when a clause or a sentence is the antecedent, it is better to consider the as a conjunction, and to supply the pronoun it, if the writer has not used it; as, "He is angry, as [it] appears by this letter." Horne Tooke says, "The truth is, that AS is also an article; and (however and whenever used in English) means the same as It, or That, or Which."--Diversions of Purley, Vol. i, p. 223. But what definition he would give to "an article," does not appear.

OBS. 10.--In some examples, it seems questionable whether as ought to be reckoned a pronoun, or ought rather to be parsed as a conjunction after which a nominative is understood; as, "He then read the conditions as follow."--"The conditions are as follow."--Nutting's Gram., p. 106. "The principal evidences on which this assertion is grounded, are as follow."--Gurney's Essays, p. 166. "The Quiescent verbs are as follow."--Pike's Heb. Lex., p. 184. "The other numbers are duplications of these, and proceed as follow"--Dr. Murray's Hist. of Lang., Vol. ii, p. 35. "The most eminent of the kennel are bloodhounds, which lead the van, and are as follow."--Steele, Tattler, No. 62. "His words are as follow."--Spect., No. 62. "The words are as follow."--Addison, Spect., No. 513. "The objections that are raised against it as a tragedy, are as follow."--Gay, Pref. to What d' ye call it. "The particulars are as follow."--Bucke's Gram., p. 93. "The principal interjections in English are as follow."--Ward's Gram., p. 81. In all these instances, one may suppose the final clause to mean, "as they here follow;"--or, supposing as to be a pronoun, one may conceive it to mean, "such as follow." But some critical writers, it appears, prefer the singular verb, "as follows" Hear Campbell: "When a verb is used impersonally, it ought undoubtedly to be in the singular number, whether the neuter pronoun be expressed or understood: and when no nominative in the sentence can regularly be construed with the verb, it ought to be considered as impersonal. For this reason, analogy as well as usage favour [say favours] this mode of expression, 'The conditions of the agreement were as follows;' and not 'as follow.' A few late writers have inconsiderately adopted this last form through a mistake of the construction. For the same reason we ought to say, 'I shall consider his censures so far only as concerns my friend's conduct;' and not 'so far as concern.'"--Philosophy of Rhet., p. 229. It is too much to say, at least of one of these sentences, that there is no nominative with which the plural verb can be regularly construed. In the former, the word as may be said to be a plural nominative; or, if we will have this to be a conjunction, the pronoun they, representing conditions, may be regularly supplied, as above. In the latter, indeed, as is not a pronoun; because it refers to "so far," which is not a noun. But the sentence is bad English; because the verb concern or concerns is improperly left without a nominative. Say therefore, 'I shall consider his censures so far only as they concern my friend's conduct;'--or, 'so far only as my friend's conduct is concerned.' The following is an other example which I conceive to be wrong; because, with an adverb for its antecedent, as is made a nominative: "They ought therefore to be uttered as quickly as is consistent with distinct articulation."--Sheridan's Elocution, p. 76. Say rather, "They ought therefore to be uttered with as much rapidity as is consistent with distinct articulation."

OBS. 11.--Lindley Murray was so much puzzled with Tooke's notion of as, and Campbell's doctrine of the impersonal verb, that he has expressly left his pupils to hesitate and doubt, like himself, whether one ought to say "as follows" or "as follow," when the preceding noun is plural; or--to furnish an alternative, (if they choose it,) he shows them at last how they may dodge the question, by adopting some other phraseology. He begins thus: "Grammarians differ in opinion, respecting the propriety of the following modes of expression: 'The arguments advanced were nearly as follows;' 'the positions were, as appears, incontrovertible.'"-- Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 146. Then follows a detail of suggestions from Campbell and others, all the quotations being anonymous, or at least without definite references. Omitting these, I would here say of the two examples given, that they are not parallel instances. For, "as follows," refers to what the arguments were,--to the things themselves, considered plurally, and immediately to be exhibited; wherefore the expression ought rather to have been, "as follow," or, "as they here follow." But, "as appears" means "as it appears," or "as the case now appears;" and one of these plain modes of expression would have been much preferable, because the as is here evidently nothing but a conjunction.

OBS. 12.--"The diversity of sentiment on this subject," says L. Murray, "and the respectability of the different opponents, will naturally induce the readers to pause and reflect, before they decide."--Octavo Gram., p. 147. The equivalent expressions by means of which he proposes to evade at last the dilemma, are the following: "The arguments advanced were nearly such as follow;"--"The arguments advanced were nearly of the following nature;"--"The following are nearly the arguments which were advanced;"-- "The arguments advanced were nearly those which follow:"--"These, or nearly these, were the arguments advanced;"--"The positions were such as appear incontrovertible;"--"It appears that the positions were incontrovertible;" --"That the positions were incontrovertible, is apparent;"--"The positions were apparently incontrovertible;"--"In appearance, the positions were incontrovertible."--Ibid. If to shun the expression will serve our turn, surely here are ways enough! But to those who "pause and reflect" with the intention to decide, I would commend the following example: "Reconciliation was offered, on conditions as moderate as were consistent with a permanent union."--Murray's Key, under Rule 1. Here Murray supposes "was" to be wrong, and accordingly changes it to "were," by the Rule, "A verb must agree with its nominative case in number and person." But the amendment is a pointed rejection of Campbell's "impersonal verb," or verb which "has no nominative;" and if the singular is not right here, the rhetorician's respectable authority vouches only for a catalogue of errors. Again, if this verb must be were in order to agree with its nominative, it is still not clear that as, is, or ought to be, the nominative; because the meaning may perhaps be better expressed thus:--"on conditions as moderate as any that were consistent with a permanent union."

OBS. 13.--A late writer expresses his decision of the foregoing question thus: "Of all the different opinions on a grammatical subject, which have arisen in the literary world, there scarcely appears one more indefensible than that of supposing as follows to be an impersonal verb, and to be correctly used in such sentences as this. 'The conditions were as follows.' Nay, we are told that, "A few late writers have adopted this form, 'The conditions were as follow,' inconsiderately;" and, to prove this charge of inconsiderateness, the following sentence is brought forward: 'I shall consider his censure [censures is the word used by Campbell and by Murray] so far only as concern my friend's conduct.' which should be, it is added, 'as concerns, and not as concern.' If analogy, simplicity, or syntactical authority, is of any value in our resolution of the sentence, 'The conditions were as follows,' the word as is as evident a relative as language can afford. It is undoubtedly equivalent to that or which, and relates to its antecedent those or such understood, and should have been the nominative to the verb follow; the sentence, in its present form, being inaccurate. The second sentence is by no means a parallel one. The word as is a conjunction; and though it has, as a relative, a reference to its antecedent so, yet in its capacity of a mere conjunction, it cannot possibly be the nominative case to any verb. It should be, 'it concerns.' Whenever as relates to an adverbial antecedent; as in the sentence, 'So far as it concerns me,' it is merely a conjunction; but when it refers to an adjective antecedent; as in the sentence, 'The business is such as concerns me;' it must be a relative, and susceptible of case, whether its antecedent is expressed or understood; being, in fact, the nominative to the verb concerns."--Nixon's Parser, p. 145. It will be perceived by the preceding remarks, that I do not cite what is here said, as believing it to be in all respects well said, though it is mainly so. In regard to the point at issue, I shall add but one critical authority more: "'The circumstances were as follows.' Several grammarians and critics have approved this phraseology: I am inclined, however, to concur with those who prefer 'as follow.'"--Crombie, on Etym. and Synt., p. 388.

OBS. 14.--The conjunction that is frequently understood; as, "It is seldom [that] their counsels are listened to."--Robertson's Amer., i, 316. "The truth is, [that] grammar is very much neglected among us."--Lowth's Gram., Pref., p. vi. "The Sportsman believes [that] there is Good in his Chace [chase.]"--Harris's Hermes, p. 296.

"Thou warnst me [that] I have done amiss; I should have earlier looked to this."--Scott.

OBS. 15.--After than or as, connecting the terms of a comparison, there is usually an ellipsis of some word or words. The construction of the words employed may be seen, when the ellipsis is supplied; as, "They are stronger than we" [are.]--Numb., xiii. 31. "Wisdom is better than weapons of war" [are.]--Eccl., ix, 18. "He does nothing who endeavours to do more than [what] is allowed to humanity."--Dr. Johnson. "My punishment is greater than [what] I can bear."--Gen., iv, 13. "Ralph gave him more than I" [gave him.]--Churchill's Gram., p. 351. "Ralph gave him more than [he gave] me."--Ibid. "Revelation, surely, was never intended for such as he" [is.]--Campbell's Four Gospels, p. iv. "Let such as him sneer if they will."--Liberator, Vol. ix, p. 182. Here him ought to be he, according to Rule 2d, because the text speaks of such as he is or was. "'You were as innocent of it as me:' 'He did it as well as me.' In both places it ought to be I: that is, as I was, as I did."--Churchill's Gram., p. 352.

"Rather let such poor souls as you and I Say that the holidays are drawing nigh."--Swift.

OBS. 16.--The doctrine above stated, of ellipses after than and as, proceeds on the supposition that these words are conjunctions, and that they connect, not particular words merely, but sentences, or clauses. It is the common doctrine of nearly all our grammarians, and is doubtless liable to fewer objections than any other theory that ever has been, or ever can be, devised in lieu of it. Yet as is not always a conjunction; nor, when it is a conjunction, does it always connect sentences; nor, when it connects sentences, is there always an ellipsis; nor, when there is an ellipsis, is it always quite certain what that ellipsis is. All these facts have been made plain, by observations that have already been bestowed on the word: and, according to some grammarians, the same things may severally be affirmed of the word than. But most authors consider than to be always a conjunction, and generally, if not always, to connect sentences. Johnson and Webster, in their dictionaries, mark it for an adverb; and the latter says of it, "This word signifies also then, both in English and Dutch."--Webster's Amer. Dict., 8vo, w. Than. But what he means by "also," I know not; and surely, in no English of this age, is than equivalent to then, or then to than. The ancient practice of putting then for than, is now entirely obsolete;[434] and, as we have no other term of the same import, most of our expositors merely explain than as "a particle used in comparison."--Johnson, Worcester, Maunder. Some absurdly define it thus: "THAN, adv. Placed in comparison."--Walker, (Rhym. Dict.,) Jones, Scott. According to this definition, than would be a participle! But, since an express comparison necessarily implies a connexion between different terms, it cannot well be denied that than is a connective word; wherefore, not to detain the reader with any profitless controversy, I shall take it for granted that this word is always a conjunction. That it always connects sentences, I do not affirm; because there are instances in which it is difficult to suppose it to connect anything more than particular words: as, "Less judgement than wit is more sail than ballast."--Penn's Maxims. "With no less eloquence than freedom. 'Pari eloquentiâ ac libertate.' Tacitus."--Walker's Particles, p. 200. "Any comparison between these two classes of writers, cannot be other than vague and loose."--Blair's Rhet., p. 347. "This far more than compensates all those little negligences."--Ib., p. 200.

"Remember Handel? Who that was not born Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets, Or can, the more than Homer of his age?"--Cowper.

OBS. 17.--When any two declinable words are connected by than or as, they are almost always, according to the true idiom of our language, to be put in the same case, whether we suppose an ellipsis in the construction of the latter, or not; as, "My Father is greater than I."--Bible. "What do ye more than others?"--Matt., v, 47. "More men than women were there."--Murray's Gram., p. 114. "Entreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren."--1 Tim., v, 1. "I would that all men were even as I myself."--1 Cor., vii, 7. "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?"--John, xxi, 15. This last text is manifestly ambiguous; so that some readers will doubt whether it means--"more than thou lovest these," or--"more than these love me." Is not this because there is an ellipsis in the sentence, and such a one as may be variously conceived and supplied? The original too is ambiguous, but not for the same reason: "[Greek: Simon Iona, agapas me pleion touton];"--And so is the Latin of the Vulgate and of Montanus: "Simon Jona, diligis me plus his?" Wherefore Beza expressed it differently: "Simon fili Jonæ, diligis me plus quâm hi?" The French Bible has it: "Simon, fils de Jona, m'aimes-tu plus que ne font ceux-ci?" And the expression in English should rather have been, "Lovest thou me more than do these?"

OBS. 18.--The comparative degree, in Greek, is said to govern the genitive case; in Latin, the ablative: that is, the genitive or the ablative is sometimes put after this degree without any connecting particle corresponding to than, and without producing a compound sentence. We have examples in the phrases, "[Greek: pleion touton]" and "plus his," above. Of such a construction our language admits no real example; that is, no exact parallel. But we have an imitation of it in the phrase than whom, as in this hackneyed example from Milton:

"Which, when Beëlzebub perceived, than whom, Satan except, none higher sat," &c.--Paradise Lost, B. ii, l. 300.

The objective, whom, is here preferred to the nominative, who, because the Latin ablative is commonly rendered by the former case, rather than by the latter: but this phrase is no more explicable according to the usual principles of English grammar, than the error of putting the objective case for a version of the ablative absolute. If the imitation is to be judged allowable, it is to us a figure of syntax--an obvious example of Enallagè, and of that form of Enallagè, which is commonly called Antiptosis, or the putting of one case for an other.

OBS. 19.--This use of whom after than has greatly puzzled and misled our grammarians; many of whom have thence concluded that than must needs be, at least in this instance, a preposition,[435] and some have extended the principle beyond this, so as to include than which, than whose with its following noun, and other nominatives which they will have to be objectives; as, "I should seem guilty of ingratitude, than which nothing is more shameful." See Russell's Gram., p. 104. "Washington, than whose fame naught earthly can be purer."--Peirce's Gram., p. 204. "You have given him more than I. You have sent her as much as he."--Buchanan's Eng. Syntax, p. 116. These last two sentences are erroneously called by their author, "false syntax;" not indeed with a notion that than and as are prepositions, but on the false supposition that the preposition to must necessarily be understood between them and the pronouns, as it is between the preceding verbs and the pronouns him and her. But, in fact, "You have given him more than I," is perfectly good English; the last clause of which plainly means--"more than I have given him." And, "You have sent her as much as he," will of course be understood to mean--"as much as he has sent her;" but here, because the auxiliary implied is different from the one expressed, it might have been as well to have inserted it: thus, "You have sent her as much as he has." "She reviles you as much as he," is also good English, though found, with the foregoing, among Buchanan's examples of "false syntax."

OBS. 20.--Murray's twentieth Rule of syntax avers, that, "When the qualities of different things are compared, the latter noun or pronoun is not governed by the conjunction than or as, but agrees with the verb," &c.--Octavo Gram., p. 214; Russell's Gram., 103; Bacon's, 51; Alger's, 71; Smith's, 179; Fisk's, 138. To this rule, the great Compiler and most of his followers say, that than whom "is an exception." or "seems to form an exception;" to which they add, that, "the phrase is, however, avoided by the best modern writers."--Murray, i, 215. This latter assertion Russell conceives to be untrue: the former he adopts; and, calling than whom "an exception to the general rule," says of it, (with no great consistency,) "Here the conjunction than has certainly the force of a preposition, and supplies its place by governing the relative."--Russell's Abridgement of Murray's Gram., p. 104. But this is hardly an instance to which one would apply the maxim elsewhere adopted by Murray: "Exceptio probat regulam."--Octavo Gram., p. 205. To ascribe to a conjunction the governing power of a preposition, is a very wide step, and quite too much like straddling the line which separates these parts of speech one from the other.

OBS. 21.--Churchill says, "If there be no ellipsis to supply, as sometimes happens when a pronoun relative occurs after than; the relative is to be put in the objective case absolute: as, 'Alfred, than whom a greater king never reigned, deserves to be held up as a model to all future sovereigns.'"--New Gram., p. 153. Among his Notes, he has one with reference to this "objective case absolute," as follows: "It is not governed by the conjunction, for on no other occasion does a conjunction govern any case; or by any word understood, for we can insert no word, or words, that will reconcile the phrase with any other rule of grammar: and if we employ a pronoun personal instead of the relative, as he, which will admit of being resolved elliptically, it must be put in the nominative case."--Ib., p. 352. Against this gentleman's doctrine, one may very well argue, as he himself does against that of Murray, Russell, and others; that on no other occasion do we speak of putting "the objective case absolute;" and if, agreeably to the analogy of our own tongue, our distinguished authors would condescend to say than who,[436] surely nobody would think of calling this an instance of the nominative case absolute,--except perhaps one swaggering new theorist, that most pedantic of all scoffers, Oliver B. Peirce.

OBS. 22.--The sum of the matter is this: the phrase, than who, is a more regular and more analogical expression than than whom; but both are of questionable propriety, and the former is seldom if ever found, except in some few grammars; while the latter, which is in some sort a Latinism, may be quoted from many of our most distinguished writers. And, since that which is irregular cannot be parsed by rule, if out of respect to authority we judge it allowable, it must be set down among the figures of grammar; which are, all of them, intentional deviations from the ordinary use of words. One late author treats the point pretty well, in this short hint: "After the conjunction than, contrary to analogy, whom is used in stead of who."--Nutting's Gram., p. 106. An other gives his opinion in the following note: "When who immediately follows than, it is used improperly in the objective case; as, 'Alfred, than whom a greater king never reigned;'--than whom is not grammatical. It ought to be, than who; because who is the nominative to was understood.--Than whom is as bad a phrase as 'he is taller than him.' It is true that some of our best writers have used than whom; but it is also true, that they have used other phrases which we have rejected as ungrammatical; then why not reject this too?"--Lennie's Grammar, Edition of 1830, p. 105.

OBS. 23.--On this point. Bullions and Brace, two American copyists and plagiarists of Lennie, adopt opposite notions. The latter copies the foregoing note, without the last sentence; that is, without admitting that "than whom" has ever been used by good writers. See Brace's Gram., p. 90. The former says, "The relative usually follows than in the objective case, even when the nominative goes before; as, 'Alfred, than whom a greater king never reigned.' This anomaly it is difficult to explain. Most probably, than, at first had the force of a preposition, which it now retains only when followed by the relative."--Bullions, E. Gram., of 1843, p. 112. Again: "A relative after than is put in the objective case; as, 'Satan, than whom none higher sat.' This anomaly has not been satisfactorily explained. In this case, some regard than as a preposition. It is probably only a case of simple enallagé"--Bullions, Analyt. and Pract. Gram., of 1849, p. 191. Prof. Fowler, in his great publication, of 1850, says of this example, "The expression should be, Satan, than who None higher sat."--Fowler's E. Gram., §482, Note 2. Thus, by one single form of antiptosis, have our grammarians been as much divided and perplexed, as were the Latin grammarians by a vast number of such changes; and, since there were some among the latter, who insisted on a total rejection of the figure, there is no great presumption in discarding, if we please, the very little that remains of it in English.

OBS. 24.--Peirce's new theory of grammar rests mainly on the assumption, that no correct sentence ever is, or can be, in any wise, elliptical. This is one of the "Two GRAND PRINCIPLES" on which the author says his "work is based."--The Grammar, p. 10. The other is, that grammar cannot possibly be taught without a thorough reformation of its nomenclature, a reformation involving a change of most of the names and technical terms heretofore used for its elucidation. I do not give precisely his own words, for one half of this author's system is expressed in such language as needs to be translated into English in order to be generally understood; but this is precisely his meaning, and in words more intelligible. In what estimation he holds these two positions, may be judged from the following assertion: "Without these grand points, no work, whatever may be its pretensions, can be A GRAMMAR of the LANGUAGE."--Ib. It follows that no man who does not despise every other book that is called a grammar, can entertain any favourable opinion of Peirce's. The author however is tolerably consistent. He not only scorns to appeal, for the confirmation of his own assertions and rules, to the judgement or practice of any other writer, but counsels the learner to "spurn the idea of quoting, either as proof or for defence, the authority of any man." See p. 13. The notable results of these important premises are too numerous for detail even in this general pandect. But it is to be mentioned here, that, according to this theory, a nominative coming after than or as, is in general to be accounted a nominative absolute; that is, a nominative which is independent of any verb; or, (as the ingenious author himself expresses it,) "A word in the subjective case following another subjective, and immediately preceded by than, as, or not, may be used without an ASSERTER immediately depending on it for sense."--Peirce's Gram., p. 195. See also his "Grammatical Chart, Rule I, Part 2."

OBS. 25.--"Lowth, Priestley, Murray, and most grammarians say, that hypothetical, conditional, concessive, or exceptive conjunctions; as, if, lest, though, unless, except; require, or govern the subjunctive mood. But in this they are certainly wrong: for, as Dr. Crombie rightly observes, the verb is put in the subjunctive mood, because the mood expresses contingency, not because it follows the conjunction: for these writers themselves allow, that the same conjunctions are to be followed by the indicative mood, when the verb is not intended to express a contingency. In the following sentence: 'Though he be displeased at it, I will bolt my door; and let him break it open if he dare:' may we not as well affirm, that and governs the imperative mood, as that though and if govern the subjunctive?"--Churchill's Gram., p. 321.

OBS. 26.--In the list of correspondents contained in Note 7th below, there are some words which ought not to be called conjunctions, by the parser; for the relation of a word as the proper correspondent to an other word, does not necessarily determine its part of speech. Thus, such is to be parsed as an adjective; as, sometimes as a pronoun; so, as a conjunctive adverb. And only, merely, also, and even, are sometimes conjunctive adverbs; as, "Nor is this only a matter of convenience to the poet, it is also a source of gratification to the reader."-- Campbell's Rhet., p. 166. Murray's, Gram., i, 362. Professor Bullions will have it, that these adverbs may relate to nouns--a doctrine which I disapprove. He says "Only, solely, chiefly, merely, too, also, and perhaps a few others, are sometimes joined to substantives; as, 'Not only the men, but the women also were present.'"--English Gram., p. 116. Only and also are here, I think, conjunctive adverbs; but it is not the office of adverbs to qualify nouns; and, that these words are adjuncts to the nouns men and women, rather than the verb were, which is once expressed and once understood, I see no sufficient reason to suppose. Some teachers imagine, that an adverb of this kind qualifies the whole clause in which it stands. But it would seem, that the relation of such words to verbs, participles, or adjectives, according to the common rule for adverbs, is in general sufficiently obvious: as, "The perfect tense not only refers to what is past, but also conveys an allusion to the present time."--Murray's Gram., p. 70. Is there any question about the true mode of parsing "only" and "also" here? and have they not in the other sentence, a relation similar to what is seen here?

NOTES TO RULE XXII.

NOTE I.--When two terms connected are each to be extended and completed in sense by a third, they must both be such as will make sense with it. Thus, in stead of saying, "He has made alterations and additions to the work," say, "He has made alterations in the work, and additions to it;" because the relation between alterations and work is not well expressed by to.

NOTE II.--In general, any two terms which we connect by a conjunction, should be the same in kind or quality, rather than different or heterogeneous. Example: "The assistance was welcome, and seasonably afforded."--Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 249. Better: "The assistance was welcome, and it was seasonably afforded." Or: "The assistance was both seasonable and welcome."

NOTE III.--The conjunctions, copulative or disjunctive, affirmative or negative, must be used with a due regard to their own import, and to the true idiom of the language. Thus, say, "The general bent or turn of the language is towards the other form;" and not, with Lowth and Churchill, "The general bent and turn of the language is towards the other form."--Short Introd., p. 60; New Gram., p. 113. So, say, "I cannot deny that there are perverse jades;" and not, with Addison, "I cannot deny but there are perverse jades."--Spect., No. 457. Again, say, "I feared that I should be deserted;" not, "lest I should be deserted."

NOTE IV.--After else, other,[437] otherwise, rather, and all English comparatives, the latter term of an exclusive comparison should be introduced by the conjunction than--a word which is appropriated to this use solely: as, "Style is nothing else than that sort of expression which our thoughts most readily assume."--Blair's Rhet., p. 92. "What we call fables or parables are no other than allegories."--Ib., p. 151; Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 243. "We judge otherwise of them than of ourselves."--R. Ainsworth. "The premeditation should be of things rather than of words."--Blair's Rhet., p. 262. "Is not the life more than meat?"--Com. Bible. "Is not life a greater gift than food?"--Campbell's Gospels.

NOTE V.--Relative pronouns, being themselves a species of connective words, necessarily exclude conjunctions; except there be two or more relative clauses to be connected together; that is, one to the other. Example of error: "The principal and distinguishing excellence of Virgil, and which, in my opinion, he possesses beyond all poets, is tenderness."--Blair's Rhet., p. 439. Better: "The principal and distinguishing excellence of Virgil, an excellence which, in my opinion, he possesses beyond all other poets, is tenderness."

NOTE VI.--The word that, (as was shown in the fifth chapter of Etymology,) is often made a pronoun in respect to what precedes it, and a conjunction in respect to what follows it--a construction which, for its anomaly, ought to be rejected. For example: "In the mean time THAT the Muscovites were complaining to St. Nicholas, Charles returned thanks to God, and prepared for new victories."--Life of Charles XII. Better thus: "While the Muscovites were thus complaining to St. Nicholas, Charles returned thanks to God, and prepared for new victories."

NOTE VII.--The words in each of the following pairs, are the proper correspondents to each other; and care should be taken, to give them their right place in the sentence:

1. To though, corresponds yet; as, "Though he were dead, yet shall he live."--John, xi, 25. 2. To whether, corresponds or; as, "Whether it be greater or less."--Butler's Analogy, p. 77.

3. To either, corresponds or; as, "The constant indulgence of a declamatory manner, is not favourable either to good composition, or [to] good delivery."--Blair's Rhet., p. 334.

4. To neither, corresponds nor; as, "John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine."--Luke, vii, 33. "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him."--Exod., xxii, 21.

5. To both, corresponds and; as, "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise."--Rom., i, 14.

6. To such, corresponds as; (the former being a pronominal adjective, and the latter a relative pronoun;) as, "An assembly such as earth saw never."--Cowper.

7. To such, corresponds that; with, a finite verb following, to express a consequence: as, "The difference is such that all will perceive it."

8. To as, corresponds as; with an adjective or an adverb, to express equality of degree: as, "And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow."--2 Kings. v. 27.

9. To as, corresponds so; with two verbs, to express proportion or sameness: as, "As two are to four, so are six to twelve."--"As the tree falls, so it must lie."

10. So is used before as; with an adjective or an adverb, to limit the degree by comparison: as, "How can you descend to a thing so base as falsehood?"

11. So is used before as; with a negative preceding, to deny equality of degree: as, "No lamb was e'er so mild as he."--Langhorne. "Relatives are not so useful in language as conjunctions."--BEATTIE: Murray's Gram., p. 126.

12. To so, corresponds as; with an infinitive following, to express a consequence: as, "We ought, certainly, to read blank verse so as to make every line sensible to the ear"--Blair's Rhet., p. 332.

13. To so, corresponds that; with a finite verb following, to express a consequence: as, "No man was so poor that he could not make restitution."--Milman's Jews, i, 113. "So run that ye may obtain."--1 Cor., ix, 24.

14. To not only, or not merely, corresponds but, but also, or but even; as, "In heroic times, smuggling and piracy were deemed not only not infamous, but [even] absolutely honourable."--Maunder's Gram., p. 15. "These are questions, not of prudence merely, but of morals also."--Dymond's Essay, p. 82.

NOTE VIII.--"When correspondent conjunctions are used, the verb, or phrase, that precedes the first, applies [also] to the second; but no word following the former, can [by virtue of this correspondence,] be understood after the latter."--Churchill's Gram., p. 353. Such ellipses as the following ought therefore in general to be avoided: "Tones are different both from emphasis and [from] pauses."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, i, 250. "Though both the intention and [the] purchase are now past."--Ib., ii, 24.

IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE XXII.

EXAMPLES UNDER NOTE I.--TWO TERMS WITH ONE.

"The first proposal was essentially different and inferior to the second."--Inst., p. 171.

[FORMULE,--Not proper, because the preposition to is used with joint reference to the two adjectives different and inferior, which require different prepositions. But, according to Note 1st under Rule 22d, "When two terms connected are each to be extended and completed in sense by a third, they must both be such as will make sense with it." The sentence may be corrected thus: "The first proposal was essentially different from the second, and inferior to it."]

"A neuter verb implies the state a subject is in, without acting upon, or being acted upon, by another."--Alex. Murray's Gram., p. 30. "I answer, you may and ought to use stories and anecdotes."--Student's Manual, p. 220. "ORACLE, n. Any person or place where certain decisions are obtained."--Webster's Dict. "Forms of government may, and must be occasionally, changed."--Ld. Lyttelton. "I have, and pretend to be a tolerable judge."--Spect., No. 555. "Are we not lazy in our duties, or make a Christ of them?"--Baxter's Saints' Rest. "They may not express that idea which the author intends, but some other which only resembles, or is a-kin to it."--Blair's Rhet., p. 94. "We may, we ought therefore to read them with a distinguishing eye."--Ib., p. 352. "Compare their poverty, with what they might, and ought to possess."--Sedgwick's Econ., p. 95. "He is a much better grammarian than they are."--Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 211. "He was more beloved, but not so much admired as Cinthio."--ADDISON, ON MEDALS: in Priestly's Gram., p. 200. "Will it be urged, that the four gospels are as old, or even older than tradition?"--Bolingb. Phil. Es., iv, §19. "The court of Chancery frequently mitigates, and breaks the teeth of the common law."--Spectator, No. 564; Ware's Gram., p. 16. "Antony, coming along side of her ship, entered it without seeing or being seen by her."--Goldsmith's Rome, p. 160. "In candid minds, truth finds an entrance, and a welcome too."--Murray's Key, ii, 168. "In many designs, we may succeed and be miserable."--lb., p. 169. "In many pursuits, we embark with pleasure, and land sorrowfully."--Ib., p. 170. "They are much greater gainers than I am by this unexpected event."--lb., p. 211.

UNDER NOTE II.--HETEROGENEOUS TERMS.

"Athens saw them entering her gates and fill her academies."--Chazotte's Essay, p. 30. "We have neither forgot his past, nor despair of his future success."--Duncan's Cicero, p. 121. "Her monuments and temples had long been shattered or crumbled into dust."--Lit. Conv., p. 15. "Competition is excellent, and the vital principle in all these things."--DR. LIEBER: ib., p. 64. "Whether provision should or not be made to meet this exigency."--Ib., p. 128. "That our Saviour was divinely inspired, and endued with supernatural powers, are positions that are here taken for granted."--Murray's Gram., i. 206. "It would be much more eligible, to contract or enlarge their extent, by explanatory notes and observations, than by sweeping away our ancient landmarks, and setting up others."--Ib., i. p. 30. "It is certainly much better, to supply the defects and abridge superfluities, by occasional notes and observations, than by disorganizing, or altering a system which has been so long established."--Ib., i, 59. "To have only one tune, or measure, is not much better than having none at all"--Blair's Rhet., p. 126. "Facts too well known and obvious to be insisted on."--Ib., p. 233. "In proportion as all these circumstances are happily chosen, and of a sublime kind."--Ib., p. 41. "If the description be too general, and divested of circumstances."--Ibid. "He gained nothing further than to be commended."--Murray's Key, ii, 210. "I cannot but think its application somewhat strained, and out of place."--VETHAKE: Lit. Conv., p. 29. "Two negatives in the same clause, or referring to the same thing, destroy each other, and leave the sense affirmative."--Maunders Gram., p. 15. "Slates are stone and used to cover roofs of houses."--Webster's El. Spelling-Book, p. 47. "Every man of taste, and possessing an elevated mind, ought to feel almost the necessity of apologizing for the power he possesses."--Influence of Literature. Vol. ii, p, 122. "They very seldom trouble themselves with Enquiries, or making useful observations of their own."--Locke, on Ed., p. 376.

"We've both the field and honour won; The foe is profligate, and run."--Hudibras, p. 93.

UNDER NOTE III.--IMPORT OF CONJUNCTIONS.

"The is sometimes used before adverbs in the comparative and superlative degree."--Lennie's Gram., p. 6; Bullions's, 8; Brace's, 9. "The definite article the is frequently applied to adverbs in the comparative and superlative degree."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 33; Ingersoll's, 33; Lowth's, 14; Fisk's, 53; Merchant's, 24; and others. "Conjunctions usually connect verbs in the same mode or tense."--Sanborn's Gram., p. 137. "Conjunctions connect verbs in the same style, and usually in the same mode, tense, or form."--Ib. "The ruins of Greece and Rome are but the monuments of her former greatness."--Day's Gram., p. 88. "In many of these cases, it is not improbable, but that the articles were used originally."--Priestley's Gram., p. 152. "I cannot doubt but that these objects are really what they appear to be."--Kames, El. of Crit., i, 85. "I question not but my reader will be as much pleased with it."--Spect., No. 535. "It is ten to one but my friend Peter is among them."--Ib., No. 457. "I doubt not but such objections as these will be made."--Locke, on Education, p. 169. "I doubt not but it will appear in the perusal of the following sheets."--Buchanan's Syntax, p. vi. "It is not improbable, but that, in time, these different constructions may be appropriated to different uses."--Priestley's Gram., p. 156. "But to forget or to remember at pleasure, are equally beyond the power of man."--Idler, No. 72. "The nominative case follows the verb, in interrogative and imperative sentences."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, Vol. ii, p. 290. "Can the fig-tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs?"--James, iii, 12. "Whose characters are too profligate, that the managing of them should be of any consequence."--Swift, Examiner, No. 24. "You that are a step higher than a philosopher, a divine; yet have too much grace and wit than to be a bishop."--Pope, to Swift, Let. 80. "The terms rich or poor enter not into their language."--Robertson's America, Vol. i, p. 314. "This pause is but seldom or ever sufficiently dwelt upon."--Music of Nature, p. 181. "There would be no possibility of any such thing as human life and human happiness."--Butler's Anal., p. 110. "The multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace."--Matt., xx, 21.

UNDER NOTE IV.--OF THE CONJUNCTION THAN.

"A metaphor is nothing else but a short comparison."--Adam's Gram., p. 243; Gould's, 236. "There being no other dictator here but use."-- Campbell's Rhet., p. 167. "This Construction is no otherwise known in English but by supplying the first or second Person Plural."--Buchanan's Syntax, p. xi. "Cyaxares was no sooner in the throne, but he was engaged in a terrible war."--Rollin's Hist., ii, 62. "Those classics contain little else but histories of murders."--Am. Museum, v, 526. "Ye shall not worship any other except God."--Sale's Koran, p. 15. "Their relation, therefore, is not otherwise to be ascertained but by their place."-- Campbell's Rhet., p. 260. "For he no sooner accosted her, but he gained his point."--Burder's Hist., i, 6. "And all the modern writers on this subject have done little else but translate them."--Blair's Rhet., p. 336. "One who had no other aim, but to talk copiously and plausibly."-- Ib., p. 317. "We can refer it to no other cause but the structure of the eye."--Ib., p. 46. "No more is required but singly an act of vision."-- Kames, El. of Crit., i, 171. "We find no more in its composition, but the particulars now mentioned."-- Ib., i, 48. "He pretends not to say, that it hath any other effect but to raise surprise."--Ib., ii, 61. "No sooner was the princess dead, but he freed himself."--Johnson's Sketch of Morin. "Ought is an imperfect verb, for it has no other modification besides this one."--Priestley's Gram., p. 113. "The verb is palpably nothing else but the tie."--Neef's Sketch, p. 66. "Does he mean that theism is capable of nothing else except being opposed to polytheism or atheism?"--Blair's Rhet., p. 104. "Is it meant that theism is capable of nothing else besides being opposed to polytheism, or atheism?"--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 307. "There is no other method of teaching that of which any one is ignorant, but by means of something already known"--DR. JOHNSON: Murray's Gram., i, 163; Ingersoll's, 214. "O fairest flower, no sooner blown but blasted!"-- Milton's Poems, p, 132. "Architecture and gardening cannot otherwise entertain the mind, but by raising certain agreeable emotions or feelings."--Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 318. "Or, rather, they are nothing else but nouns."--British Gram., p. 95.

"As if religion were intended For nothing else but to be mended."--Hudibras, p. 11.

UNDER NOTE V.--RELATIVES EXCLUDE CONJUNCTIONS.

"To prepare the Jews for the reception of a prophet mightier than him, and whose shoes he was not worthy to bear."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 214. "Has this word which represents an action an object after it, and on which it terminates?"--Osborn's Key, p. 3. "The stores of literature lie before him, and from which he may collect, for use, many lessons of wisdom."-- Knapp's Lectures, p. 31. "Many and various great advantages of this Grammar, and which are wanting in others, might be enumerated."-- Greenleaf's Gram., p. 6. "About the time of Solon, the Athenian legislator, the custom is said to have been introduced, and which still prevails, of writing in lines from left to right."--Jamieson's Rhet., p. 19. "The fundamental rule of the construction of sentences, and into which all others might be resolved, undoubtedly is, to communicate, in the clearest and most natural order, the ideas which we mean to transfuse into the minds of others."--Blair's Rhet., p. 120; Jamieson's, 102. "He left a son of a singular character, and who behaved so ill that he was put in prison."--Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 221. "He discovered some qualities in the youth, of a disagreeable nature, and which to him were wholly unaccountable."--Ib., p. 213. "An emphatical pause is made, after something has been said of peculiar moment, and on which we want ['desire' M.] to fix the hearer's attention."--Blair's Rhet., p. 331; Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 248. "But we have duplicates of each, agreeing in movement, though differing in measure, and which make different impressions on the ear."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 259.

UNDER NOTE VI.--OF THE WORD THAT.

"It will greatly facilitate the labours of the teacher, at the same time that it will relieve the pupil of many difficulties."--Frost's El. of E. Gram., p. 4. "At the same time that the pupil is engaged in the exercises just mentioned, it will be a proper time to study the whole Grammar in course."--Bullions, Prin. of E. Gram., Revised Ed., p. viii. "On the same ground that a participle and auxiliary are allowed to form a tense."--BEATTIE: Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 76. "On the same ground that the voices, moods, and tenses, are admitted into the English tongue."--Ib., p. 101. "The five examples last mentioned, are corrected on the same principle that the preceding examples are corrected."--Ib., p. 186; Ingersoll's Gram., 254. "The brazen age began at the death of Trajan, and lasted till the time that Rome was taken by the Goths."--Gould's Lat. Gram., p. 277. "The introduction to the Duodecimo Edition, is retained in this volume, for the same reason that the original introduction to the Grammar, is retained in the first volume."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, Vol. ii, p. iv. "The verb must also be of the same person that the nominative case is."--Ingersoll's Gram., p. 16. "The adjective pronoun their, is plural for the same reason that who is."--Ib., p. 84. "The Sabellians could not justly be called Patripassians, in the same sense that the Noetians were so called."--Religious World, Vol. ii, p. 122. "This is one reason that we pass over such smooth language, without suspecting that it contains little or no meaning."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 298. "The first place that both armies came in sight of each other was on the opposite banks of the river Apsus."--Goldsmith's Rome, p. 118. "At the very time that the author gave him the first book for his perusal."--Campbell's Rhetoric, Preface, p. iv. "Peter will sup at the time that Paul will dine."--Fosdick's De Sacy, p. 81. "Peter will be supping at the time that Paul will enter."--Ibid. "These, at the same time that they may serve as models to those who may wish to imitate them, will give me an opportunity to cast more light upon the principles of this book."--Ib., p. 115.

"Time was, like thee, they life possest, And time shall be, that thou shalt rest." --PARNELL; Mur. Seq., p. 241.

UNDER NOTE VII.--OF THE CORRESPONDENTS.

"Our manners should neither be gross, nor excessively refined."--Merchant's Gram., p. 11. "A neuter verb expresses neither action or passion, but being, or a state of being."--O. B. Peirce's Gram., p. 342. "The old books are neither English grammars, or grammars, in any sense of the English Language."--Ib., p. 378. "The author is apprehensive that his work is not yet as accurate and as much simplified as it may be."--Kirkham's Gram., p. 7. "The writer could not treat some topicks as extensively as was desirable."--Ib., p. 10. "Which would be a matter of such nicety, as no degree of human wisdom could regulate."--Murray's Gram., i, 26. "No undertaking is so great or difficult which he cannot direct."--Duncan's Cic., p. 126. "It is a good which neither depends on the will of others, nor on the affluence of external fortune."--Harris's Hermes, 299; Murray's Gram., i, 289. "Not only his estate, his reputation too has suffered by his misconduct."--Murray's Gram., i, 150; Ingersoll's, 238. "Neither do they extend as far as might be imagined at first view."--Blair's Rhet., p. 350. "There is no language so poor, but it hath two or three past tenses."--Ib., p. 82. "As far as this system is founded in truth, language appears to be not altogether arbitrary in its origin."--Ib., p. 56. "I have not that command of these convulsions as is necessary."--Spect., No. 474. "Conversation with such who know no arts which polish life."--Ib., No. 480. "And which can be neither very lively or very forcible."--Jamieson's Rhet., p. 78. "To that degree as to give proper names to rivers."--Dr. Murray's Hist of Lang., i, 327. "In the utter overthrow of such who hate to be reformed."--Barclay's Works, i, 443. "But still so much of it is retained, as greatly injures the uniformity of the whole."--Priestley's Gram., Pref., p. vii. "Some of them have gone to that height of extravagance, as to assert," &c.--Ib., p. 91. "A teacher is confined--not more than a merchant, and probably not as much."--Abbott's Teacher, p. 27. "It shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."--Matt., xii, 32. "Which no body presumes, or is so sanguine to hope."--Swift, Drap. Let. v. "For the torrent of the voice, left neither time or power in the organs, to shape the words properly."--Sheridan's Elocution, p. 118. "That he may neither unnecessarily waste his voice by throwing out too much, or diminish his power by using too little."--Ib., p. 123. "I have retained only such which appear most agreeable to the measures of Analogy."--Littleton's Dict., Pref. "He is both a prudent and industrious man."--Day's Gram., p. 70. "Conjunctions either connect words or sentences."--Ib., pp. 81 and 101.

"Such silly girls who love to chat and play, Deserve no care, their time is thrown away."--Tobitt's Gram., p. 20.

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen."--POPE: Mur. Gram., ii, 17.

"Justice must punish the rebellious deed: Yet punish so, as pity shall exceed."--DRYDEN: in Joh. Dict.

UNDER NOTE VIII.--IMPROPER ELLIPSES.

"That, whose, and as relate to either persons or things."--Sanborn's Gram., p. 93. "Which and what, as adjectives, relate either to persons or things."--Ib., p. 70. "Whether of a public or private nature."-- Adam's Rhet., i, 43. "Which are included both among the public and private wrongs."--Ib., i, 308. "I might extract both from the old and new testament numberless examples of induction."--Ib., ii, 66. "Many verbs are used both in an active and neuter signification."--Lowth's Gram., p. 30; Alger's, 26; Guy's, 21; Murray's, 60. "Its influence is likely to be considerable, both on the morals, and taste of a nation."--Blair's Rhet., p. 373. "The subject afforded a variety of scenes, both of the awful and tender kind."--Ib., p. 439. "Restlessness of mind disqualifies us, both for the enjoyment of peace, and the performance of our duty."--Murray's Key, ii, 166; Ingersoll's Gram., p. 10. "Adjective Pronouns are of a mixed nature, participating the properties both of pronouns and adjectives."--Murray's Gram., i, 55; Merchant's, 43; Flint's, 22. "Adjective Pronouns have the nature both of the adjective and the pronoun."--Frost's El. of Gram., p. 15. "Pronominal adjectives are a kind of compound part of speech, partaking the nature both of pronouns and adjectives."--Nutting's Gram., p. 36. "Nouns are used either in the singular or plural number."--Blair's Gram., p. 11. "The question is not, whether the nominative or accusative ought to follow the particles than and as; but, whether these particles are, in such particular cases, to be regarded as conjunctions or prepositions."--Campbell's Rhet., p. 204. "In English many verbs are used both as transitives and intransitives."--Churchill's Gram., p. 83. "He sendeth rain both on the just and unjust."--Guy's Gram., p. 56. "A foot consists either of two or three syllables."--Blair's Gram., p. 118. "Because they participate the nature both of adverbs and conjunctions."--Murray's Gram., i, 116. "Surely, Romans, what I am now about to say, ought neither to be omitted nor pass without notice."--Duncan's Cicero, p. 196. "Their language frequently amounts, not only to bad sense, but non-sense."--Kirkham's Gram., p. 14. "Hence arises the necessity of a social state to man both for the unfolding, and exerting of his nobler faculties."--Sheridan's Elocution, p. 147. "Whether the subject be of the real or feigned kind."--Blair's Rhet., p. 454. "Not only was liberty entirely extinguished, but arbitrary power felt in its heaviest and most oppressive weight."--Ib., p. 249. "This rule is applicable also both to verbal Critics and Grammarians."--Hiley's Gram., p. 144. "Both the rules and exceptions of a language must have obtained the sanction of good usage."--Ib., p. 143.

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X. PREPOSITIONS

The syntax of Prepositions consists, not solely or mainly in their power of governing the objective case, (though this alone is the scope which most grammarians have given it,) but in their adaptation to the other terms between which they express certain relations, such as appear by the sense of the words uttered.

RULE XXIII.--PREPOSITIONS.

Prepositions show the relations of words, and of the things or thoughts expressed by them: as; "He came from Rome to Paris, in the company of many eminent men, and passed with them through many cities"--Analectic Magazine.

"Ah! who can tell the triumphs of the mind, By truth illumin'd, and by taste refin'd?"--Rogers.

EXCEPTION FIRST.

The preposition to, before an abstract infinitive, and at the head of a phrase which is made the subject of a verb, has no proper antecedent term of relation; as, "To learn to die, is the great business of life."--Dillwyn. "Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh, is more needful for you."--ST. PAUL: Phil., i, 24. "To be reduced to poverty, is a great affliction."

"Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name."--Shakspeare.

EXCEPTION SECOND.

The preposition for, when it introduces its object before an infinitive, and the whole phrase is made the subject of a verb, has properly no antecedent term of relation; as, "For us to learn to die, is the great business of life."--"Nevertheless, for me to abide in the flesh, is more needful for you."--"For an old man to be reduced to poverty is a very great affliction."

"For man to tell how human life began, Is hard; for who himself beginning knew?"--Milton.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XXIII.

OBS. 1.--In parsing any ordinary preposition, the learner should name the two terms of the relation, and apply the foregoing rule, after the manner prescribed in Praxis 12th of this work. The principle is simple and etymological, being implied in the very definition of a preposition, yet not the less necessary to be given as a rule of syntax. Among tolerable writers, the prepositions exhibit more errors than any other equal number of words. This is probably owing to the careless manner in which they are usually slurred over in parsing. But the parsers, in general, have at least this excuse, that their text-books have taught them no better; they therefore call the preposition a preposition, and leave its use and meaning unexplained.

OBS. 2.--If the learner be at any loss to discover the true terms of relation, let him ask and answer two questions: first, with the interrogative what before the preposition, to find the antecedent; and then, with the same pronoun after the preposition, to find the subsequent term. These questions answered according to the sense, will always give the true terms. For example: "They dashed that rapid torrent through."--Scott. Ques. What through? Ans. "Dashed through." Ques. Through what? Ans. "Through that torrent." For the meaning is--"They dashed through that rapid torrent." If one term is perfectly obvious, (as it almost always is,) find the other in this way; as, "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge."--Psal., xix, 2. Ques. What unto day? Ans. "Uttereth unto day." Ques. What unto night? Ans. "Showeth unto night" For the meaning is--"Day uttereth speech unto day, and night showeth knowledge unto night." To parse rightly, is, to understand rightly; and what is well expressed, it is a shame to misunderstand or misinterpret. But sometimes the position of the two nouns is such, that it may require some reflection to find either; as,

"Or that choice plant, so grateful to the nose, Which in I know not what far country grows."--Churchill, p. 18.

OBS. 3.--When a preposition begins or ends a sentence or clause, the terms of relation, if both are given, are transposed; as, "To a studious man, action is a relief."--Burgh. That is, "Action is a relief to a studious man." "Science they [the ladies] do not pretend TO."--Id. That is, "They do not pretend to science." "Until I have done that which I have spoken to thee OF."--Gen., xxviii, 15. The word governed by the preposition is always the subsequent term of the relation, however it may be placed; and if this be a relative pronoun, the transposition is permanent. The preposition, however, may be put before any relative, except that and as; and this is commonly thought to be its most appropriate place: as, "Until I have done that of which I have spoken to thee," Of the placing of it last, Lowth says, "This is an idiom which our language is strongly inclined to;" Murray and others, "This is an idiom to which our language is strongly inclined:" while they all add, "it prevails in common conversation, and suits very well with the familiar style in writing; but the placing of the preposition before the relative, is more graceful, as well as more perspicuous, and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated style."--Lowth's Gram., p. 95; Murray's, 8vo, p. 200; Fisk's, 141; R. C. Smiths, 167; Ingersoll's, 227; Churchill's. 150.

OBS. 4.--The terms of relation between which a preposition may be used, are very various. The former or antecedent term may be a noun, an adjective, a pronoun, a verb, a participle, or an adverb: and, in some instances, we find not only one preposition put before an other, but even a conjunction or an interjection used on this side; as, "Because OF offences."--"Alas FOR him!"--The latter or subsequent term, which is the word governed by the preposition, may be a noun, a pronoun, a pronominal adjective, an infinitive verb, or an imperfect or preperfect participle: and, in some instances, prepositions appear to govern adverbs, or even whole phrases. See the observations in the tenth chapter of Etymology.

OBS. 5.--Both terms of the relation are usually expressed; though either of them may, in some instances, be left out, the other being given: as, (1.) THE FORMER--"All shall know me, [reckoning] FROM the least to the greatest."--Heb., viii, 11. [I say] "IN a word, it would entirely defeat the purpose."--Blair. "When I speak of reputation, I mean not only [reputation] IN regard to knowledge, but [reputation] IN regard to the talent of communicating knowledge."--Campbell's Rhet., p. 163; Murray's Gram., i, 360. (2.) THE LATTER--"Opinions and ceremonies [which] they would die FOR."--Locke. "IN [those] who obtain defence, or [in those] who defend."--Pope. "Others are more modest than [what] this comes TO."--Collier's Antoninus, p. 66.

OBS. 6.--The only proper exceptions to the foregoing rule, are those which are inserted above, unless the abstract infinitive used as a predicate is also to be excepted; as, "In both, to reason right, is to submit."--Pope. But here most if not all grammarians would say, the verb "is" is the antecedent term, or what their syntax takes to govern the infinitive. The relation, however, is not such as when we say, "He is to submit;" that is, "He must submit, or ought to submit;" but, perhaps, to insist on a different mode of parsing the more separable infinitive or its preposition, would be a needless refinement. Yet some regard ought to be paid to the different relations which the infinitive may bear to this finite verb. For want of a due estimate of this difference, the following sentence is, I think, very faulty: "The great business of this life is to prepare, and qualify us, for the enjoyment of a better."--Murray's Gram., Vol. i, p. 373. If the author meant to tell what our great business in this life is, he should rather have said: "The great business of this life is, to prepare and qualify ourselves for the enjoyment of a better."

OBS. 7.--In relation to the infinitive, Dr. Adam remarks, that, "To in English is often taken absolutely; as, To confess the truth; To proceed; To conclude."--Latin and Eng. Gram., p. 182. But the assertion is not entirely true; nor are his examples appropriate; for what he and many other grammarians call the infinitive absolute, evidently depends on something understood; and the preposition is, surely, in no instance independent of what follows it, and is therefore never entirely absolute. Prepositions are not to be supposed to have no antecedent term, merely because they stand at the head of a phrase or sentence which is made the subject of a verb; for the phrase or sentence itself often contains that term, as in the following example: "In what way mind acts upon matter, is unknown." Here in shows the relation between acts and way; because the expression suggests, that mind acts IN some way upon matter.

OBS. 8.--The second exception above, wherever it is found applicable, cancels the first; because it introduces an antecedent term before the preposition to, as may be seen by the examples given. It is questionable too, whether both of them may not also be cancelled in an other way; that is, by transposition and the introduction of the pronoun it for the nominative: as, "It is a great affliction, TO be reduced to poverty."--"It is hard FOR man to tell how human life began."--"Nevertheless it is more needful for you, THAT I should abide in the flesh." We cannot so well say, "It is more needful for you, FOR me to abide in the flesh;" but we may say, "It is, on your account, more needful FOR me to abide in the flesh." If these, and other similar examples, are not to be accounted additional instances in which to and for, and also the conjunction that, are without any proper antecedent terms, we must suppose these particles to show the relation between what precedes and what follows them.

OBS. 9.--The preposition (as its name implies) precedes the word which it governs. Yet there are some exceptions. In the familiar style, a preposition governing a relative or an interrogative pronoun, is often separated from its object, and connected with the other term of relation; as, "Whom did he speak to?" But it is more dignified, and in general more graceful, to place the preposition before the pronoun; as, "To whom did he speak?" The relatives that and as, if governed by a preposition, must always precede it. In some instances, the pronoun must be supplied in parsing; as, "To set off the banquet [that or which] he gives notice of."--Philological Museum, i, 454. Sometimes the objective word is put first because it is emphatical; as, "This the great understand, this they pique themselves upon."--Art of Thinking, p. 66. Prepositions of more than one syllable, are sometimes put immediately after their objects, especially in poetry; as, "Known all the world over."--Walker's Particles p. 291. "The thing is known all Lesbos over."--Ibid.

"Wild Carron's lonely woods among."--Langhorne.

"Thy deep ravines and dells along."--Sir W. Scott.

OBS. 10.--Two prepositions sometimes come together; as, "Lambeth is over against Westminster abbey."--Murray's Gram., i, 118. "And from before the lustre of her face, White break the clouds away."--Thomson. "And the meagre fiend Blows mildew from between his shrivell'd lips."--Cowper. These, in most instances, though they are not usually written as compounds, appear naturally to coalesce in their syntax, as was observed in the tenth chapter of Etymology, and to express a sort of compound relation between the other terms with which they are connected. When such is their character, they ought to be taken together in parsing; for, if we parse them separately, we must either call the first an adverb, or suppose some very awkward ellipsis. Some instances however occur, in which an object may easily be supplied to the former word, and perhaps ought to be; as, "He is at liberty to sell it at [a price] above a fair remuneration."-- Wayland's Moral Science, p. 258. "And I wish they had been at the bottom of the ditch I pulled you out of, instead of [being] upon my back."--Sandford and Merton, p. 29. In such examples as the following, the first preposition, of, appears to me to govern the plural noun which ends the sentence; and the intermediate ones, from and to, to have both terms of their relation understood: "Iambic verse consists of from two to six feet; that is, of from four to twelve syllables."--Blair's Gram., p. 119. "Trochaic verse consists of from one to three feet."--Ibid. The meaning is--"Iambic verse consists of feet varying in number from two to six; or (it consists) of syllables varying from four to twelve."--"Trochaic verse consists of feet varying from one foot to three feet."

OBS. 11.--One antecedent term may have several prepositions depending on it, with one object after each, or more than one after any, or only one after both or all; as, "A declaration for virtue and against vice."--Butler's Anal., p. 157. "A positive law against all fraud, falsehood, and violence, and for, or in favour of, all justice and truth." "For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things."--Bible. In fact, not only may the relation be simple in regard to all or any of the words, but it may also be complex in regard to all or any of them. Hence several different prepositions, whether they have different antecedent terms or only one and the same, may refer either jointly or severally to one object or to more. This follows, because not only may either antecedents or objects be connected by conjunctions, but prepositions also admit of this construction, with or without a connecting of their antecedents. Examples: "They are capable of, and placed in, different stations in the society of mankind."--Butler's Anal., p. 115. "Our perception of vice and ill desert arises from, and is the result of, a comparison of actions with the nature and capacities of the agent."--Ib., p. 279. "And the design of this chapter is, to inquire how far this is the case; how far, over and above the moral nature which God has given us, and our natural notion of him, as righteous governor of those his creatures to whom he has given this nature; I say, how far, besides this, the principles and beginnings of a moral government over the world may be discerned, notwithstanding and amidst all the confusion and disorder of it."--Ib., p. 85.

OBS. 12.--The preposition into, expresses a relation produced by motion or change; and in, the same relation, without reference to motion as having produced it: hence, "to walk into the garden," and, "to walk in the garden," are very different in meaning. "It is disagreeable to find a word split into two by a pause."--Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 83. This appears to be right in sense, but because brevity is desirable in unemphatic particles, I suppose most persons would say, "split in two." In the Bible we have the phrases, "rent in twain,"--"cut in pieces,"--"brake in pieces the rocks,"--"brake all their bones in pieces,"--"brake them to pieces,"--"broken to pieces,"--"pulled in pieces." In all these, except the first, to may perhaps be considered preferable to in; and into would be objectionable only because it is longer and less simple. "Half of them dare not shake the snow from off their cassocks, lest they shake themselves to pieces."--SHAK.: Kames, ii, 246.

OBS. 13.--Between, or betwixt, is used in reference to two things or parties; among, or amongst, amid, or amidst, in reference to a greater number, or to something by which an other may be surrounded: as, "Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear."--Byron. "The host between the mountain and the shore."--Id. "To meditate amongst decay, and stand a ruin amidst ruins."--Id. In the following examples, the import of these prepositions is not very accurately regarded; "The Greeks wrote in capitals, and left no spaces between their words."--Wilson's Essay, p. 6. This construction may perhaps be allowed, because the spaces by which words are now divided, occur severally between one word and an other; but the author might as well have said, "and left no spaces to distinguish their words." "There was a hunting match agreed upon betwixt a lion, an ass, and a fox."--L'Estrange. Here by or among would, I think, be better than betwixt, because the partners were more than two. "Between two or more authors, different readers will differ, exceedingly, as to the preference in point of merit."--Campbell's Rhet., p. 162; Jamieson's, 40; Murray's Gram., i, 360. Say, "Concerning two or more authors," because between is not consistent with the word more. "Rising one among another in the greatest confusion and disorder."--Spect., No. 476. Say, "Rising promiscuously," or, "Rising all at once;" for among is not consistent with the distributive term one an other.

OBS. 14.--Of two prepositions coming together between the same terms of relation, and sometimes connected in the same construction, I have given several plain examples in this chapter, and in the tenth chapter of Etymology, a very great number, all from sources sufficiently respectable. But, in many of our English grammars, there is a stereotyped remark on this point, originally written by Priestley, which it is proper here to cite, as an other specimen of the Doctor's hastiness, and of the blind confidence of certain compilers and copyists: "Two different prepositions must be improper in the same construction, and in the same sentence: [as,] The combat between thirty Britons, against twenty English. Smollett's Voltaire, Vol. 2, p. 292."--Priestley's Gram., p. 156. Lindley Murray and others have the same remark, with the example altered thus: "The combat between thirty French against twenty English."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 200; Smith's New Gram., 167: Fisk's, 142; Ingersoll's, 228. W. Allen has it thus: "Two different prepositions in the same construction are improper; as, a combat between twenty French against thirty English."--Elements of E. Gram., p. 179. He gives the odds to the latter party. Hiley, with no expense of thought, first takes from Murray, as he from Priestley, the useless remark, "Different relations, and different senses, must be expressed by different prepositions;" and then adds, "One relation must not, therefore, be expressed by two different prepositions in the same clause; thus, 'The combat between thirty French against thirty English,' should be, 'The combat between thirty French and thirty English.'"--Hiley's E. Gram., p 97. It is manifest that the error of this example is not in the use of two prepositions, nor is there any truth or fitness in the note or notes made on it by all these critics; for had they said, "The combat of thirty French against twenty English," there would still be two prepositions, but where would be the impropriety, or where the sameness of construction, which they speak of? Between is incompatible with against, only because it requires two parties or things for its own regimen; as, "The combat between thirty Frenchmen and twenty Englishmen." This is what Smollett should have written, to make sense with the word "between."

OBS. 15.--With like implicitness, Hiley excepted, these grammarians and others have adopted from Lowth an observation in which the learned doctor has censured quite too strongly the joint reference of different prepositions to the same objective noun: to wit, "Some writers separate the preposition from its noun, in order to connect different prepositions to the same noun; as, 'To suppose the zodiac and planets to be efficient of, and antecedent to, themselves.' Bentley, Serm. 6. This [construction], whether in the familiar or the solemn style, is always inelegant; and should never be admitted, but in forms of law, and the like; where fullness and exactness of expression must take place of every other consideration."--Lowth's Gram., p. 96; Murray's, i, 200; Smith's, 167; Fisk's, 141; Ingersoll's, 228; Alger's, 67; Picket's, 207. Churchill even goes further, both strengthening the censure, and disallowing the exception: thus, "This, whether in the solemn or in the familiar style, is always inelegant, and should never be admitted. It is an awkward shift for avoiding the repetition of a word, which might be accomplished without it by any person who has the least command of language."--New Gram., p. 341. Yet, with all their command of language, not one of these gentlemen has told us how the foregoing sentence from Bentley may be amended; while many of their number not only venture to use different prepositions before the same noun, but even to add a phrase which puts that noun in the nominative case: as, "Thus, the time of the infinitive may be before, after, or the same as, the time of the governing verb, according as the thing signified by the infinitive is supposed to be before, after, or present with, the thing denoted by the governing verb."--Murray's Gram., i, 191; Ingersoll's, 260; R. C. Smith's, 159.

OBS. 16.--The structure of this example not only contradicts palpably, and twice over, the doctrine cited above, but one may say of the former part of it, as Lowth, Murray, and others do, (in no very accurate English,) of the text 1 Cor., ii, 9: "There seems to be an impropriety in this sentence, in which the same noun serves in a double capacity, performing at the same time the offices both of the nominative and objective cases."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 224. See also Lowth's Gram., p. 73; Ingersoll's, 277; Fisk's, 149; Smith's, 185. Two other examples, exactly like that which is so pointedly censured above, are placed by Murray under his thirteenth rule for the comma; and these likewise, with all faithfulness, are copied by Ingersoll, Smith, Alger, Kirkham, Comly, Russell, and I know not how many more. In short, not only does this rule of their punctuation include the construction in question; but the following exception to it, which is remarkable for its various faults, or thorough faultiness, is applicable to no other: "Sometimes, when the word with which the last preposition agrees, is single, it is better to omit the comma before it: as, 'Many states were in alliance with, and under the protection of Rome.'"--Murray's Gram., p. 272; Smith's, 190; Ingersoll's, 284; Kirkham's, 215; Alger's, 79; Alden's, 149; Abel Flint's, 103; Russell's, 115. But the blunders and contradictions on this point, end not here. Dr. Blair happened most unlearnedly to say, "What is called splitting of particles, or separating a preposition from the noun which it governs, is always to be avoided. As if I should say, 'Though virtue borrows no assistance from, yet it may often be accompanied by, the advantages of fortune.'"--Lect. XII, p. 112. This too, though the author himself did not always respect the rule, has been thought worthy to be copied, or stolen, with all its faults! See Jamieson's Rhetoric, p. 93; and Murray's Octavo Gram., p. 319.

OBS. 17.--Dr. Lowth says, "The noun aversion, (that is, a turning away,) as likewise the adjective averse, seems to require the preposition from after it; and not so properly to admit of to, or for, which are often used with it."--Gram., p. 98. But this doctrine has not been adopted by the later grammarians: "The words averse and aversion (says Dr. Campbell) are more properly construed with to than with from. The examples in favour of the latter preposition, are beyond comparison outnumbered by those in favour of the former."--Murray's Gram., i, 201; Fisk's, 142; Ingersoll's, 229. This however must be understood only of mental aversion. The expression of Milton, "On the coast averse from entrance," would not be improved, if from were changed to to. So the noun exception, and the verb to except, are sometimes followed by from, which has regard to the Latin particle ex, with which the word commences; but the noun at least is much more frequently, and perhaps more properly, followed by to. Examples: "Objects of horror must be excepted from the foregoing theory."--Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 268. "From which there are but two exceptions, both of them rare."--Ib., ii. 89. "To the rule that fixes the pause after the fifth portion, there is one exception, and no more."--Ib., ii, 84. "No exception can be taken to the justness of the figure."--Ib., ii, 37. "Originally there was no exception from the rule."--Lowth's Gram., p. 58. "From this rule there is mostly an exception."--Murray's Gram., i, 269. "But to this rule there are many exceptions."--Ib., i. 240. "They are not to be regarded as exceptions from the rule,"--Campbell's Rhet., p. 363.

OBS. 18.--After correcting the example. "He knows nothing on [of] it," Churchill remarks, "There seems to be a strange perverseness among the London vulgar in perpetually substituting on for of, and of for on."--New Gram., p. 345. And among the expressions which Campbell censures under the name of vulgarism, are the following: "'Tis my humble request you will be particular in speaking to the following points."--Guardian, No. 57. "The preposition ought to have been on. Precisely of the same stamp is the on't for of it, so much used by one class of writers."--Philosophy of Rhet., p. 217. So far as I have observed, the use of of for on has never been frequent; and that of on for of, or on't for of it, though it may never have been a polite custom, is now a manifest archaism, or imitation of ancient usage. "And so my young Master, whatever comes on't, must have a Wife look'd out for him."--Locke, on Ed., p. 378. In Saxon, on was put for more than half a dozen of our present prepositions. The difference between of and on or upon, appears in general to be obvious enough; and yet there are some phrases in which it is not easy to determine which of these words ought to be preferred: as, "Many things they cannot lay hold on at once."--HOOKER: Joh. Dict. "Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it."--2 SAM.: ib. "Rather thou shouldst lay hold upon him."--BEN JONSON: ib. "Let them find courage to lay hold on the occasion."--MILTON: ib. "The hand is fitted to lay hold of objects."--RAY: ib. "My soul took hold on thee."--ADDISON: ib. "To lay hold of this safe, this only method of cure."--ATTERBURY: ib. "And give fortune no more hold of him."--DRYDEN: ib. "And his laws take the surest hold of us."--TILLOTSON: ib. "It will then be impossible you can have any hold upon him."--SWIFT: ib. "The court of Rome gladly laid hold on all the opportunities."--Murray's Key, ii, p. 198. "Then did the officer lay hold of him and execute him."--Ib., ii, 219. "When one can lay hold upon some noted fact."--Blair's Rhet., p. 311. "But when we would lay firm hold of them."--Ib., p. 28. "An advantage which every one is glad to lay hold of."--Ib., p. 75. "To have laid fast hold of it in his mind."--Ib., p. 94. "I would advise them to lay aside their common-places, and to think closely of their subject."--Ib., p. 317. "Did they not take hold of your fathers?"--Zech., i, 6. "Ten men shall take hold of the skirt of one that is a Jew."--Ib., viii, 23. "It is wrong to say, either 'to lay hold of a thing,' or 'to take hold on it.'"--Blair's Gram., p. 101. In the following couplet, on seems to have been preferred only for a rhyme:

"Yet, lo! in me what authors have to brag on! Reduc'd at last to hiss in my own dragon."--Pope.

OBS. 19.--In the allowable uses of prepositions, there may perhaps be some room for choice; so that what to the mind of a critic may not appear the fittest word, may yet be judged not positively ungrammatical. In this light I incline to view the following examples: "Homer's plan is still more defective, upon another account."--Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 299. Say--"on an other account." "It was almost eight of the clock before I could leave that variety of objects."--Spectator, No. 454. Present usage requires--"eight o'clock." "The Greek and Latin writers had a considerable advantage above us."--Blair's Rhet., p. 114. "The study of oratory has this advantage above that of poetry."--Ib., p. 338. "A metaphor has frequently an advantage above a formal comparison."-- Jamieson's Rhet., p. 150. This use of above seems to be a sort of Scotticism: an Englishman, I think, would say--"advantage over us," &c. "Hundreds have all these crowding upon them from morning to night."-- Abbott's Teacher, p. 33. Better--"from morning till night." But Horne Tooke observes, "We apply TO indifferently to place or time; but TILL to time only, and never to place. Thus we may say, 'From morn TO night th' eternal larum rang;' or, 'From morn TILL night.' &c."--Diversions of Purley, i, 284.

NOTES TO RULE XXIII.

NOTE I.--Prepositions must be chosen and employed agreeably to the usage and idiom of the language, so as rightly to express the relations intended. Example of error: "By which we arrive to the last division."--Richard W. Green's Gram., p. vii. Say,--"arrive at." NOTE II.--Those prepositions which are particularly adapted in meaning to two objects, or to more, ought to be confined strictly to the government of such terms only as suit them. Example of error: "What is Person? It is the medium of distinction between the speaker, the object addressed or spoken to, and the object spoken of."--O. B. Peirce's Gram., p. 34. "Between three" is an incongruity; and the text here cited is bad in several other respects.

NOTE III.--An ellipsis or omission of the preposition is inelegant, except where long and general use has sanctioned it, and made the relation sufficiently intelligible. In the following sentence, of is needed: "I will not flatter you, that all I see in you is worthy love."-- Shakspeare. The following requires from: "Ridicule is banished France, and is losing ground in England."--Kames, El. of Crit., i, 106.

NOTE IV.--The insertion of a preposition is also inelegant, when the particle is needless, or when it only robs a transitive verb of its proper regimen; as, "The people of England may congratulate to themselves."--DRYDEN: Priestley's Gram., p. 163. "His servants ye are, to whom ye obey."--Rom., vi, 16.

NOTE V.--The preposition and its object should have that position in respect to other words, which will render the sentence the most perspicuous and agreeable. Examples of error: "Gratitude is a forcible and active principle in good and generous minds."--Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 169. Better: "In good and generous minds, gratitude is a forcible and active principle." "By a single stroke, he knows how to reach the heart."-- Blair's Rhet., p. 439. Better: "He knows how to reach the heart by a single stroke."

IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE XXIII.

EXAMPLES UNDER NOTE I.--CHOICE OF PREPOSITIONS.

"You have bestowed your favours to the most deserving persons."--Swift, on E. Tongue.

[FORMULE.--Not proper because the relation between have bestowed and persons is not correctly expressed by the preposition to. But, according to Note 1st under Rule 23d, "Prepositions must be chosen and employed agreeably to the usage and idiom of the language, so as rightly to express the relations intended." This relation would be better expressed by upon; thus, "You have bestowed your favours upon the most deserving persons."]

"But to rise beyond that, and overtop the crowd, is given to few."--Blair's Rhet., p. 351. "This also is a good sentence, and gives occasion to no material remark."--Ib., p. 201. "Though Cicero endeavours to give some reputation of the elder Cato, and those who were his cotemporaries."--Ib., p. 245. "The change that was produced on eloquence, is beautifully described in the Dialogue."--Ib., p. 249. "Without carefully attending to the variation which they make upon the idea."--Ib., p. 367. "All of a sudden, you are transported into a lofty palace."--Hazlitt's Lect., p. 70. "Alike independent on one another."--Campbell's Rhet., p. 398. "You will not think of them as distinct processes going on independently on each other,"--Channing's Self-Culture, p. 15. "Though we say, to depend on, dependent on, and independent on, we say, independently of."--Churchill's Gram., p. 348. "Independently on the rest of the sentence."--Lowth's Gram., p. 78; Guy's, 88; Murray's, i, 145 and 184; Ingersoll's, 150; Frost's, 46; Fisk's, 125; Smith's New Gram., 156; Gould's Lat. Gram., 209; Nixon's Parser, 65. "Because they stand independent on the rest of the sentence."--Fisk's Gram., p. 111. "When a substantive is joined with a participle in English independently in the rest of the sentence."--Adam's Lat. and Eng. Gram., Boston Ed. of 1803, p. 213; Albany Ed. of 1820, p. 166. "Conjunction, comes of the two Latin words con, together, and jungo, to join."--Merchant's School Gram., p. 19. "How different to this is the life of Fulvia!"--Addison's Spect., No. 15. "Loved is a participle or adjective, derived of the word love."--Dr. Ash's Gram., p. 27. "But I would inquire at him, what an office is?"--Barclay's Works, iii, 463. "For the capacity is brought unto action."--Ib., iii, 420. "In this period, language and taste arrive to purity."--Webster's Essays, p. 94. "And should you not aspire at distinction in the republick of letters."--Kirkham's Gram., p. 13. "Delivering you up to the synagogues, and in prisons."--Keith's Evidences, p. 55. "One that is kept from falling in a ditch, is as truly saved, as he that is taken out of one."--Barclay's Works, i, 312. "The best on it is, they are but a sort of French Hugonots."--Addison, Spect., No. 62. "These last Ten Examples are indeed of a different Nature to the former."--Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 333. "For the initiation of students in the principles of the English language."--ANNUAL REVIEW: Murray's Gram., ii, 299. "Richelieu profited of every circumstance which the conjuncture afforded,"--Bolingbroke, on Hist., p. 177. "In the names of drugs and plants, the mistake in a word may endanger life."--Murray's Key, ii, 165. "In order to the carrying on its several parts into execution."--Butler's Analogy, p. 192. "His abhorrence to the superstitious figure."--HUME: Priestley's Gram., p. 164. "Thy prejudice to my cause."--DRYDEN: ib., p. 164. "Which is found among every species of liberty."--HUME: ib., p. 169. "In a hilly region to the north of Jericho."--Milman's Jews, Vol. i, p. 8. "Two or more singular nouns, coupled with AND, require a verb and pronoun in the plural."--Lennie's Gram., p. 83.

"Books should to one of these four ends conduce, For wisdom, piety, delight, or use."--Denham, p. 239.

UNDER NOTE II.--TWO OBJECTS OR MORE.

"The Anglo-Saxons, however, soon quarrelled between themselves for precedence."--Constable's Miscellany, xx, p. 59. "The distinctions between the principal parts of speech are founded in nature."--Webster's Essays, p. 7. "I think I now understand the difference between the active, passive, and neuter verbs."--Ingersoll's Gram., p. 124. "Thus a figure including a space between three lines, is the real as well as nominal essence of a triangle."--Locke's Essay, p. 303. "We must distinguish between an imperfect phrase, a simple sentence, and a compound sentence."--Lowth's Gram., p. 117; Murray's, i, 267; Ingersoll's, 280; Guy's, 97. "The Jews are strictly forbidden by their law, to exercise usury among one another."--Sale's Koran, p. 177. "All the writers have distinguished themselves among one another."--Addison. "This expression also better secures the systematic uniformity between the three cases."--Nutting's Gram., p. 98. "When a disjunctive occurs between two or more Infinitive Modes, or clauses, the verb must be singular."-- Jaudon's Gram., p. 95. "Several nouns or pronouns together in the same case, not united by and, require a comma between each."--Blair's Gram., p. 115. "The difference between the several vowels is produced by opening the mouth differently, and placing the tongue in a different manner for each."--Churchill's Gram., p. 2. "Thus feet composed of syllables, being pronounced with a sensible interval between each, make a more lively impression than can be made by a continued sound."--Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. ii, p. 32. "The superlative degree implies a comparison between three or more."--Smith's Productive Gram., p. 51. "They are used to mark a distinction between several objects."--Levizac's Gram., p. 85.

UNDER NOTE III.--OMISSION OF PREPOSITIONS.

"This would have been less worthy notice."--Churchill's Gram., p. 197. "But I passed it, as a thing unworthy my notice."--Werter. "Which, in compliment to me, perhaps, you may, one day, think worthy your attention."--Bucke's Gram., p. 81. "To think this small present worthy an introduction to the young ladies of your very elegant establishment."-- Ib., p. iv. "There are but a few miles portage."--Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, p. 17. "It is worthy notice, that our mountains are not solitary."--Ib., p. 26. "It is of about one hundred feet diameter."-- Ib., 33. "Entering a hill a quarter or half a mile."--Ib., p. 47. "And herself seems passing to that awful dissolution, whose issue is not given human foresight to scan."--Ib., p. 100. "It was of a spheroidical form, of about forty feet diameter at the base, and had been of about twelve feet altitude."--Ib., p. 143. "Before this it was covered with trees of twelve inches diameter, and round the base was an excavation of five feet depth and width."--Ibid. "Then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill at thine own pleasure."--Deut., xxiii, 24. "Then he brought me back the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary."--Ezekiel, xliv, 1. "They will bless God that he has peopled one half the world with a race of freemen."--Webster's Essays, p. 94. "What use can these words be, till their meaning is known?"--Town's Analysis, p. 7. "The tents of the Arabs now are black, or a very dark colour."--The Friend, Vol. v, p. 265. "They may not be unworthy the attention of young men."--Kirkham's Elocution, p. 157. "The pronoun that is frequently applied to persons, as well as things."-- Merchant's Gram., p. 87. "And who is in the same case that man is."--Sanborn's Gram., p. 148. "He saw a flaming stone, apparently about four feet diameter."--The Friend, vii, 409. "Pliny informs us, that this stone was the size of a cart."--Ibid. "Seneca was about twenty years of age in the fifth year of Tiberius, when the Jews were expelled Rome."--Seneca's Morals, p. 11. "I was prevented[438] reading a letter which would have undeceived me."--Hawkesworth, Adv., No. 54. "If the problem can be solved, we may be pardoned the inaccuracy of its demonstration."--Booth's Introd., p. 25. "The army must of necessity be the school, not of honour, but effeminacy."--Brown's Estimate, i. 65. "Afraid of the virtue of a nation, in its opposing bad measures."--Ib., i, 73. "The uniting them in various ways, so as to form words, would be easy."--Music of Nature, p. 34. "I might be excused taking any more notice of it."--Watson's Apology, p. 65. "Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."--Matt., xxiv, 42. "Here, not even infants were spared the sword."--M'Ilvaine's Lectures, p. 313. "To prevent men turning aside to corrupt modes of worship."--Calvin's Institutes, B. I, Ch. 12, Sec. 1. "God expelled them the Garden of Eden."--Burder's Hist., Vol. i, p. 10. "Nor could he refrain expressing to the senate the agonies of his mind"--Art of Thinking, p. 123. "Who now so strenuously opposes the granting him any new powers."--Duncan's Cicero, p. 127. "That the laws of the censors have banished him the forum."--Ib., p. 140. "We read not that he was degraded his office any other way."--Barclay's Works, iii, 149. "To all whom these presents shall come, Greeting."--Hutchinson's Mass., i, 459. "On the 1st, August, 1834."--British Act for the Abolition of Slavery.

"Whether you had not some time in your life Err'd in this point which now you censure him."--Shak.

UNDER NOTE IV.--OF NEEDLESS PREPOSITIONS.

"And the apostles and elders came together to consider of this matter."--Barclay's Works, i, 481. "And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter."--Acts, xv, 6. "Adjectives in our Language have neither Case, Gender, nor Number; the only Variation they have is by Comparison."--Buchanan's Gram., p. 27. "'It is to you, that I am indebted for this privilege;' that is, 'to you am I indebted;' or, 'It is to you to whom I am indebted.'"--Sanborn's Gram., p. 232. "Books is a noun, of the third person, plural number, of neuter gender,"-- Ingersoll's Gram., p. 15. "Brother's is a common substantive, of the masculine gender, the third person, the singular number, and in the possessive case."--Murray's Gram., i, 229. "Virtue's is a common substantive, of the third person, the singular number, and in the possessive case."--Ib., i, 228. "When the authorities on one side greatly preponderate, it is in vain to oppose the prevailing usage."--Campbell's Rhet., p. 173; Murray's Gram., i, 367. "A captain of a troop of banditti, had a mind to be plundering of Rome."--Collier's Antoninus, p. 51. "And, notwithstanding of its Verbal power, we have added the to and other signs of exertion."--Booth's Introd., p. 28. "Some of these situations are termed CASES, and are expressed by additions to the Noun instead of by separate words."--Ib., p. 33. "Is it such a fast that I have chosen, that a man should afflict his soul for a day, and to bow down his head like a bulrush?"--Bacon's Wisdom, p. 65. "And this first emotion comes at last to be awakened by the accidental, instead of, by the necessary antecedent."--Wayland's Moral Science, p. 17. "At about the same time, the subjugation of the Moors was completed."--Balbi's Geog., p. 269. "God divided between the light and between the darkness."-- Burder's Hist., i, 1. "Notwithstanding of this, we are not against outward significations of honour."--Barclay's Works, i, 242. "Whether these words and practices of Job's friends, be for to be our rule."--Ib., i, 243. "Such verb cannot admit of an objective case after it."--Lowth's Gram., "For which God is now visibly punishing of these Nations."--Right of Tythes, "In this respect, Tasso yields to no poet, except to Homer."--Blair's Rhet., "Notwithstanding of the numerous panegyrics on the ancient English liberty."--HUME: Priestley's Gram., "Their efforts seemed to anticipate on the spirit, which became so general afterwards."--Id., ib., p. 167.

UNDER NOTE V.--THE PLACING OF THE WORDS.

"But how short are my expressions of its excellency!"--Baxter. "There is a remarkable union in his style, of harmony with ease."--Blair's Rhet., "It disposes in the most artificial manner, of the light and shade, for viewing every thing to the best advantage."--"Aristotle too holds an eminent rank among didactic writers for his brevity."--"In an introduction, correctness should be carefully studied in the expression."--"Precision is to be studied, above all things in laying down a method."--"Which shall make the impression on the mind of something that is one, whole and entire."--"At the same time, there are some defects which must be acknowledged in the Odyssey."--"Beauties, however, there are, in the concluding books, of the tragic kind."--"These forms of conversation by degrees multiplied and grew troublesome."--Spectator, No. 119. "When she has made her own choice, for form's sake, she sends a congé-d'-élire to her friends."--"Let us endeavour to establish to ourselves an interest in him who holds the reins of the whole creation in his hand."--"Let us endeavour to establish to ourselves an interest in him, who, in his hand, holds the reins of the whole creation."--Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 53. "The most frequent measure next to this in English poetry is that of eight syllables."--Blair's Gram., "To introduce as great a variety as possible of cadences."--Jamieson's Rhet., "He addressed several exhortations to them suitable to their circumstances."--Murray's Key, ii, "Habits must be acquired of temperance and self-denial."--"In reducing the rules prescribed to practice."--Murray's Gram., "But these parts must be so closely bound together as to make the impression upon the mind, of one object, not of many."--Blair's Rhet., "Errors are sometimes committed by the most distinguished writer, with respect to the use of shall and will"--Butler's Pract. Gram.,

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XI. INTERJECTIONS

Interjections, being seldom any thing more than natural sounds or short words uttered independently, can hardly be said to have any syntax; but since some rule is necessary to show the learner how to dispose of them in parsing, a brief axiom for that purpose, is here added, which completes our series of rules: and, after several remarks on this canon, and on the common treatment of Interjections, this chapter is made to embrace Exercises upon all the other parts of speech, that the chapters in the Key may correspond to those of the Grammar.

RULE XXIV.--INTERJECTIONS.

Interjections have no dependent construction; they are put absolute, either alone, or with other words: as, "O! let not thy heart despise me."--Dr. Johnson. "O cruel thou!"--Pope, Odys., B. xii, l. 333. "Ah wretched we, poets of earth!"--Cowley,

"Ah Dennis! Gildon ah! what ill-starr'd rage Divides a friendship long confirm'd by age?" Pope, Dunciad, B. iii,

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XXIV.

OBS. 1.--To this rule, there are properly no exceptions. Though interjections are sometimes uttered in close connexion with other words, yet, being mere signs of passion or of feeling, they seem not to have any strict grammatical relation, or dependence according to the sense. Being destitute alike of relation, agreement, and government, they must be used independently, if used at all. Yet an emotion signified in this manner, not being causeless, may be accompanied by some object, expressed either by a nominative absolute, or by an adjective after for: as, "Alas! poor Yorick!"--Shak. Here the grief denoted by alas, is certainly for Yorick; as much so, as if the expression were, "Alas for poor Yorick!" But, in either case, alas, I think, has no dependent construction; neither has Yorick, in the former, unless we suppose an ellipsis of some governing word.

OBS. 2.--The interjection O is common to many languages, and is frequently uttered, in token of earnestness, before nouns or pronouns put absolute by direct address; as, "Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand."--Psalms, x, 12. "O ye of little faith!"--Matt., vi, 30. The Latin and Greek grammarians, therefore, made this interjection the sign of the vocative case; which case is the same as the nominative put absolute by address in English. But this particle is no positive index of the vocative; because an independent address may be made without that sign, and the O may be used where there is no address: as, "O scandalous want! O shameful omission!"--"Pray, Sir, don't be uneasy."--Burgh's Speaker, p. 86.

OBS. 3.--Some grammarians ascribe to two or three of our interjections the power of governing sometimes the nominative case, and sometimes the objective. First, NIXON; in an exercise entitled, "NOMINATIVE GOVERNED BY AN INTERJECTION," thus: "The interjections O! Oh! and Ah! require after them the nominative case of a substantive in the second person; as, 'O thou persecutor!'--'O Alexander! thou hast slain thy friend.' O is an interjection, governing the nominative case Alexander."--English Parser, Again, under the title, "OBJECTIVE CASE GOVERNED BY AN INTERJECTION," he says: "The interjections O! Oh! and Ah! require after them the objective case of a substantive in the first or third person; as, 'Oh me!' 'Oh the humiliations!' Oh is an interjection, governing the objective case humiliations."--These two rules are in fact contradictory, while each of them absurdly suggests that O, oh, and ah, are used only with nouns. So J. M. PUTNAM: "Interjections sometimes govern an objective case; as, Ah me! O the tender ties! O the soft enmity! O me miserable! O wretched prince! O cruel reverse of fortune! When an address is made, the interjection does not perform the office of government."--Putnam's Gram., So KIRKHAM; who, under a rule quite different from these, extends the doctrine of government to all interjections: "According to the genius of the English language, transitive verbs and prepositions require the objective case of a noun or pronoun after them; and this requisition is all that is meant by government, when we say that these parts of speech govern the objective case. THE SAME PRINCIPLE APPLIES TO THE INTERJECTION. 'Interjections require the objective case of a pronoun of the first person after them; but the nominative of a noun or pronoun of the second or third person; as, Ah me! Oh thou! O my country!' To say, then, that interjections require particular cases after them, is synonymous with saying, that they govern those cases; and this office of the interjection is in perfect accordance with that which it performs in the Latin, and many other languages."--Kirkham's Gram., According to this, every interjection has as much need of an object after it, as has a transitive verb or a preposition! The rule has, certainly, no "accordance" with what occurs in Latin, or in any other language; it is wholly a fabrication, though found, in some shape or other, in well-nigh all English grammars.

OBS. 4.--L. MURRAY'S doctrine on this point is thus expressed: "The interjections O! Oh! and Ah! require the objective case of a pronoun in the first person after them, as, 'O me! oh me! Ah me!' But the nominative case in the second person: as, 'O thou persecutor!' 'Oh ye hypocrites!' 'O thou, who dwellest,' &c."--Octavo Gram., INGERSOLL copies this most faulty note literally, adding these words to its abrupt end,--i. e., to its inexplicable "&c." used by Murray; "because the first person is governed by a preposition understood: as, 'Ah for me!' or, 'O what will become of me!' &c., and the second person is in the nominative independent, there being a direct address."--Conversations on E. Gram., So we see that this grammarian and Kirkham, both modifiers of Murray, understand their master's false verb "require" very differently. LENNIE too, in renouncing a part of Murray's double or threefold error, "Oh! happy us!" for, "O happy we!" teaches thus: "Interjections sometimes require the objective case after them, but they never govern it. In the first edition of this grammar," says he, "I followed Mr. Murray and others, in leaving we, in the exercises to be turned into us; but that it should be we, and not us, is obvious; because it is the nominative to are understood; thus, Oh happy are we, or, Oh we are happy, (being) surrounded with so many blessings."--Lennie's Gram., Fifth Edition, Twelfth, Here is an other solution of the construction of this pronoun of the first person, contradictory alike to Ingersoll's, to Kirkham's, and to Murray's; while all are wrong, and this among the rest. The word should indeed be we, and not us; because we have both analogy and good authority for the former case, and nothing but the false conceit of sundry grammatists for the latter. But it is a nominative absolute, like any other nominative which we use in the same exclamatory manner. For the first person may just as well be put in the nominative absolute, by exclamation, as any other; as, "Behold I and the children whom God hath given me!"--Heb., "Ecce ego et pueri quos mihi dedit Deus!"--Beza. "O brave we!"--Dr. Johnson, often. So Horace: "O ego lævus," &c.--Ep. ad Pi., 301.

"Ah! luckless I! who purge in spring my spleen-- Else sure the first of bards had Horace been." --Francis's Hor., ii, 209.

OBS. 5.--Whether Murray's remark above, on "O! Oh! and Ah!" was originally designed for a rule of government or not, it is hardly worth any one's while to inquire. It is too lame and inaccurate every way, to deserve any notice, but that which should serve to explode it forever. Yet no few, who have since made English grammars, have copied the text literally; as they have, for the public benefit, stolen a thousand other errors from the same quarter. The reader will find it, with little or no change, in Smith's New Grammar, p. 96 and 134; Alger's, 56; Allen's, 117; Russell's, 92; Blair's, 100, Guy's, 89; Abel Flint's, 59; A Teacher's, 43, Picket's, 210; Cooper's[439] Murray, 136; Wilcox's, 95; Bucke's, 87; Emmons's, 77; and probably in others. Lennie varies it indefinitely, thus: "RULE. The interjections Oh! and Ah! &c. generally require the objective case of the first personal pronoun, and the nominative of the second; as, Ah me! O thou fool! O ye hypocrites!"--Lennie's Gram., p. 110; Brace's, 88. M'Culloch, after Crombie, thus: "RULE XX. Interjections are joined with the objective case of the pronoun of the first person, and with the nominative of the pronoun of the second; as, Ah me! O ye hypocrites."--Manual of E. Gram., p. 145; and Crombie's Treatise, p. 315; also Fowler's E. Language, p. 563. Hiley makes it a note, thus: "The interjections. O! Oh! Ah! are followed by the objective case of a pronoun of the first person; as, 'Oh me!' 'Ah me!' but by the nominative case of the pronoun in the second person; as, 'O thou who dwellest.' "--Hiley's Gram., p. 82. This is what the same author elsewhere calls "THE GOVERNMENT OF INTERJECTIONS;" though, like some others, he had set it in the "Syntax of PRONOUNS." See Ib., p. 108. Murray, in forming his own little "Abridgment," omitted it altogether. In his other grammars, it is still a mere note, standing where he at first absurdly put it, under his rule for the agreement of pronouns with their antecedents. By many of his sage amenders, it has been placed in the catalogue of principal rules. But, that it is no adequate rule for interjections, is manifest; for, in its usual form, it is limited to three, and none of these can ever, with any propriety, be parsed by it. Murray himself has not used it in any of his forms of parsing. He conceived, (as I hinted before in Chapter 1st,) that, "The syntax of the Interjection is of so very limited a nature, that it does not require a distinct, appropriate rule."--Octavo Gram., i. 224.

OBS. 6.--Against this remark of Murray's, a good argument may be drawn from the ridiculous use which has been made of his own suggestion in the other place. For, though that suggestion never had in it the least shadow of truth, and was never at all applicable either to the three interjections, or to pronouns, or to cases, or to the persons, or to any thing else of which it speaks, it has not only been often copied literally, and called a "RULE" of syntax, but many have, yet more absurdly, made it a general canon which imposes on all interjections a syntax that belongs to none of them. For example: "An interjection must be followed by the objective case of a pronoun in the first person; and by a nominative of the second person; as--Oh me! ah me! oh thou! AH hail, ye happy men!"--Jaudon's Gram., p. 116. This is as much as to say, that every interjection must have a pronoun or two after it! Again: "Interjections must be followed by the objective case of the pronoun in the first person; as, O me! Ah me! and by the nominative case of the second person; as, O thou persecutor! Oh ye hypocrites!"--Merchant's Murray, p. 80; Merchant's School Gram., p. 99. I imagine there is a difference between O and oh,[440] and that this author, as well as Murray, in the first and the last of these examples, has misapplied them both. Again: "Interjections require the objective case of a pronoun of the first person, and the nominative case of the second; as, Ah me! O thou"--Frost's El. of E. Gram., p. 48. This, too, is general, but equivocal; as if one case or both were necessary to each interjection!

OBS. 7.--Of nouns, or of the third person, the three rules last cited say nothing;[441] though it appears from other evidence, that their authors supposed them applicable at least to some nouns of the second person. The supposition however was quite needless, because each of their grammars contains an other Rule, that, "When an address is made, the noun or pronoun is in the nominative case independent;" which, by the by, is far from being universally true, either of the noun or of the pronoun. Russell imagines, "The words depending upon interjections, have so near a resemblance to those in a direct address, that they may very properly be classed under the same general head," and be parsed as being, "in the nominative case independent." See his "Abridgment of Murray's Grammar," p. 91. He does not perceive that depending and independent are words that contradict each other. Into the same inconsistency, do nearly all those gentlemen fall, who ascribe to interjections a control over cases. Even Kirkham, who so earnestly contends that what any words require after them they must necessarily govern, forgets his whole argument, or justly disbelieves it, whenever he parses any noun that is uttered with an interjection. In short, he applies his principle to nothing but the word me in the phrases, "Ah me!" "Oh me!" and "Me miserable!" and even these he parses falsely. The second person used in the vocative, or the nominative put absolute by direct address, whether an interjection be used or not, he rightly explains as being "in the nominative case independent;" as, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!"--Kirkham's Gram., p. 130. "O maid of Inistore!"--Ib., p. 131. But he is wrong in saying that, "Whenever a noun is of the second person, it is in the nominative case independent;" (Ib., p. 130;) and still more so, in supposing that, "The principle contained in the note" [which tells what interjections require,] "proves that every noun of the second person is in the nominative case."--Ib., p. 164. A falsehood proves nothing but the ignorance or the wickedness of him who utters it. He is wrong too, as well as many others, in supposing that this nominative independent is not a nominative absolute; for, "The vocative is [generally, if not always,] absolute."--W. Allen's Gram., p. 142. But that nouns of the second person are not always absolute or independent, nor always in the nominative case, or the vocative, appears, I think, by the following example: "This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders."--Acts, iv, II. See Obs. 3d on Rule 8th.

OBS. 8.--The third person, when uttered in exclamation, with an interjection before it, is parsed by Kirkham, not as being governed by the interjection, either in the nominative case, according to his own argument and own rule above cited, or in the objective, according to Nixon's notion of the construction; nor yet as being put absolute in the nominative, as I believe it generally, if not always is; but as being "the nominative to a verb understood; as, 'Lo,' there is 'the poor Indian!' '0, the pain' there is! 'the bliss' there is 'IN dying!'"--Kirkham's Gram., p. 129. Pope's text is, "Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!" and, in all that is here changed, the grammarian has perverted it, if not in all that he has added. It is an other principle of Kirkham's Grammar, though a false one, that, "Nouns have but two persons, the second and [the] third."--P. 37. So that, these two being disposed of agreeably to his own methods above, which appear to include the second and third persons of pronouns also, there remains to him nothing but the objective of the pronoun of the first person to which he can suppose his other rule to apply; and I have shown that there is no truth in it, even in regard to this. Yet, with the strongest professions of adhering to the principles, and even to "the language" of Lindley Murray, this gentleman, by copying somebody else in preference to "that eminent philologist," has made himself one of those by whom Murray's erroneous remark on O, oh, and ah, with pronouns of the first and second persons, is not only stretched into a rule for all interjections, but made to include nouns of the second person, and both nouns and pronouns of the third person: as, "Interjections require the objective case of a pronoun of the first person after them, but the nominative of a noun or pronoun of the second or third person; as, 'Ah! me; Oh! thou; O! virtue!'"--Kirkham's Gram., 2d Ed., p. 134; Stereotype Ed., p. 177. See the same rule, with examples and punctuation different, in his Stereotype Edition, p. 164; Comly's Gram., 116; Greenleaf's, 36; and Fisk's, 144. All these authors, except Comly, who comes much nearest to the thing, profess to present to us "Murray's Grammar Simplified;" and this is a sample of their work of simplification!--an ignorant piling of errors on errors!

"O imitatores servum pecus! ut mihi sæpe Bilem, sæpe jocum vestri movêre tumultus!"--Horace.

OBS. 9.--Since so many of our grammarians conceive that interjections require or govern cases, it may be proper to cite some who teach otherwise. "Interjections, in English, have no government."--Lowth's Gram., p. 111. "Interjections have no government, or admit of no construction."--Coar's Gram., p. 189. "Interjections have no connexion with other word's."--Fuller's Gram., p. 71. "The interjection, in a grammatical sense, is totally unconnected with every other word in a sentence. Its arrangement, of course, is altogether arbitrary, and cannot admit of any theory."--Jamieson's Rhet., p. 83. "Interjections cannot properly have either concord or government. They are only mere sounds excited by passion, and have no just connexion with any other part of a sentence. Whatever case, therefore, is joined with them, must depend on some other word understood, except the vocative, which is always placed absolutely."--Adam's Latin Gram., p. 196; Gould's, 193. If this is true of the Latin language, a slight variation will make it as true of ours. "Interjections, and phrases resembling them, are taken absolutely; as, Oh, world, thy slippery turns! But the phrases Oh me! and Ah me! frequently occur."--W. Allen's Gram., p. 188. This passage is, in several respects, wrong; yet the leading idea is true. The author entitles it, "SYNTAX OF INTERJECTIONS," yet absurdly includes in it I know not what phrases! In the phrase, "thy slippery turns!" no word is absolute, or "taken absolutely" but this noun "turns;" and this, without the least hint of its case, the learned author will have us to understand to be absolute, because the phrase resembles an interjection! But the noun "world" which is also absolute, and which still more resembles an interjection, he will have to be so for a different reason--because it is in what he chooses to call the vocative case. But, according to custom, he should rather have put his interjection absolute with the noun, and written it, "O world," and not, "Oh, world." What he meant to do with "Oh me! and Ah me!" is doubtful. If any phrases come fairly under his rule, these are the very ones; and yet he seems to introduce them as exceptions! Of these, it can hardly be said, that they "frequently occur." Lowth notices only the latter, which he supposes elliptical. The former I do not remember to have met with more than three or four times; except in grammars, which in this case are hardly to be called authorities: "Oh! me, how fared it with me then?"--Job Scott. "Oh me! all the horse have got over the river, what shall we do?"--WALTON: Joh. Dict.

"But when he was first seen, oh me! What shrieking and what misery!"--Wordsworth's Works, p. 114.

OBS. 10.--When a declinable word not in the nominative absolute, follows an interjection, as part of an imperfect exclamation, its construction (if the phrase be good English) depends on something understood; as, "Ah me!"--that is, "Ah! pity me;" or, "Ah! it grieves me;" or, as some will have it, (because the expression in Latin is "Hei mihi!") "Ah for me!"--Ingersoll. "Ah! wo is to me."--Lowth. "Ah! sorrow is to me."--Coar. So of "oh me!" for, in these expressions, if not generally, oh and ah are exactly equivalent the one to the other. As for "O me" it is now seldom met with, though Shakspeare has it a few times. From these examples, O. B. Peirce erroneously imagines the "independent case" of the pronoun I to be me, and accordingly parses the word without supposing an ellipsis; but in the plural he makes that case to be we, and not us. So, having found an example of "Ah Him!" which, according to one half of our grammarians, is bad English, he conceives the independent case of he to be him; but in the plural, and in both numbers of the words thou and she, he makes it the nominative, or the same in form as the nominative. So builds he "the temple of Grammatical consistency!"--P. 7. Nixon and Cooper must of course approve of "Ah him!" because they assume that the interjection ah "requires" or "governs" the objective case of the third person. Others must condemn the expression, because they teach that ah requires the nominative case of this person. Thus Greenleaf sets down for false syntax, "O! happy them, surrounded with so many blessings!"--Gram. Simplified, p. 47. Here, undoubtedly, the word should be they; and, by analogy, (if indeed the instances are analogous,) it would seem more proper to say, "Ah he!" the nominative being our only case absolute. But if any will insist that "Ah him!" is good English, they must suppose that him is governed by something understood; as, "Ah! I lament him;" or, "Ah! I mourn for him." And possibly, on this principle, the example referred to may be most correct as it stands, with the pronoun in the objective case: "Ah Him! the first great martyr in this great cause."--D. WEBSTER: Peirce's Gram., p. 199.

OBS. 11.--If we turn to the Latin syntax, to determine by analogy what case is used, or ought to be used, after our English interjections, in stead of finding a "perfect accordance" between that syntax and the rule for which such accordance has been claimed, we see at once an utter repugnance, and that the pretence of their agreement is only a sample of Kirkham's unconscionable pedantry. The rule, in all its modifications, is based on the principle, that the choice of cases depends on the distinction of persons--a principle plainly contrary to the usage of the Latin classics, and altogether untrue. In Latin, some interjections are construed with the nominative, the accusative, or the vocative; some, only with the dative; some, only with the vocative. But, in English, these four cases are all included in two, the nominative and the objective; and, the case independent or absolute being necessarily the nominative, it follows that the objective, if it occur after an interjection, must be the object of something which is capable of governing it. If any disputant, by supposing ellipses, will make objectives of what I call nominatives absolute, so be it; but I insist that interjections, in fact, never "require" or "govern" one case more than an other. So Peirce, and Kirkham, and Ingersoll, with pointed self-contradiction, may continue to make "the independent case," whether vocative or merely exclamatory, the subject of a verb, expressed or understood; but I will content myself with endeavouring to establish a syntax not liable to this sort of objection. In doing this, it is proper to look at all the facts which go to show what is right, or wrong. "Lo, the poor Indian!" is in Latin, "Ecce pauper Indus!" or, "Ecce pauperem Indum!" This use of either the nominative or the accusative after ecce, if it proves any thing concerning the case of the word Indian, proves it doubtful. Some, it seems, pronounce it an objective. Some, like Murray, say nothing about it. Following the analogy of our own language, I refer it to the nominative absolute, because there is nothing to determine it to be otherwise. In the examples. "Heu me miserum! Ah wretch that I am!"--(Grant's Latin Gram., p. 263.) and "Miser ego homo! O wretched man that I am!"--(Rom., vii, 24,) if the word that is a relative pronoun, as I incline to think it is, the case of the nouns wretch and man does not depend on any other words, either expressed or implied. They are therefore nominatives absolute, according to Rule 8th, though the Latin words may be most properly explained on the principle of ellipsis.

OBS. 12.--Of some impenetrable blockhead, Horace, telling how himself was vexed, says: "O te, Bollane, cerebri Felicem! aiebam tacitus."--Lib. i, Sat. ix, 11. Literally: "O thee, Bollanus, happy of brain! said I to myself." That is, "O! I envy thee," &c. This shows that O does not "require the nominative case of the second person" after it, at least, in Latin. Neither does oh or ah: for, if a governing word be suggested, the objective may be proper; as, "Whom did he injure? Ah! thee, my boy?"--or even the possessive; as, "Whose sobs do I hear? Oh! thine, my child?" Kirkham tells us truly, (Gram., p. 126,) that the exclamation "O my" is frequently heard in conversation. These last resemble Lucan's use of the genitive, with an ellipsis of the governing noun: "O miseræ sortis!" i.e., "O [men] of miserable lot!" In short, all the Latin cases as well as all the English, may possibly occur after one or other of the interjections. I have instanced all but the ablative, and the following is literally an example of that, though the word quanto is construed adverbially: "Ah, quanto satius est!"--Ter. And., ii, 1. "Ah, how much better it is!" I have also shown, by good authorities, that the nominative of the first person, both in English and in Latin, may be properly used after those interjections which have been supposed to require or govern the objective. But how far is analogy alone a justification? Is "O thee" good English, because "O te" is good Latin? No: nor is it bad for the reason which our grammarians assign, but because our best writers never use it, and because O is more properly the sign of the vocative. The literal version above should therefore be changed; as, "O Bollanus, thou happy numskull! said I to myself."

OBS. 13--Allen Fisk, "author of Adam's Latin Grammar Simplified," and of "Murray's English Grammar Simplified," sets down for "False Syntax" not only that hackneyed example, "Oh! happy we," &c., but, "O! You, who love iniquity," and, "Ah! you, who hate the light."--Fisk's E. Gram., p. 144. But, to imagine that either you or we is wrong here, is certainly no sing of a great linguist; and his punctuation is very inconsistent both with his own rule of syntax and with common practice. An interjection set off by a comma or an exclamation point, is of course put absolute singly, or by itself. If it is to be read as being put absolute with something else, the separation is improper. One might just as well divide a preposition from its object, as an interjection from the case which it is supposed to govern. Yet we find here not only such a division as Murray sometimes improperly adopted, but in one instance a total separation, with a capital following; as, "O! You, who love iniquity," for, "O you who love iniquity!" or "O ye," &c. If a point be here set between the two pronouns, the speaker accuses all his hearers of loving iniquity; if this point be removed, he addresses only such as do love it. But an interjection and a pronoun, each put absolute singly, one after the other, seem to me not to constitute a very natural exclamation. The last example above should therefore be, "Ah! you hate the light." The first should be written, "O happy we!"

OBS. 14.--In other grammars, too, there are many instances of some of the errors here pointed out. R. C. Smith knows no difference between O and oh; takes "Oh! happy us" to be accurate English; sees no impropriety in separating interjections from the pronouns which he supposes them to "govern;" writes the same examples variously, even on the same page; inserts or omits commas or exclamation points at random; yet makes the latter the means by which interjections are to be known! See his New Gram., pp. 40, 96 and 134. Kirkham, who lays claim to "a new system of punctuation," and also stoutly asserts the governing power of interjections, writes, and rewrites, and finally stereotypes, in one part of his book. "Ah me! Oh thou! O my country!" and in an other, "Ah! me; Oh! thou; O! virtue." See Obs. 3d and Obs. 8th above. From such hands, any thing "new" should be received with caution: this last specimen of his scholarship has more errors than words.

OBS. 15.--Some few of our interjections seem to admit of a connexion with other words by means of a preposition or the conjunction that as, "O to forget her!"--Young. "O for that warning voice!"--Milton. "O that they were wise!"--Deut., xxxii, 29. "O that my people had hearkened unto me!"--Ps., lxxxi, 13, "Alas for Sicily!"--Cowper. "O for a world in principle as chaste As this is gross and selfish!"--Id. "Hurrah for Jackson!"--Newspaper. "A bawd, sir, fy upon him!"--SHAK.: Joh. Dict. "And fy on fortune, mine avowed foe!"--SPENCER: ib. This connexion, however, even if we parse all the words just as they stand, does not give to the interjection itself any dependent construction. It appears indeed to refute Jamieson's assertion, that, "The interjection is totally unconnected with every other word in a sentence;" but I did not quote this passage, with any averment of its accuracy; and, certainly, many nouns which are put absolute themselves, have in like manner a connexion with words that are not put absolute: as, "O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah."--Ps., lxxxiv, 8. But if any will suppose, that in the foregoing examples something else than the interjection must be the antecedent term to the preposition or the conjunction, they may consider the expressions elliptical: though it must be confessed, that much of their vivacity will be lost, when the supposed ellipses are supplied: as, "O! I desire to forget her."--"O! how I long for that warning voice!"--"O! how I wish that they were wise!"--"Alas! I wail for Sicily."--"Hurrah! I shout for Jackson."--"Fy! cry out upon him." Lindley Murray has one example of this kind, and if his punctuation of it is not bad in all his editions, there must be an ellipsis in the expression: "O! for better times."--Octavo Gram., ii, 6; Duodecimo Exercises, p. 10. He also writes it thus: "O. for better times."--Octavo Gram., i, 120; Ingersoll's Gram., p. 47. According to common usage, it should be, "O for better times!"

OBS. 16.--The interjection may be placed at the beginning or the end of a simple sentence, and sometimes between its less intimate parts; but this part of speech is seldom, if ever, allowed to interrupt the connexion of any words which are closely united in sense. Murray's definition of an interjection, as I have elsewhere shown, is faulty, and directly contradicted by his example: "O virtue! how amiable thou art!"--Octavo Gram., i, 28 and 128; ii. 2. This was a favourite sentence with Murray, and he appears to have written it uniformly in this fashion; which, undoubtedly, is altogether right, except that the word "virtue" should have had a capital Vee, because the quality is here personified.

OBS. 17.--Misled by the false notion, that the term interjection is appropriate only to what is "thrown in between the parts of a sentence," and perceiving that this is in fact but rarely the situation of this part of speech, a recent critic, (to whom I should owe some acknowledgements, if he were not wrong in every thing in which he charges me with error,) not only denounces this name as "barbarous," preferring Webster's loose term, "exclamation;" but avers, that, "The words called interjection should never be so used--should always stand alone; as, 'Oh! virtue, how amiable thou art.' 'Oh? Absalom, my son.' G. Brown," continues he, "drags one into the middle of a sentence, where it never belonged; thus, 'This enterprise, alas! will never compensate us for the trouble and expense with which it has been attended.' If G. B. meant the enterprize of studying grammar, in the old theories, his sentiment is very appropriate; but his alas! he should have known enough to have put into the right place:--before the sentence representing the fact that excites the emotion expressed by alas! See on the Chart part 3, of RULE XVII. An exclamation must always precede the phrase or sentence describing the fact that excites the emotion to be expressed by the exclamation; as: Alas! I have alienated my friend! Oh! Glorious hope of bliss secure!"--Oliver B. Peirce's Gram., p. 375. "O Glorious hope of bliss secure!"--Ib., p. 184. "O glorious hope!"--Ib., p. 304.

OBS. 18.--I see no reason to believe, that the class of words which have always, and almost universally, been called interjections, can ever be more conveniently explained under any other name; and, as for the term exclamation, which is preferred also by Cutler, Felton, Spencer, and S. W. Clark, it appears to me much less suitable than the old one, because it is less specific. Any words uttered loudly in the same breath, are an exclamation. This name therefore is too general; it includes other parts of speech than interjections; and it was but a foolish whim in Dr. Webster, to prefer it in his dictionaries. When David "cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!" [442] he uttered two exclamations, but they included all his words. He did not, like my critic above, set off his first word with an interrogation point, or any other point. But, says Peirce, "These words are used in exclaiming, and are what all know them to be, exclamations; as I call them. May I not call them what they are?"--Ibid. Yes, truly. But to exclaim is to cry out, and consequently every outcry is an exclamation; though there are two chances to one, that no interjection at all be used by the bawler. As good an argument, or better, may be framed against every one of this gentleman's professed improvements in grammar; and as for his punctuation and orthography, any reader may be presumed capable of seeing that they are not fit to be proposed as models.

OBS. 19.--I like my position of the word "alas" better than that which Peirce supposes to be its only right place; and, certainly, his rule for the location of words of this sort, as well as his notion that they must stand alone, is as false, as it is new. The obvious misstatement of Lowth, Adam, Gould, Murray, Churchill, Alger, Smith, Guy, Ingersoll, and others, that, "Interjections are words thrown in between the parts of a sentence," I had not only excluded from my grammars, but expressly censured in them. It was not, therefore, to prop any error of the old theorists, that I happened to set one interjection "where" according to this new oracle, "it never belonged." And if any body but he has been practically misled by their mistake, it is not I, but more probably some of the following authors, here cited for his refutation: "I fear, alas! for my life."--Fisk's Gram., p. 89. "I have been occupied, alas! with trifles."--Murray's Gr., Ex. for Parsing, p. 5; Guy's, p. 56. "We eagerly pursue pleasure, but, alas! we often mistake the road."--Smith's New Gram., p. 40, "To-morrow, alas! thou mayest be comfortless!"--Wright's Gram., p. 35. "Time flies, O! how swiftly."--Murray's Gram., i, 226. "My friend, alas! is dead."--J. Flint's Gram., p. 21. "But John, alas! he is very idle."--Merchant's Gram., p. 22. "For pale and wan he was, alas the while!"--SPENSER: Joh. Dict. "But yet, alas! O but yet, alas! our haps be but hard haps."--SYDNEY: ib. "Nay, (what's incredible,) alack! I hardly hear a woman's clack."--SWIFT: ib. "Thus life is spent (oh fie upon't!) In being touch'd, and crying--Don't!"--Cowper, i, 231. "For whom, alas! dost thou prepare The sweets that I was wont to share"--Id., i, 203. "But here, alas! the difference lies."--Id., i. 100. "Their names, alas! in vain reproach an age," &c.--Id., i, 88. "What nature, alas! has denied," &c.--Id., i, 235. "A. Hail Sternhold, then; and Hopkins, hail! B. Amen."--Id., i 25.

"These Fate reserv'd to grace thy reign divine, Foreseen by me, but ah! withheld from mine!"--Pope, Dun., iii, 215.

IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

FALSE SYNTAX PROMISCUOUS. [Fist] [The following examples of bad grammar, being similar in their character to others already exhibited, are to be corrected, by the pupil, according to formules previously given.]

LESSON I.--ANY PARTS OF SPEECH.

"Such an one I believe yours will be proved to be."--PEET: Farnum's Gram., p. 1. "Of the distinction between the imperfect and the perfect tenses, it may be observed," &c.--Ainsworth's Gram., p. 122. "The subject is certainly worthy consideration."--Ib., p. 117. "By this means all ambiguity and controversy is avoided on this point."--Bullions, Principles of Eng. Gram., 5th Ed., Pref., p. vi. "The perfect participle in English has both an active and passive signification."--Ib., p. 58. "The old house is at length fallen down."--Ib., p. 78. "The king, with the lords and commons, constitute the English form of government."--Ib., p. 93. "The verb in the singular agrees with the person next it."--Ib., p. 95. "Jane found Seth's gloves in James' hat."--Felton's Gram., p. 15. "Charles' task is too great."--Ibid., 15. "The conjugation of a verb is the naming, in regular order, its several modes tenses, numbers and persons."--Ib., p. 24. "The long remembered beggar was his guest."--Ib., 1st Ed., p. 65. "Participles refer to nouns and pronouns."--Ib., p. 81. "F has an uniform sound in every position except in of."--Hallock's Gram., 1st Ed., p. 15. "There are three genders; the masculine, the feminine and neuter."--Ib., p. 43. "When so that occur together, sometimes the particle so is taken as an adverb."--Ib., p. 124. "The definition of the articles show that they modify the words to which they belong."--Ib., p. 138. "The auxiliaries shall, will, or should is implied."--Ib., p. 192. "Single rhyme trochaic omits the final short syllable."--Ib., p. 244. "Agreeable to this, we read of names being blotted out of God's book,"--BURDER: ib., p. 156; Webster's Philos. Gram., 155; Improved Gram., 107. "The first person is the person speaking."--Goldsbury's Common School Gram., p. 10. "Accent is the laying a peculiar stress of the voice on a certain letter or syllable in a word."--Ib., Ed. of 1842, p. 75. "Thomas' horse was caught."--Felton's Gram., p. 64. "You was loved."--Ib., p. 45. "The nominative and objective end the same."--Rev. T. Smith's Gram., p. 18. "The number of pronouns, like those of substantives, are two, the singular and the plural."--Ib., p. 22. "I is called the pronoun of the first person, which is the person speaking."--Frost's Practical Gram., p. 32. "The essential elements of the phrase is an intransitive gerundive and an adjective."--Hazen's Practical Gram., p. 141. "Being rich is no justification for such impudence."--Ib., p. 141. "His having been a soldier in the revolution is not doubted."--Ib., p. 143. "Catching fish is the chief employment of the inhabitants. The chief employment of the inhabitants is catching fish."--Ib., p. 144. "The cold weather did not prevent the work's being finished at the time specified."--Ib., p. 145. "The former viciousness of that man caused his being suspected of this crime."--Ib., p. 145. "But person and number applied to verbs means, certain terminations."--Barrett's Gram., p. 69. "Robert fell a tree."--Ib., p. 64. "Charles raised up."--Ib., p. 64. "It might not be an useless waste of time."--Ib., p. 42. "Neither will you have that implicit faith in the writings and works of others which characterise the vulgar,"--Ib., p. 5. "I, is the first person, because it denotes the speaker."--Ib., p. 46. "I would refer the student to Hedges' or Watts' Logic."--Ib., p. 15. "Hedge's, Watt's, Kirwin's, and Collard's Logic."--Parker and Fox's Gram., Part III, p. 116. "Letters are called vowels which make a full and perfect sound of themselves."--Cutler's Gram., p. 10. "It has both a singular and plural construction."--Ib., p. 23. "For he beholdest thy beams no more."--Ib., p. 136. "To this sentiment the Committee has the candour to incline, as it will appear by their summing up."--Macpherson's Ossian, Prelim. Disc., p. xviii. "This is reducing the point at issue to a narrow compass."--Ib., p. xxv. "Since the English sat foot upon the soil."--Exiles of Nova Scotia, p. 12. "The arrangement of its different parts are easily retained by the memory."--Hiley's Gram., 3d Ed., p. 262. "The words employed are the most appropriate which could have been selected."--Ib., p. 182. "To prevent it launching!"--Ib., p. 135. "Webster has been followed in preference to others, where it differs from them."--Frazee's Gram., p. 8. "Exclamation and Interrogation are often mistaken for one another."--Buchanan's E. Syntax, p. 160. "When all nature is hushed in sleep, and neither love nor guilt keep their vigils."--Felton's Gram., p. 96.

"When all nature's hushed asleep, Nor love, nor guilt, their vigils keep."--Ib., p. 95.

LESSON II.--ANY PARTS OF SPEECH.

"A VERSIFYER and POET are two different Things."--Brightland's Gram., p. 163. "Those Qualities will arise from the well expressing of the Subject."--Ib., p. 165. "Therefore the explanation of network, is taken no notice of here."--Mason's Supplement, p. vii. "When emphasis or pathos are necessary to be expressed."--Humphrey's Punctuation, p. 38. "Whether this mode of punctuation is correct, and whether it be proper to close the sentence with the mark of admiration, may be made a question."--Ib., p. 39. "But not every writer in those days were thus correct."--Ib., p. 59. "The sounds of A, in English orthoepy, are no less than four."--Ib., p. 69. "Our present code of rules are thought to be generally correct."-- Ib., p. 70. "To prevent its running into another."--Humphrey's Prosody, p. 7. "Shakespeare, perhaps, the greatest poetical genius which England has produced."--Ib., p. 93. "This I will illustrate by example; but prior to which a few preliminary remarks may be necessary."--Ib., p. 107. "All such are entitled to two accents each, and some of which to two accents nearly equal."--Ib., p. 109. "But some cases of the kind are so plain that no one need to exercise his judgment therein."--Ib., p. 122. "I have forbore to use the word."--Ib., p. 127. "The propositions, 'He may study,' 'He might study,' 'He could study,' affirms an ability or power to study."--Hallock's Gram. of 1842, p. 76. "The divisions of the tenses has occasioned grammarians much trouble and perplexity."--Ib., p. 77. "By adopting a familiar, inductive method of presenting this subject, it may be rendered highly attractive to young learners."--Wells's Sch. Gram., 1st Ed., p. 1; 3d, 9; 113th, 11. "The definitions and rules of different grammarians were carefully compared with each other."--Ib., Preface, p. iii. "So as not wholly to prevent some sounds issuing."--Sheridan's Elements of English, p. 64. "Letters of the Alphabet not yet taken notice of."--Ib., p. 11. "IT is sad, IT is strange, &c., seems to express only that the thing is sad, strange, &c."--The Well-Wishers' Gram., p. 68. "THE WINNING is easier than THE PRESERVING a conquest."--Ib., p. 65. "The United States finds itself the owner of a vast region of country at the West."--Horace Mann in Congress, 1848. "One or more letters placed before a word is a Prefix."--S. W. Clark's Pract. Gram., p. 42. "One or more letters added to a word is a Suffix."--Ib., p. 42. "Two-thirds of my hair has fallen off."--Ib., p. 126. "'Suspecting,' describes 'we,' by expressing, incidentally, an act of 'we.'"--Ib., p. 130. "Daniel's predictions are now being fulfilled."--Ib., p. 136. "His being a scholar, entitles him to respect."--Ib., p. 141. "I doubted his having been a soldier."--Ib., p. 142. "Taking a madman's sword to prevent his doing mischief, cannot be regarded as robbing him."--Ib., p. 129. "I thought it to be him; but it was not him."--Ib., p. 149. "It was not me that you saw."--Ib., p. 149. "Not to know what happened before you was born, is always to be a boy."--Ib., p. 149. "How long was you going? Three days."--Ib., 158. "The qualifying Adjective is placed next the Noun."--Ib., p. 165. "All went but me."--Ib., p. 93. "This is parsing their own language, and not the author's."--Wells's School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 73. "Nouns which denote males, are of the masculine gender."--Ib., p. 49. "Nouns which denote females, are of the feminine gender."--Ib., p. 49. "When a comparison is expressed between more than two objects of the same class, the superlative degree is employed."--Ib., p. 133. "Where d or t go before, the additional letter d or t, in this contracted form, coalesce into one letter with the radical d or t."--Dr. Johnson's Gram., p. 9. "Write words which will show what kind of a house you live in--what kind of a book you hold in your hand--what kind of a day it is."--Weld's Gram., p. 7. "One word or more is often joined to nouns or pronouns to modify their meaning."--Ib., 2d Ed., p. 30. "Good is an adjective; it explains the quality or character of every person or thing to which it is applied."--Ib., p. 33; Abridg., 32. "A great public as well as private advantage arises from every one's devoting himself to that occupation which he prefers, and for which he is specially fitted."--WAYLAND: Wells's Gram., p. 121; Weld's, 180. "There was a chance of his recovering his senses. Not thus: 'There was a chance of him recovering his senses.' MACAULEY."--See Wells's Gram., 1st Ed., p. 121; 113th, 135. "This may be known by its not having any connecting word immediately preceding it."--Weld's Gram., 2d Edition, p. 181. "There are irregular expressions occasionally to be met with, which usage or custom rather than analogy, sanction."--Ib., p. 143. "He added an anecdote of Quinn's relieving Thomson from prison."--Ib., p. 150. "The daily labor of her hands procure for her all that is necessary."--Ib., p. 182. "Its being me, need make no change in your determination."--Hart's Gram., p. 128. "The classification of words into what is called the Parts of Speech."--Weld's Gram., p. 5. "Such licenses may be explained under what is usually termed Figures."--Ib., p. 212.

"Liberal, not lavish, is kind nature's hands."--Ib., p. 196.

"They fall successive and successive live."--Ib., p. 213.

LESSON III.--ANY PARTS OF SPEECH.

"A figure of Etymology is the intentional deviation in the usual form of a word."--Weld's Gram., 2d Edition, p. 213. "A figure of Syntax is the intentional deviation in the usual construction of a word."--Ib., 213. "Synecdoche is putting the name of the whole of anything for a part or a part for the whole."--Ib., 215. "Apostrophe is turning off from the regular course of the subject to address some person or thing."--Ib., 215. "Even young pupils will perform such exercises with surprising interest and facility, and will unconsciously gain, in a little time, more knowledge of the structure of Language than he can acquire by a drilling of several years in the usual routine of parsing."--Ib., Preface, p. iv. "A few Rules of construction are employed in this Part, to guide in the exercise of parsing."--Ibidem. "The name of every person, object, or thing, which can be thought of, or spoken of, is a noun."--Ib., p. 18; Abridged Ed., 19. "A dot, resembling our period, is used between every word, as well as at the close of the verses."--W. Day's Punctuation, p. 16; London, 1847. "Casting types in matrices was invented by Peter Schoeffer, in 1452."--Ib., p. 23. "On perusing it, he said, that, so far from it showing the prisoner's guilt, it positively established his innocence."--Ib., p. 37. "By printing the nominative and verb in Italic letters, the reader will be able to distinguish them at a glance."--Ib., p. 77. "It is well, no doubt, to avoid using unnecessary words."--Ib., p. 99. "Meeting a friend the other day, he said to me, 'Where are you going?'"--Ib., p. 124. "John was first denied apples, then he was promised them, then he was offered them."--Lennie's Gram., 5th Ed., p. 62. "He was denied admission."--Wells's School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 146. "They were offered a pardon."--Pond's Murray, p. 118; Wells, 146. "I was this day shown a new potatoe."--DARWIN: Webster's Philos. Gram., p. 179; Imp. Gram., 128; Frazee's Gram., 153; Weld's, 153. "Nouns or pronouns which denote males are of the masculine gender."--S. S. Greene's Gram., 1st Ed., p. 211. "There are three degrees of comparison--the positive, comparative, and superlative."--Ib., p. 216; First Les., p. 49. "The first two refer to direction; the third, to locality."--Ib., Gr., p. 103. "The following are some of the verbs which take a direct and indirect object."--Ib., p. 62. "I was not aware of his being the judge of the Supreme Court."--Ib., p. 86. "An indirect question may refer to either of the five elements of a declarative sentence."--Ib., p. 123. "I am not sure that he will be present = of his being present."--Ib., p. 169. "We left on Tuesday."--Ib., p. 103. "He left, as he told me, before the arrival of the steamer."--Ib., p. 143. "We told him that he must leave = We told him to leave."--Ib., p. 168. "Because he was unable to persuade the multitude, he left in disgust."--Ib., p. 172. "He left, and took his brother with him."--Ib., p. 254. "This stating, or declaring, or denying any thing, is called the indicative mode, or manner of speaking."--Weld's Gram., 2d Ed., p. 72; Abr. Ed., 59. "This took place at our friend Sir Joshua Reynold's."--Weld's Gram., 2d Ed., p. 150; Imp. Ed., 154. "The manner of a young lady's employing herself usefully in reading will be the subject of another paper."--Ib., 150; or 154. "Very little time is necessary for Johnson's concluding a treaty with the bookseller."--Ib., 150; or 154. "My father is not now sick, but if he was your services would be welcome."--Chandler's Grammar, 1821, p. 54. "When we begin to write or speak, we ought previously to fix in our minds a clear conception of the end to be aimed at."--Blair's Rhetoric, p. 193. "Length of days are in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor."--Bullions's Analytical and Practical Grammar, 1849, p. 59. "The active and passive present express different ideas."--Ib., p. 235. "An Improper Diphthong, or Digraph, is a diphthong in which only one of the vowels are sounded."--Fowler's E. Gram., 8vo, 1850, §115. "The real origin of the words are to be sought in the Latin."--Ib., §120. "What sort of an alphabet the Gothic languages possess, we know; what sort of alphabet they require, we can determine."--Ib., §127. "The Runic Alphabet whether borrowed or invented by the early Goths, is of greater antiquity than either the oldest Teutonic or the Moeso-Gothic Alphabets."--Ib., §129. "Common to the Masculine and the Neuter Genders."--Ib., §222. "In the Anglo-Saxon his was common to both the Masculine and Neuter Genders."--Ib., §222. "When time, number, or dimension are specified, the adjective follows the substantive."--Ib., §459. "Nor pain, nor grief, nor anxious fear Invade thy bounds."--Ib., §563. "To Brighton the Pavilion lends a lath and plaster grace."--Ib., §590. "From this consideration nouns have been given but one person, the THIRD."--D. C. Allen's Grammatic Guide, p. 10.

"For it seems to guard and cherish Even the wayward dreamer--I."--Home Journal.

EXAMPLES FOR PARSING.

PRAXIS XIII.--SYNTACTICAL.

In the following Lessons, are exemplified most of the Exceptions, some of the Notes, and many of the Observations, under the preceding Rules of Syntax; to which Exceptions, Notes, or Observations, the learner may recur, for an explanation of whatsoever is difficult in the parsing, or peculiar in the construction, of these examples or others.

LESSON I.--PROSE.

"The higher a bird flies, the more out of danger he is; and the higher a Christian soars above the world, the safer are his comforts."--Sparke.

"In this point of view, and with this explanation, it is supposed by some grammarians, that our language contains a few Impersonal Verbs; that is, verbs which declare the existence of some action or state, but which do not refer to any animate being, or any determinate particluar subject."--L. Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 109.

"Thus in England and France, a great landholder possesses a hundred times the property that is necessary for the subsistence of a family; and each landlord has perhaps a hundred families dependent on him for subsistence."--Webster's Essays, p. 87.

"It is as possible to become pedantick by fear of pedantry, as to be troublesome by ill timed civility."--Johnson's Rambler, No. 173.

"To commence author, is to claim praise; and no man can justly aspire to honour, but at the hazard of disgrace."--Ib., No. 93.

"For ministers to be silent in the cause of Christ, is to renounce it; and to fly is to desert it."--SOUTH: Crabb's Synonymes, p. 7.

"Such instances shew how much the sublime depends upon a just selection of circumstances; and with how great care every circumstance must be avoided, which by bordering in the least upon the mean, or even upon the gay or the trifling, alters the tone of the emotion."--Blair's Rhet., p. 43.

"This great poet and philosopher, the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth, and that he lost himself in the thought instead of finding an end to it."--Addison. "Odin, which in Anglo-Saxon was Woden, was the supreme god of the Goths, answering to the Jupiter of the Greeks."--Webster's Essays, p. 262.

"Because confidence, that charm and cement of intimacy, is wholly wanting in the intercourse."--Opie, on Lying, p. 146.

"Objects of hearing may be compared together, as also of taste, of smell, and of touch: but the chief fund of comparison are objects of sight."--Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. ii, p. 136.

"The various relations of the various Objects exhibited by this (I mean relations of near and distant, present and absent, same and different, definite and indefinite, &c.) made it necessary that here there should not be one, but many Pronouns, such as He, This, That, Other, Any, Some, &c."--Harris's Hermes, p. 72.

"Mr. Pope's Ethical Epistles deserve to be mentioned with signal honour, as a model, next to perfect, of this kind of poetry."--Blair's Rhet., p. 402.

"The knowledge of why they so exist, must be the last act of favour which time and toil will bestow."--Rush, on the Voice, p. 253.

"It is unbelief, and not faith, that sinks the sinner into despondency.--Christianity disowns such characters."--Fuller, on the Gospel, p. 141.

"That God created the universe, [and] that men are accountable for their actions, are frequently mentioned by logicians, as instances of the mind judging."

LESSON II.--PROSE.

"To censure works, not men, is the just prerogative of criticism, and accordingly all personal censure is here avoided, unless where necessary to illustrate some general proposition."--Kames, El. of Crit., Introduction, p. 27.

"There remains to show by examples the manner of treating subjects, so as to give them a ridiculous appearance."--Ib., Vol. i, p. 303.

"The making of poetry, like any other handicraft, may be learned by industry."--Macpherson's Preface to Ossian, p. xiv.

"Whatever is found more strange or beautiful than was expected, is judged to be more strange or beautiful than it is in reality."--Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. i, p. 243.

"Thus the body of an animal, and of a plant, are composed of certain great vessels; these[,] of smaller; and these again[,] of still smaller, without end, as far as we can discover."--Id., ib., p. 270.

"This cause of beauty, is too extensive to be handled as a branch of any other subject: for to ascertain with accuracy even the proper meaning of words, not to talk of their figurative power, would require a large volume; an useful work indeed, but not to be attempted without a large stock of time, study, and reflection."--Id., Vol. ii, p. 16.

"O the hourly dangers that we here walk in! Every sense, and member, is a snare; every creature, and every duty, is a snare to us."--Baxter, Saints's Rest.

"For a man to give his opinion of what he sees but in part, is an unjustifiable piece of rashness and folly."--Addison.

"That the sentiments thus prevalent among the early Jews respecting the divine authority of the Old Testament were correct, appears from the testimony of Jesus Christ and his apostles."--Gurney's Essays, p. 69.

"So in Society we are not our own, but Christ's, and the church's, to good works and services, yet all in love."--Barclay's Works, Vol. i, p. 84.

"He [Dr. Johnson] sat up in his bed, clapped his hands, and cried, 'O brave we!'--a peculiar exclamation of his when he rejoices."-- Boswell's Life of Johnson, Vol. iii, p. 56.

"Single, double, and treble emphasis are nothing but examples of antithesis."--Knowles's Elocutionist, p. xxviii.

"The curious thing, and what, I would almost say, settles the point, is, that we do Horace no service, even according to our view of the matter, by rejecting the scholiast's explanation. No two eggs can be more like each other than Horace's Malthinus and Seneca's Mecenas."-- Philological Museum, Vol. i, p. 477. "Acting, conduct, behaviour, abstracted from all regard to what is, in fact and event, the consequence of it, is itself the natural object of this moral discernment, as speculative truth and [say or] falsehood is of speculative reason."--Butler's Analogy, p. 277.

"To do what is right, with unperverted faculties, is ten times easier than to undo what is wrong."--Porter's Analysis, p. 37.

"Some natures the more pains a man takes to reclaim them, the worse they are."--L'ESTRANGE: Johnson's Dict., w. Pains.

"Says John Milton, in that impassioned speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, where every word leaps with intellectual life, 'Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden upon the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life!'"--Louisville Examiner, June, 1850.

LESSON III.--PROSE.

"The philosopher, the saint, or the hero--the wise, the good, or the great man--very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred and brought to light."--Addison.

"The year before, he had so used the matter, that what by force, what by policy, he had taken from the Christians above thirty small castles."--Knolles.

"It is an important truth, that religion, vital religion, the religion of the heart, is the most powerful auxiliary of reason, in waging war with the passions, and promoting that sweet composure which constitutes the peace of God."--Murray's Key, p. 181.

"Pray, sir, be pleased to take the part of us beauties and fortunes into your consideration, and do not let us be flattered out of our senses. Tell people that we fair ones expect honest plain answers, as well as other folks."--Spectator, No. 534. "Unhappy it would be for us, did not uniformity prevail in morals: that our actions should uniformly be directed to what is good and against what is ill, is the greatest blessing in society; and in order to uniformity of action, uniformity of sentiment is indispensable."--Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. ii, p. 366.

"Thus the pleasure of all the senses is the same in all, high and low, learned and unlearned."--Burke, on Taste, p. 39.

"Upwards of eight millions of acres have, I believe, been thus disposed of."--Society in America, Vol. i, p. 333.

"The Latin Grammar comes something nearer, but yet does not hit the mark neither."--Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 281.

"Of the like nature is the following inaccuracy of Dean Swift's."--Blair's Rhet., p. 105. "Thus, Sir, I have given you my own opinion, relating to this weighty affair, as well as that of a great majority of both houses here."--Ib.

"A foot is just twelve times as long as an inch; and an hour is sixty times the length of a minute."--Murray's Gram., p. 48.

"What can we expect, who come a gleaning, not after the first reapers, but after the very beggars?"--Cowley's Pref. to Poems, p. x.

"In our Lord's being betrayed into the hands of the chief-priests and scribes, by Judas Iscariot; in his being by them delivered to the Gentiles; in his being mocked, scourged, spitted on, [say spit upon,] and crucified; and in his rising from the dead after three days; there was much that was singular, complicated, and not to be easily calculated on before hand."--Gurney's Essays, p. 40.

"To be morose, implacable, inexorable, and revengeful, is one of the greatest degeneracies of human nature."--Dr. J. Owen.

"Now, says he, if tragedy, which is in its nature grand and lofty, will not admit of this, who can forbear laughing to hear the historian Gorgias Leontinus styling Xerxes, that cowardly Persian king, Jupiter; and vultures, living sepulchres?"--Holmes's Rhetoric?, Part II, p. 14.

"O let thy all-seeing eye, and not the eye of the world, be the star to steer my course by; and let thy blessed favour, more than the liking of any sinful men, be ever my study and delight."--Jenks's Prayers, p. 156.

LESSON IV.--PROSE.

"O the Hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a way-faring man, that turneth aside to tarry for a night?"--Jeremiah, xiv, 8.

"When once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved."--1 Peter, iii, 20.

"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other."--Psalms, lxxxv, 10.

"But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."--Matt., xv, 9.

"Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon the earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?"--Job, xx, 4, 5.

"For now we see through a glass darkly; but then, face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."--1 Cor., xiii, 12.

"For then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem: and Jeremiah the Prophet was shut up in the court of the prison which was in the king of Judah's house."--Jer., xxxii, 2.

"For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in prison, for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife."--Matt., xiv, 3.

"And now I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding, of Huram my father's, the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan."--2 Chron., ii, 13.

"Bring no more vain oblations: incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with: it is iniquity even the solemn meeting."--Isaiah, i, 13.

"For I have heard the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers."--Jer., iv, 31.

"She saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity."--Ezekiel, xxiii, 15.

"And on them was written according to all the words which the Lord spake with you in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly."--Deut., ix, 10.

"And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it."--Mark, vii, 36.

"The results which God has connected with actions, will inevitably occur, all the created power in the universe to the contrary notwithstanding."--Wayland's Moral Science, p. 5.

"Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord? If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you; for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord."--1 Cor., ix, 1, 2.

"Not to insist upon this, it is evident, that formality is a term of general import. It implies, that in religious exercises of all kinds the outward and [the] inward man are at diametrical variance."--Chapman's Sermons to Presbyterians, p. 354.

LESSON V.--VERSE.

"See the sole bliss Heaven could on all bestow, Which who but feels, can taste, but thinks, can know; Yet, poor with fortune, and with learning blind, The bad must miss, the good, untaught, will find."--Pope.

"There are, who, deaf to mad Ambition's call, Would shrink to hear th' obstreperous trump of fame; Supremely blest, if to their portion fall Health, competence, and peace."--Beattie.

"High stations tumult, but not bliss, create; None think the great unhappy, but the great. Fools gaze and envy: envy darts a sting, Which makes a swain as wretched as a king."--Young.

"Lo, earth receives him from the bending skies! Sink down, ye mountains; and, ye valleys, rise; With heads declin'd, ye cedars, homage pay; Be smooth, ye rocks; ye rapid floods, give way."--Pope.

"Amid the forms which this full world presents Like rivals to his choice, what human breast E'er doubts, before the transient and minute, To prize the vast, the stable, and sublime?"--Akenside.

"Now fears in dire vicissitude invade; The rustling brake alarms, and quiv'ring shade: Nor light nor darkness brings his pain relief; One shows the plunder, and one hides the thief."--Johnson.

"If Merab's choice could have complied with mine, Merab, my elder comfort, had been thine: And hers, at last, should have with mine complied, Had I not thine and Michael's heart descried."--Cowley.

"The people have as much a negative voice To hinder making war without their choice, As kings of making laws in parliament: 'No money' is as good as 'No assent.'"--Butler.

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."--Gray.

"Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind, The lover and the love of human kind, Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear, Because he wants a thousand pounds a year."--Pope.

"O Freedom! sovereign boon of Heav'n, Great charter, with our being given; For which the patriot and the sage Have plann'd, have bled thro' ev'ry age!"--Mallet.

LESSON VI.--VERSE.

"Am I to set my life upon a throw, Because a bear is rude and surly? No."--Cowper.

"Poor, guiltless I! and can I choose but smile, When every coxcomb knows me by my style?"--Pope.

"Remote from man, with God he pass'd his days, Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise."--Parnell.

"These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power; Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain."--Thomson.

"What ho! thou genius of the clime, what ho! Liest thou asleep beneath these hills of snow?"--Dryden.

"What! canst thou not forbear me half an hour? Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself."--Shak.

"Then palaces and lofty domes arose; These for devotion, and for pleasure those."--Blackmore.

"'Tis very dangerous, tampering with a muse; The profit's small, and you have much to lose."--Roscommon.

"Lucretius English'd! 't was a work might shake The power of English verse to undertake."--Otway.

"The best may slip, and the most cautious fall; He's more than mortal, that ne'er err'd at all."--Pomfret.

"Poets large souls heaven's noblest stamps do bear, Poets, the watchful angels' darling care."--Stepney.

"Sorrow breaks reasons, and reposing hours; Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night."--Shak.

"Nor then the solemn nightingale ceas'd warbling."--Milton.

"And O, poor hapless nightingale, thought I, How sweet thou singst, how near the deadly snare!"--Id.

"He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend Blows mildew from between his shrivell'd lips."--Cowper.

"If o'er their lives a refluent glance they cast, Theirs is the present who can praise the past."--Shenstone.

"Who wickedly is wise, or madly _brave, Is but the more_ a fool, the more a knave."--Pope.

"Great eldest-born of Dullness, blind and bold! Tyrant! more cruel than Procrustes old; Who, to his iron bed, by torture, fits, Their nobler part, the souls of suffering wits."--Mallet.

"Parthenia, rise.--What voice alarms my ear? Away. Approach not. Hah! Alexis there!"--Gay.

"Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find A country with--ay, or without mankind."--Byron.

"A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, No dangers fright him, and no labours tire."--Johnson.

"Now pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines, And luxury with sighs her slave resigns."--Id.

"Seems? madam; nay, it is: I know not seems-- For I have that within which passes show."--Hamlet.

"Return? said Hector, fir'd with stern disdain: What! coop whole armies in our walls again?"--Pope.

"He whom the fortune of the field shall cast From forth his chariot, mount the next in haste."--Id.

"Yet here, Laertes? aboard, aboard, for shame!"--Shak.

"Justice, most gracious Duke; O grant me justice!"--Id.

"But what a vengeance makes thee fly From me too, as thine enemy?"--Butler.

"Immortal Peter! first of monarchs! He His stubborn country tam'd, her rocks, her fens, Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons."--Thomson.

"O arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble, Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail, Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket, thou:-- Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread! Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant; Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard, As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st." SHAK.: Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, Sc 3.

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