11. The second cause of failure was the burning of Moscow.

11. The second cause of failure was the burning of Moscow.

12. He spread his blessings all over the land.

13. The only means of ascending was by my hands.

14. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem.

15. The exertion left me in a state of languor and sinking.

16. Thackeray did not, like Sir Walter Scott, write twenty pages without stopping, but, dictating from his chair, he gave out sentence by sentence, slowly.

HOW TO PARSE VERBS AND VERBALS.

I. VERBS.

275. In parsing verbs, give the following points:--

(1) Class: (_a_) as to _form_,--strong or weak, giving principal parts; (_b_) as to _use_,--transitive or intransitive.

(2) Voice,--active or passive.

(3) Mood,--indicative, subjunctive, or imperative.

(4) Tense,--which of the tenses given in Sec. 234.

(5) Person and number, in determining which you must tell--

(6) What the subject is, for the form of the verb may not show the person and number.

[Sidenote: _Caution._]

276. It has been intimated in Sec. 235, we must beware of the rule, "A verb agrees with its subject in person and number." Sometimes it does; usually it does not, if _agrees_ means that the verb changes its form for the different persons and numbers. The verb _be_ has more forms than other verbs, and may be said to _agree_ with its subject in several of its forms. But unless the verb is present, and ends in _-s_, or is an old or poetic form ending in _-st_ or _-eth_, it is best for the student not to state it as a general rule that "the verb agrees with its subject in person and number," but merely to _tell what the subject of the verb is_.