The Grammar of English Grammars · Part 75

[138] Here the lexicographer forgets his false etymology of a before the participle, and writes the words separately, as the generality of authors always have done. A was used as a preposition long before the article a appeared in the language; and I doubt whether there is any truth at all in the common notions of its origin. Webster says, "In the words abed, ashore, &c., and before the participles acoming, agoing, ashooting, [he should have said, 'and before participles; as, a coming, a going, a shooting,'] a has been supposed a contraction of on or at. It may be so in some cases; but with the participles, it is sometimes a contraction of the Saxon prefix ge, and sometimes perhaps of the Celtic ag."--Improved Gram., p. 175. See Philos. Gram., p. 244. What admirable learning is this! A, forsooth, is a contraction of ge! And this is the doctor's reason for joining it to the participle!

[139] The following construction may he considered an archaism, or a form of expression that is now obsolete: "You have bestowed a many of kindnesses upon me."--Walker's English Particles, p. 278.

[140] "If I or we is set before a name, it [the name] is of the first person: as, I, N-- N--, declare; we, N-- and M-- do promise."--Ward's Gram., p. 83. "Nouns which relate to the person or persons speaking, are said to be of the first person; as, I, William, speak to you."--Fowle's Common School Gram., Part ii, p. 22. The first person of nouns is admitted by Ainsworth, R. W. Bailey, Barnard, Brightland, J. H. Brown, Bullions, Butler, Cardell, Chandler, S. W. Clark, Cooper, Day, Emmons, Farnum, Felton, Fisk, John Flint, Fowle, Frazee, Gilbert, Goldsbury, R. G. Greene, S. S. Greene, Hall, Hallock, Hamlin, Hart, Hendrick, Hiley, Perley, Picket, Pinneo, Russell, Sanborn, Sanders, Smart, R. C. Smith, Spear, Weld, Wells, Wilcox, and others. It is denied, either expressly or virtually, by Alger, Bacon, Comly, Davis, Dilworth, Greenleaf, Guy, Hazen, Ingersoll, Jaudon, Kirkham, Latham, L. Murray, Maltby, Merchant, Miller, Nutting, Parkhurst, S. Putnam, Rev. T. Smith, and others. Among the grammarians who do not appear to have noticed the persons of nouns at all, are Alden, W. Allen, D. C. Allen, Ash, Bicknell, Bingham, Blair, Buchanan, Bucke, Burn, Burr, Churchill, Coar, Cobb, Dalton, Dearborn, Abel Flint, R. W. Green, Harrison, Johnson, Lennie, Lowth, Mennye, Mulligan, Priestley, Staniford, Ware, Webber, and Webster.

[141] Prof. S. S. Greene most absurdly and erroneously teaches, that, "When the speaker wishes to represent himself, he cannot use his name, but must use some other word, as, I; [and] when he wishes to represent the hearer, he must use thou or you."--Greene's Elements of E. Gram., 1853, p. xxxiv. The examples given above sufficiently show the falsity of all this.

[142] In shoe and shoes, canoe and canoes, the o is sounded slenderly, like oo; but in doe or does, foe or foes, and the rest of the fourteen nouns above, whether singular or plural, it retains the full sound of its own name, O. Whether the plural of two should be "twoes" as Churchill writes it, or "twos," which is more common, is questionable. According to Dr. Ash and the Spectator, the plural of who, taken substantively, is "whos."--Ash's Gram., p. 131.

[143] There are some singular compounds of the plural word pence, which form their own plurals regularly; as, sixpence, sixpences. "If you do not all show like gilt twopences to me."--SHAKSPEARE. "The sweepstakes of which are to be composed of the disputed difference in the value of two doubtful sixpences."--GOODELL'S LECT.: Liberator. Vol. ix, p. 145.

[144] In the third canto of Lord Byron's Prophecy of Dante, this noun is used in the singular number:--

"And ocean written o'er would not afford Space for the annal, yet it shall go forth."

[145] "They never yet had separated for their daylight beds, without a climax to their orgy, something like the present scene."--The Crock of Gold, p. 13. "And straps never called upon to diminish that long whity-brown interval between shoe and trowser."--Ib., p. 24. "And he gave them victual in abundance."--2 Chron., xi, 23. "Store of victual."--Ib., verse 11.

[146] The noun physic properly signifies medicine, or the science of medicine: in which sense, it seems to have no plural. But Crombie and the others cite one or two instances in which physic and metaphysic are used, not very accurately, in the sense of the singular of physics and metaphysics. Several grammarians also quote some examples in which physics, metaphysics, politics, optics, and other similar names of sciences are used with verbs or pronouns of the singular number; but Dr. Crombie justly says the plural construction of such words, "is more common, and more agreeable to analogy."--On Etym. and Syntax, p. 27.

[147] "Benjamin Franklin, following the occupation of a compositor in a printing-office, at a limited weekly wage," &c.--Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 232. "WAGE, Wages, hire. The singular number is still frequently used, though Dr. Johnson thought it obsolete."--Glossary of Craven. 1828.

[148] Our lexicographers generally treat the word firearms as a close compound that has no singular. But some write it with a hyphen, as fire-arms. In fact the singular is sometimes used, but the way of writing it is unsettled. Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines a carbine as, "a small sort of fire arm;" Webster has it, "a short gun, or fire arm;" Worcester, "a small fire-arm;" Cobb, "a sort of small firearms." Webster uses "fire-arm," in defining "stock."

[149] "But, soon afterwards, he made a glorious amend for his fault, at the battle of Platæa."--Hist. Reader, p. 48.

[150] "There not a dreg of guilt defiles."--Watts's Lyrics, p. 27.

[151] In Young's Night Thoughts, (N. vii, l. 475.) lee, the singular of lees, is found; Churchill says, (Gram., p. 211,) "Prior has used lee, as the singular of lees;" Webster and Bolles have also both forms in their dictionaries:--

"Refine, exalt, throw down their poisonous lee, And make them sparkle in the bowl of bliss."--Young.

[152] "The 'Procrustean bed' has been a myth heretofore; it promises soon to be a shamble and a slaughterhouse in reality."--St. Louis Democrat, 1855.

[153] J. W. Wright remarks, "Some nouns admit of no plural distinctions: as, wine, wood, beer, sugar, tea, timber, fruit, meat, goodness, happiness, and perhaps all nouns ending in ness."--Philos. Gram., p. 139. If this learned author had been brought up in the woods, and had never read of Murray's "richer wines," or heard of Solomon's "dainty meats,"--never chaffered in the market about sugars and teas, or read in Isaiah that "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags," or avowed, like Timothy, "a good profession before many witnesses,"--he might still have hewed the timbers of some rude cabin, and partaken of the wild fruits which nature affords. If these nine plurals are right, his assertion is nine times wrong, or misapplied by himself seven times in the ten.

[154] "I will not suppose it possible for my dear James to fall into either the company or the language of those persons who talk, and even write, about barleys, wheats, clovers, flours, grasses, and malts."-- Cobbett's E. Gram., p. 29.

[155] "It is a general rule, that all names of things measured or weighed, have no plural; for in them not number, but quantity, is regarded: as, wool, wine, oil. When we speak, however, of different kinds, we use the plural: as, the coarser wools, the richer wines, the finer oils."--Murray's Gram., p. 41.

[156] So pains is the regular plural of pain, and, by Johnson, Webster, and other lexicographers, is recognized only as plural; but Worcester inserts it among his stock words, with a comment, thus: "Pains, n. Labor; work; toil; care; trouble. [Fist] According to the best usage, the word pains, though of plural form, is used in these senses as singular, and is joined with a singular verb; as, 'The pains they had taken was very great.' Clarendon. 'No pains is taken.' Pope. 'Great pains is taken.' Priestley. 'Much pains.' Bolingbroke."--Univ. and Crit. Dict. The multiplication of anomalies of this kind is so undesirable, that nothing short of a very clear decision of Custom, against the use of the regular concord, can well justify the exception. Many such examples may be cited, but are they not examples of false syntax? I incline to think "the best usage" would still make all these verbs plural. Dr. Johnson cites the first example thus: "The pains they had taken were very great. Clarendon."--Quarto Dict., w. Pain. And the following recent example is unquestionably right: "Pains have been taken to collect the information required."--President Fillmore's Message, 1852.

[157] "And the fish that is in the river shall die."--Exod., vii, 18. "And the fish that was in the river died."--Ib., 21. Here the construction is altogether in the singular, and yet the meaning seems to be plural. This construction appears to be more objectionable, than the use of the word fish with a plural verb. The French Bible here corresponds with ours: but the Latin Vulgate, and the Greek Septuagint, have both the noun and the verb in the plural: as, "The fishes that are in the river,"--"The fishes that were," &c. In our Bible, fowl, as well fish, is sometimes plural; and yet both words, in some passages, have the plural form: as, "And fowl that may fly," &c.--Gen., i, 20. "I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea."--Zeph., i, 3.

[158] Some authors, when they give to mere words the construction of plural nouns, are in the habit of writing them in the form of possessives singular; as, "They have of late, 'tis true, reformed, in some measure, the gouty joints and darning work of whereunto's, whereby's, thereof's, therewith's, and the rest of this kind."--Shaftesbury. "Here," says Dr. Crombie, "the genitive singular is improperly used for the objective case plural. It should be, whereuntos, wherebys, thereofs, therewiths."-- Treatise on Etym. and Synt., p. 338. According to our rules, these words should rather be, whereuntoes, wherebies, thereofs, therewiths. "Any word, when used as the name of itself, becomes a noun."--Goodenow's Gram., p. 26. But some grammarians say, "The plural of words, considered as words merely, is formed by the apostrophe and s; as, 'Who, that has any taste, can endure the incessant, quick returns of the also's, and the likewise's, and the moreover's, and the however's, and the notwithstanding's?'--CAMPBELL."--Wells's School Gram., p. 54. Practice is not altogether in favour of this principle, and perhaps it would be better to decide with Crombie that such a use of the apostrophe is improper.

[159] "The Supreme Being (God, [Greek: Theos], Deus, Dieu, &c.) is, in all languages, masculine; in as much as the masculine sex is the superior and more excellent; and as He is the Creator of all, the Father of gods and men."--Harris's Hermes, p. 54. This remark applies to all the direct names of the Deity, but the abstract idea of Deity itself, [Greek: To Theion], Numen, Godhead, or Divinity, is not masculine, but neuter. On this point, some notions have been published for grammar, that are too heterodox to be cited or criticised here. See O. B. Peirce's Gram., p. 208.

[160] That is, we give them sex, if we mean to represent them as persons. In the following example, a character commonly esteemed feminine is represented as neuter, because the author would seem to doubt both the sex and the personality: "I don't know what a witch is, or what it was then."--N. P. Rogers's Writings, p. 154.

[161] There is the same reason for doubling the t in cittess, as for doubling the d in goddess. See Rule 3d for Spelling. Yet Johnson, Todd, Webster, Bolles, Worcester, and others, spell it citess, with one t.

"Cits and citesses raise a joyful strain."--DRYDEN: Joh. Dict.

[162] "But in the English we have no Genders, as has been seen in the foregoing Notes. The same may be said of Cases."--Brightland's Gram., Seventh Edition, Lond., 1746, p. 85.

[163] The Rev. David Blair so palpably contradicts himself in respect to this matter, that I know not which he favours most, two cases or three. In his main text, he adopts no objective, but says: "According to the sense or relation in which nouns are used, they are in the NOMINATIVE or [the] POSSESSIVE CASE, thus, nom. man; poss. man's." To this he adds the following marginal note: "In the English language, the distinction of the objective case is observable only in the pronouns. Cases being nothing but inflections, where inflections do not exist, there can be no grammatical distinction of cases, for the terms inflection and case are perfectly synonymous and convertible. As the English noun has only one change of termination, so no other case is here adopted. The objective case is noticed in the pronouns; and in parsing nouns it is easy to distinguish subjects from objects. A noun which governs the verb may be described as in the nominative case, and one governed by the verb, or following a preposition, as in the objective case."--Blair's Practical Gram., Seventh Edition, London, 1815, p. 11. The terms inflection and case are not practically synonymous, and never were so in the grammars of the language from which they are derived. The man who rejects the objective case of English nouns, because it has not a form peculiar to itself alone, must reject the accusative and the vocative of all neuter nouns in Latin, for the same reason; and the ablative, too, must in general be discarded on the same principle. In some other parts of his book, Blair speaks of the objective case of nouns as familiarly as do other authors!

[164] This author says, "We choose to use the term subjective rather than nominative, because it is shorter, and because it conveys its meaning by its sound, whereas the latter word means, indeed, little or nothing in itself."--Text-Book, p. 88. This appears to me a foolish innovation, too much in the spirit of Oliver B. Peirce, who also adopts it. The person who knows not the meaning of the word nominative, will not be very likely to find out what is meant by subjective; especially as some learned grammarians, even such men as Dr. Crombie and Professor Bullions, often erroneously call the word which is governed by the verb its subject. Besides, if we say subjective and objective, in stead of nominative and objective, we shall inevitably change the accent of both, and give them a pronunciation hitherto unknown to the words.--G. BROWN.

[165] The authorities cited by Felch, for his doctrine of "possessive adnouns," amount to nothing. They are ostensibly two. The first is a remark of Dr. Adam's: "'John's book was formerly written Johnis book. Some have thought the 's a contraction of his, but improperly. Others have imagined, with more justness, that, by the addition of the 's, the substantive is changed into a possessive adjective.'--Adam's Latin and English Grammar, p. 7."--Felch's Comp. Gram., p. 26. Here Dr. Adam by no means concurs with what these "others have imagined;" for, in the very same place, he declares the possessive case of nouns to be their only case. The second is a dogmatical and inconsistent remark of some anonymous writer in some part of the "American Journal of Education," a work respectable indeed, but, on the subject of grammar, too often fantastical and heterodox. Felch thinks it not improper, to use the possessive case before participles; in which situation, it denotes, not the owner of something, but the agent, subject, or recipient, of the action, being, or change. And what a jumble does he make, where he attempts to resolve this ungrammatical construction!--telling us, in almost the same breath, that, "The agent of a nounal verb [i. e. participle] is never expressed," but that, "Sometimes it [the nounal or gerundial verb] is qualified, in its nounal capacity, by a possessive adnoun indicative of its agent as a verb; as, there is nothing like one's BEING useful he doubted their HAVING it:" and then concluding, "Hence it appears, that the present participle may be used as agent or object, and yet retain its character as a verb."--Felch's Comprehensive Gram., p. 81. Alas for the schools, if the wise men of the East receive for grammar such utter confusion, and palpable self-contradiction, as this!

[166] A critic's accuracy is sometimes liable to be brought into doubt, by subsequent alterations of the texts which, he quotes. Many an error cited in this volume of criticism, may possibly not be found in some future edition of the book referred to; as several of those which were pointed out by Lowth, have disappeared from the places named for them. Churchill also cites this line as above; (New Gram., p. 214;) but, in my edition of the Odyssey, by Pope, the reading is this: "By lov'd Telemachus's blooming years!"--Book xi, L 84.

[167] Corpse forms the plural regularly, corpses; as in 2 Kings, xix, 35: "In the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses."

[168] Murray says, "An adjective put without a substantive, with the definite article before it, becomes a substantive in sense and meaning, and is written as a substantive: as, 'Providence rewards the good, and punishes the bad.'" If I understand this, it is very erroneous, and plainly contrary to the fact. I suppose the author to speak of good persons and bad persons; and, if he does, is there not an ellipsis in his language? How can it be said, that good and bad are here substantives, since they have a plural meaning and refuse the plural form? A word "written as a substantive," unquestionably is a substantive; but neither of these is here entitled to that name. Yet Smith, and other satellites of Murray, endorse his doctrine; and say, that good and bad in this example, and all adjectives similarly circumstanced, "may be considered nouns in parsing."--Smith's New Gram., p. 52. "An adjective with the definite article before it, becomes a noun, (of the third person, plural number,) and must be parsed as such."--R. G. Greene's Grammatical Text-Book, p. 55.

[169] Here the word English appears to be used substantively, not by reason of the article, but rather because it has no article; for, when the definite article is used before such a word taken in the singular number, it seems to show that the noun language is understood. And it is remarkable, that before the names or epithets by which we distinguish the languages, this article may, in many instances, be either used or not used, repeated or not repeated, without any apparent impropriety: as, "This is the case with the Hebrew, French, Italian, and Spanish."--Murray's Gram., i, p. 38. Better, perhaps: "This is the case with the Hebrew, the French, the Italian, and the Spanish." But we may say: "This is the case with Hebrew, French, Italian, and Spanish." In the first of these forms, there appears to be an ellipsis of the plural noun languages, at the end of the sentence; in the second, an ellipsis of the singular noun language, after each of the national epithets; in the last, no ellipsis, but rather a substantive use of the words in question.

[170] The Doctor may, for aught I know, have taken his notion of this "noun," from the language "of Dugald Dalgetty, boasting of his '5000 Irishes' in the prison of Argyle." See Letter of Wendell Phillips, in the Liberator, Vol. xi, p. 211.

[171] Lindley Murray, or some ignorant printer of his octavo Grammar, has omitted this s; and thereby spoiled the prosody, if not the sense, of the line:

"Of Sericana, where Chinese drive," &c. --Fourth American Ed., p. 345.

If there was a design to correct the error of Milton's word, something should have been inserted. The common phrase, "the Chinese," would give the sense, and the right number of syllables, but not the right accent. It would be sufficiently analogous with our mode of forming the words, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Scotchmen, Dutchmen, and Irishmen, and perhaps not unpoetical, to say:

"Of Sericana, where Chinese-men drive, With sails and wind, their cany wagons light."

[172] The last six words are perhaps more frequently pronouns; and some writers will have well-nigh all the rest to be pronouns also. "In like manner, in the English, there have been rescued from the adjectives, and classed with the pronouns, any, aught, each, every, many, none, one, other, some, such, that, those, this, these; and by other writers, all, another, both, either, few, first, last, neither, and several."--Wilson's Essay on Gram., p. 106. Had the author said wrested, in stead of "rescued," he would have taught a much better doctrine. These words are what Dr. Lowth correctly called "Pronominal Adjectives."--Lowth's Gram., p. 24. This class of adjectives includes most of the words which Murray, Lennie, Bullions, Kirkham, and others, so absurdly denominate "Adjective Pronouns." Their "Distributive Adjective Pronouns, each, every, either, neither;" their "Demonstrative Adjective Pronouns, this, that, these, those;" and their "Indefinite Adjective Pronouns, some, other, any, one, all, such, &c.," are every one of them here; for they all are Adjectives, and not Pronouns. And it is obvious, that the corresponding words in Latin, Greek, or French, are adjectives likewise, and are, for the most part, so called; so that, from General Grammar, or "the usages of other languages," arises an argument for ranking them as adjectives, rather than as pronouns. But the learned Dr. Bullions, after improperly assuming that every adjective must "express the quality of a noun," and thence arguing that no such definitives can rightly be called adjectives, most absurdly suggests, that "other languages," or "the usages of other languages," generally assign to these English words the place of substitutes! But so remarkable for self-contradiction, as well as other errors, is this gentleman's short note upon the classification of these words, that I shall present the whole of it for the reader's consideration.

"NOTE. The distributives, demonstratives, and indefinites, cannot strictly be called pronouns; since they never stand instead of nouns, but always agree with a noun expressed or understood: Neither can they be properly called adjectives, since they never express the quality of a noun. They are here classed with pronouns, in accordance with the usages of other languages, which generally assign them this place. All these, together with the possessives, in parsing, may with sufficient propriety be termed adjectives, being uniformly regarded as such in syntax."--Bullions's Principles of English Gram., p. 27. (See also his Appendix III, E. Gram., p. 199.)

What a sample of grammatical instruction is here! The pronominal adjectives "cannot properly be called adjectives," but "they may with sufficient propriety be termed adjectives!" And so may "the possessives," or the personal pronouns in the possessive case! "Here," i.e., in Etymology, they are all "classed with pronouns;" but, "in Syntax," they are "uniformly regarded as adjectives!" Precious MODEL for the "Series of Grammars, English, Latin, and Greek, all on THE SAME PLAN!"

[173] Some, for somewhat, or in some degree, appears to me a vulgarism; as, "This pause is generally some longer than that of a period."--Sanborn's Gram., p. 271. The word what seems to have been used adverbially in several different senses; in none of which is it much to be commended: as, "Though I forbear, what am I eased?"--Job, xvi, 6. "What advantageth it me?"--1 Cor., xv, 32. Here what, means in what degree? how much? or wherein? "For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?"--1 Cor., vii, 16. Here how would have been better. "The enemy, having his country wasted, what by himself and what by the soldiers, findeth succour in no place."--Spenser. Here what means partly;--"wasted partly by himself and partly by the soldiers." This use of what was formerly very common, but is now, I think, obsolete. What before an adjective seems sometimes to denote with admiration the degree of the quality; and is called, by some, an adverb; as, "What partial judges are our love and hate!"--Dryden. But here I take what to be an adjective; as when we say, such partial judges, some partial judges, &c. "What need I be forward with Death, that calls not on me?"--Shakspeare. Here what seems to be improperly put in place of why.

[174] Dr. Blair, in his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres, often uses the phrase "this much;" but it is, I think, more common to say "thus much," even when the term is used substantively.

[175] There seems to be no good reason for joining an and other: on the contrary, the phrase an other is always as properly two words, as the phrase the other, and more so. The latter, being long ago vulgarly contracted into t'other, probably gave rise to the apparent contraction another; which many people nowadays are ignorant enough to divide wrong, and mispronounce. See "a-no-ther" in Murray's Spelling-Book, p. 71; and "a-noth-er" in Emerson's, p. 76. An here excludes any other article; and both analogy and consistency require that the words be separated. Their union, like that of the words the and other, has led sometimes to an improper repetition of the article: as, "Another such a man," for, "An other such man."--"Bind my hair up. An 'twas yesterday? No, nor the t'other day."--BEN JONSON: in Joh. Dict. "He can not tell when he should take the tone, and when the tother."--SIR T. MOORE: Tooke's D. P., Vol. 15, p. 448. That is--"when he should take the one and when the other." Besides, the word other is declined, like a noun, and has the plural others; but the compounding of another constrains our grammarians to say, that this word "has no plural." All these difficulties will be removed by writing an other as two words. The printers chiefly rule this matter. To them, therefore, I refer it; with directions, not to unite these words for me, except where it has been done in the manuscript, for the sake of exactness in quotation.--G. BROWN.

[176] This is a misapplication of the word between, which cannot have reference to more than two things or parties: the term should have been among.--G. BROWN.

[177] I suppose that, in a comparison of two, any of the degrees may be accurately employed. The common usage is, to construe the positive with as, the comparative with than, and the superlative with of. But here custom allows us also to use the comparative with of, after the manner of the superlative; as, "This is the better of the two." It was but an odd whim of some old pedant, to find in this a reason for declaring it ungrammatical to say "This is the best of the two." In one grammar, I find the former construction condemned, and the latter approved, thus: "This is the better book of the two. Not correct, because the comparative state of the adjective, (better,) can not correspond with the preposition, of. The definite article, the, is likewise improperly applied to the comparative state; the sentence should stand thus, This is the best book of the two."--Chandler's Gram., Ed. of 1821, p. 130; Ed. of 1847, p. 151.

[178] This example appears to have been borrowed from Campbell; who, however, teaches a different doctrine from Murray, and clearly sustains my position; "Both degrees are in such cases used indiscriminately. We say rightly, either 'This is the weaker of the two,' or--'the weakest of the two.'"--Philosophy of Rhetoric, p. 202. How positively do some other men contradict this! "In comparing two persons or things, by means of an adjective, care must be taken, that the superlative state be not employed: We properly say, 'John is the taller of the two;' but we should not say, 'John is the tallest of the two.' The reason is plain: we compare but two persons, and must therefore use the comparative state."--Wright's Philosophical Gram., p. 143. Rev. Matt. Harrison, too, insists on it, that the superlative must "have reference to more than two," and censures Dr. Johnson for not observing the rule. See Harrison's English Language, p. 255.

[179] L. Murray copied this passage literally, (though anonymously,) as far as the colon; and of course his book teaches us to account "the termination ish, in some sort, a degree of comparison."--Octavo Gram., p. 47. But what is more absurd, than to think of accounting this, or any other suffix, "a degree of comparison?" The inaccuracy of the language is a sufficient proof of the haste with which Johnson adopted this notion, and of the blindness with which he has been followed. The passage is now found in most of our English grammars. Sanborn expresses the doctrine thus: "Adjectives terminating with ish, denote a degree of comparison less than the positive; as, saltish, whitish, blackish."--Analytical Gram., p. 87. But who does not know, that most adjectives of this ending are derived from nouns, and are compared only by adverbs, as childish, foolish, and so forth? Wilcox says, "Words ending in ish, generally express a slight degree; as, reddish, bookish."--Practical Gram., p. 17. But who will suppose that foolish denotes but a slight degree of folly, or bookish but a slight fondness for books? And, with such an interpretation, what must be the meaning of more bookish or most foolish?

[180] "'A rodde shall come furth of the stocke of Jesse.' Primer, Hen. VIII."--Craven Glossary.

[181] Midst is a contraction of the regular superlative middest, used by Spenser, but now obsolete. Midst, also, seems to be obsolete as an adjective, though still frequently used as a noun; as, "In the midst."--Webster. It is often a poetic contraction for the preposition amidst. In some cases it appears to be an adverb. In the following example it is equivalent to middlemost, and therefore an adjective: "Still greatest he the midst, Now dragon grown."--Paradise Lost, B. x, l. 528.

[182] What I here say, accords with the teaching of all our lexicographers and grammarians, except one dauntless critic, who has taken particular pains to put me, and some three or four others, on the defensive. This gentleman not only supposes less and fewer, least and fewest, to be sometimes equivalent in meaning, but actually exhibits them as being also etymologically of the same stock. Less and least, however, he refers to three different positives, and more and most, to four. And since, in once instance, he traces less and more, least and most, to the same primitive word, it follows of course, if he is right, that more is there equivalent to less and most is equivalent to least! The following is a copy of this remarkable "DECLENSION ON INDEFINITE SPECIFYING ADNAMES," and just one half of the table is wrong: "Some, more, most; Some, less, least; Little, less, least; Few, fewer or less, fewest or least; Several, more, most; Much, more, most; Many, more most."--Oliver B Peirce's Gram., p. 144.

[183] Murray himself had the same false notion concerning six of these adjectives, and perhaps all the rest; for his indefinite andsoforths may embrace just what the reader pleases to imagine. Let the following paragraph be compared with the observations and proofs which I shall offer: "Adjectives that have in themselves a superlative signification, do not properly admit of the superlative or [the] comparative form superadded: such as, 'Chief, extreme, perfect, right, universal, supreme,' &c.; which are sometimes improperly written, 'Chiefest, extremest, perfectest, rightest, most universal, most supreme,' &c. The following expressions are therefore improper. 'He sometimes claims admission to the chiefest offices;' 'The quarrel became so universal and national;' 'A method of attaining the rightest and greatest happiness.' The phrases, so perfect, so right, so extreme, so universal, &c., are incorrect; because they imply that one thing is less perfect, less extreme, &c. than another, which is not possible."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, Vol. i, p. 167. For himself, a man may do as he pleases about comparing these adjectives; but whoever corrects others, on such principles as the foregoing, will have work enough on his hands. But the writer who seems to exceed all others, in error on this point, is Joseph W. Wright. In his "Philosophical Grammar," p. 51st, this author gives a list of seventy-two adjectives, which, he says, "admit of no variation of state;" i. e., are not compared. Among them are round, flat, wet, dry, clear, pure, odd, free, plain, fair, chaste, blind, and more than forty others, which are compared about as often as any words in the language. Dr. Blair is hypercritically censured by him, for saying "most excellent," "more false," "the chastest kind," "more perfect" "fuller, more full, fullest, most full, truest and most true;" Murray, for using "quite wrong;" and Cobbett, for the phrase, "perfect correctness." "Correctness," says the critic, "does not admit of degrees of perfection."--Ib., pp. 143 and 151. But what does such a thinker know about correctness? If this excellent quality cannot be perfect, surely nothing can. The words which Dr. Bullions thinks it "improper to compare," because he judges them to have "an absolute or superlative signification," are "true, perfect, universal, chief, extreme, supreme, &c."--no body knows how many. See Principles of E. Gram., p. 19 and p. 115.

[184] The regular comparison of this word, (like, liker, likest,) seems to be obsolete, or nearly so. It is seldom met with, except in old books: yet we say, more like, or most like, less like, or least like. "To say the flock with whom he is, is likest to Christ."--Barclay's Works, Vol. i, p. 180. "Of Godlike pow'r? for likest Gods they seem'd."--Milton, P. L. B. vi, l. 301.

[185] This example, and several others that follow it, are no ordinary solecisms; they are downright Irish bulls, making actions or relations reciprocal, where reciprocity is utterly unimaginable. Two words can no more be "derived from each other," than two living creatures can have received their existence from each other. So, two things can never "succeed each other," except they alternate or move in a circle; and a greater number in train can "follow one an other" only in some imperfect sense, not at all reciprocal. In some instances, therefore, the best form of correction will be, to reject the reciprocal terms altogether--G. BROWN.

[186] This doctrine of punctuation, if not absolutely false in itself, is here very badly taught. When only two words, of any sort, occur in the same construction, they seldom require the comma; and never can they need more than one, whereas these grammarians, by their plural word "commas," suggest a constant demand for two or more.--G. BROWN.

[187] Some grammarians exclude the word it from the list of personal pronouns, because it does not convey the idea of that personality which consists in individual intelligence. On the other hand, they will have who to be a personal pronoun, because it is literally applied to persons only, or intelligent beings. But I judge them to be wrong in respect to both; and, had they given definitions of their several classes of pronouns, they might perhaps have found out that the word it is always personal, in a grammatical sense, and who, either relative or interrogative.

[188] "Whoso and whatso are found in old authors, but are now out of use."--Churchill's Gram., p. 76. These antiquated words are equivalent in import to whosoever and whatsoever. The former, whoso, being used many times in the Bible, and occasionally also by the poets, as by Cowper, Whittier, and others, can hardly be said to be obsolete; though Wells, like Churchill, pronounced it so, in his first edition.

[189] "'The man is prudent which speaks little.' This sentence is incorrect, because which is a pronoun of the neuter gender."--Murray's Exercises, p. 18. "Which is also a relative, but it is of [the] neuter gender. It is also interrogative."--Webster's Improved Gram., p. 26. For oversights like these, I cannot account. The relative which is of all the genders, as every body ought to know, who has ever heard of the horse which Alexander rode, of the ass which spoke to Balaam, or of any of the animals and things which Noah had with him in the ark.

[190] The word which also, when taken in its discriminative sense (i.e. to distinguish some persons or things from others) may have a construction of this sort; and, by ellipsis of the noun after it, it may likewise bear a resemblance to the double relative what: as, "I shall now give you two passages; and request you to point out which words are mono-syllables, which dis-syllables, which tris-syllables, and which poly-syllables."--Bucke's Gram., p. 16. Here, indeed, the word what might be substituted for which; because that also has a discriminative sense. Either would be right; but the author might have presented the same words and thoughts rather more accurately, thus: "I shall now give you two passages; and request you to point out which words are monosyllables; which, dissyllables; which, trissyllables; and which, polysyllables."

[191] The relative what, being equivalent to that which, sometimes has the demonstrative word that set after it, by way of pleonasm; as, "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light, and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops."--Matt., x, 27. In Covell's Digest, this text is presented as "false syntax," under the new and needless rule, "Double relatives always supply two cases."--Digest of E. Gram., p. 143. In my opinion, to strike out the word that, would greatly weaken the expression: and so thought our translators; for no equivalent term is used in the original.

[192] As for Butler's method of parsing these words by always recognizing a noun as being "UNDERSTOOD" before them,--a method by which, according to his publishers notice, "The ordinary unphilosophical explanation of this class of words is discarded, and a simple, intelligible, common-sense view of the matter now for the first time substituted,"--I know not what novelty there is in it, that is not also just so much error. "Compare," says he, "these two sentences: 'I saw whom I wanted to see;' 'I saw what I wanted to see. If what in the latter is equivalent to that which or the thing which, whom, in the former is equivalent to him whom, or the person whom."--Butler's Practical Gram., p. 51. The former example being simply elliptical of the antecedent, he judges the latter to be so too; and infers, "that what is nothing more than a relative pronoun, and includes nothing else."--Ib. This conclusion is not well drawn, because the two examples are not analogous; and whoever thus finds "that what is nothing more than a relative," ought also to find it is something less,--a mere adjective. "I saw the person whom I wanted to see," is a sentence that can scarcely spare the antecedent and retain the sense; "I saw what I wanted to see," is one which cannot receive an antecedent, without changing both the sense and the construction. One may say, "I saw what things I wanted to see;" but this, in stead of giving what an antecedent, makes it an adjective, while it retains the force of a relative. Or he may insert a noun before what, agreeably to the solution of Butler; as, "I saw the things, what I wanted to see:" or, if he please, both before and after; as, "I saw the things, what things I wanted to see." But still, in either case, what is no "simple relative;" for it here seems equivalent to the phrase, so many as. Or, again, he may omit the comma, and say, "I saw the thing what I wanted to see;" but this, if it be not a vulgarism, will only mean, "I saw the thing to be what I wanted to see." So that this method of parsing the pronoun what, is manifestly no improvement, but rather a perversion and misinterpretation.

But, for further proof of his position, Butler adduces instances of what he calls "the relative THAT with the antecedent omitted. A few examples of this," he says, "will help us to ascertain the nature of what. 'We speak that we do know,' Bible. [John, iii, 11.] 'I am that I am.' Bible. [Exod., iii, 14.] 'Eschewe that wicked is.' Gower. 'Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?' Shakespeare. 'Gather the sequel by that went before.' Id. In these examples," continues he, "that is a relative; and is exactly synonymous with what. No one would contend that that stands for itself and its antecedent at the same time. The antecedent is omitted, because it is indefinite, OR EASILY SUPPLIED."--Butler's Practical Gram., p. 52; Bullions's Analytical and Practical Gram., p. 233. Converted at his wisest age, by these false arguments, so as to renounce and gainsay the doctrine taught almost universally, and hitherto spread industriously by himself, in the words of Lennie, that, "What is a compound relative, including both the relative and the antecedent," Dr. Bullions now most absurdly urges, that, "The truth is, what is a simple relative, having, wherever used, like all other relatives, BUT ONE CASE; but * * * that it always refers to a general antecedent, omitted, BUT EASILY SUPPLIED by the mind," though "not UNDERSTOOD, in the ordinary sense of that expression."--Analyt. and Pract. Gram. of 1849, p. 51. Accordingly, though he differs from Butler about this matter of "the ordinary sense," he cites the foregoing suggestions of this author, with the following compliment: "These remarks appear to me just, and conclusive on this point."--Ib., p. 233. But there must, I think, be many to whon they will appear far otherwise. These elliptical uses of that are all of them bad or questionable English; because, the ellipsis being such as may be supplied in two or three different ways, the true construction is doubtful, the true meaning not exactly determined by the words. It is quite as easy and natural to take "that" to be here a demonstrative term, having the relative which understood after it, as to suppose it "a relative," with an antecedent to be supplied before it. Since there would not be the same uncertainty, if what were in these cases substituted for that, it is evident that the terms are not "exactly synonymous;" but, even if they were so, exact synonymy would not evince a sameness of construction.

[193] See this erroneous doctrine in Kirkham's Grammar, p. 112; in Wells's, p. 74; in Sanborn's, p. 71, p. 96, and p. 177; in Cooper's, p. 38; in O. B. Peirce's, p. 70. These writers show a great fondness for this complex mode of parsing. But, in fact, no pronoun, not even the word what, has any double construction of cases from a real or absolute necessity; but merely because, the noun being suppressed, yet having a representative, we choose rather to understand and parse its representative doubly, than to supply the ellipsis. No pronoun includes "both the antecedent and the relative," by virtue of its own composition, or of its own derivation, as a word. No pronoun can properly be called "compound" merely because it has a double construction, and is equivalent to two other words. These positions, if true, as I am sure they are, will refute sundry assertions that are contained in the above-named grammars.

[194] Here the demonstrative word that, as well as the phrase that matter, which I form to explain its construction, unquestionably refers back to Judas's confession, that he had sinned; but still, as the word has not the connecting power of a relative pronoun, its true character is that of an adjective, and not that of a pronoun. This pronominal adjective is very often mixed with some such ellipsis, and that to repeat the import of various kinds of words and phrases: as, "God shall help her, and that right early."--Psal., xlvi, 5. "Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren."--l Cor., vi, 8. "I'll know your business, that I will."--Shakespeare.

[195] Dr. Bullions has undertaken to prove, "That the word AS should not be considered a relative in any circumstances." The force of his five great arguments to this end, the reader may well conceive of, when he has compared the following one with what is shown in the 22d and 23d observations above: "3. As can never be used as a substitute for another relative pronoun, nor another relative pronoun as a substitute for it. If, then, it is a relative pronoun, it is, to say the least, a very unaccommodating one."--Bullions's Analytical and Practical Gram. of 1849, p. 233.

[196] The latter part of this awkward and complex rule was copied from Lowth's Grammar, p. 101. Dr. Ash's rule is, "Pronouns must always agree with the nouns for which they stand, or to which they refer, in Number, person, and gender."--Grammatical Institutes, p. 54. I quote this exactly as it stands in the book: the Italics are his, not mine. Roswell C. Smith appears to be ignorant of the change which Murray made in his fifth rule: for he still publishes as Murray's a principle of concord which the latter rejected as early as 1806: "RULE V. Corresponding with Murray's Grammar, RULE V. Pronouns must agree with the nouns for which they stand, in gender, number, AND PERSON."--Smith's New Gram., p. 130. So Allen Fisk, in his "Murray's English Grammar Simplified," p. 111; Aaron M. Merchant, in his "Abridgment of Murray's English Grammar, Revised, Enlarged and Improved," p. 79; and the Rev. J. G. Cooper, in his "Abridgment of Murray's English Grammar," p. 113; where, from the titles, every reader would expect to find the latest doctrines of Murray, and not what he had so long ago renounced or changed.

[197] L. Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 51; 12mo, 51; 18mo, 22; D. Adams's, 37; Alger's, 21; Bacon's, 19; Fisk's, 20; Kirkham's, 17; Merchant's Murray, 35; Merchant's American Gram., 40; F. H. Miller's Gram., 26; Pond's, 28; S. Putnam's, 22; Russell's, 16; Rev. T. Smith's, 22.

[198] Dr. Crombie, and some others, represent I and thou, with their inflections, as being "masculine and feminine." Lennie, M'Culloch, and others, represent them as being "masculine or feminine." But, if either of them can have an antecedent that is neuter, neither of these views is strictly correct. (See Obs. 5th, above.) Mackintosh says, "We use our, your, their, in speaking of a thing or things belonging to plural nouns of any gender."--Essay on English Gram., p. 149. So William Barnes says, "I, thou, we, ye or you, and they, are of all genders,"-- Philosophical Gram., p. 196.

[199] "It is perfectly plain, then, that my and mine are but different forms of the same word, as are a and an. Mine, for the sake of euphony, or from custom, stands for the possessive case without a noun; but must be changed for my when the noun is expressed: and my, for a similar reason, stands before a noun, but must be changed for mine when the noun is dropped. * * * Mine and my, thine and thy, will, therefore, be considered in this book, as different forms of the possessive case from I and Thou. And the same rule will be extended to her and hers, our and ours, your and yours, their and theirs."--Barnard's Analytic Grammar, p. 142.

[200] It has long been fashionable, in the ordinary intercourse of the world, to substitute the plural form of this pronoun for the singular through all the cases. Thus, by the figure ENALLAGE, "you are," for instance, is commonly put for "thou art." See Observations 20th and 21st, below; also Figures of Syntax, in Part IV.

[201] The original nominative was ye, which is still the only nominative of the solemn style; and the original objective was you, which is still the only objective that our grammarians in general acknowledge. But, whether grammatical or not, ye is now very often used, in a familiar way, for the objective case. (See Observations 22d and 23d, upon the declensions of pronouns.) T. Dilworth gave both cases alike: "Nom. Ye or you;" "Acc. [or Obj.] Ye or you."--His New Guide, p. 98. Latham gives these forms: "Nom. ye or you; Obj. you or ye."--Elementary Gram., p. 90. Dr. Campbell says, "I am inclined to prefer that use which makes ye invariably the nominative plural of the personal pronoun thou, and you the accusative, when applied to an actual plurality."--Philosophy of Rhetoric, p. 174. Professor Fowler touches the case, rather blindly, thus: "Instead of the true nominative YE, we use, with few exceptions, the objective case; as, 'YOU speak;' 'YOU two are speaking.' In this we substitute one case for another."--Fowler's E. Gram., 8vo, 1850, §478. No other grammarian, however, discards you as a nominative of "actual plurality;" and the present casual practice of putting ye in the objective, has prevailed to some extent for at least two centuries: as,

"Your change approaches, when all these delights Will vanish and deliver ye to woe." --Milton, P. L., B. iv, l. 367.

[202] Dr. Young has, in one instance, and with very doubtful propriety, converted this pronoun into the second person, by addressing himself thus:--

"O thou, myself I abroad our counsels roam And, like ill husbands, take no care at home." --Love of Fame, Sat. II, l. 271.

[203] The fashion of using the plural number for the singular, or you for thou, has also substituted yourself for thyself, in common discourse. In poetry, in prayer, in Scripture, and in the familiar language of the Friends, the original compound is still retained; but the poets use either term, according to the gravity or the lightness of their style. But yourself, like the regal compound ourself, though apparently of the singular number, and always applied to one person only, is, in its very nature, an anomalous and ungrammatical word; for it can neither mean more than one, nor agree with a pronoun or a verb that is singular. Swift indeed wrote: "Conversation is but carving; carve for all, yourself is starving." But he wrote erroneously, and his meaning is doubtful: probably he meant, "To carve for all, is, to starve yourself." The compound personals, when they are nominatives before the verb, are commonly associated with the simple; as, "I myself also am a man."--Acts, x, 16. "That thou thyself art a guide."--Rom., ii, 19. "If it stand, as you yourself still do"--Shakspeare. "That you yourself are much condemned."--Id. And, if the simple pronoun be omitted, the compound still requires the same form of the verb; as, "Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell."--Milton. The following example is different: "I love mankind; and in a monarchy myself is all that I can love."--Life of Schiller, Follen's Pref., p. x. Dr. Follen objects to the British version, "Myself were all that I could love;" and, if his own is good English, the verb is agrees with all, and not with myself. Is is of the third person: hence, "myself is" or, "yourself is," cannot be good syntax; nor does any one say, "yourself art," or, "ourself am," but rather, "yourself are:" as, "Captain, yourself are the fittest."--Dryden. But to call this a "concord," is to turn a third part of the language upsidedown; because, by analogy, it confounds, to such extent at least, the plural number with the singular through all our verbs; that is, if ourself and yourself are singulars, and not rather plurals put for singulars by a figure of syntax. But the words are, in some few instances, written separately; and then both the meaning and the construction are different; as, "Your self is sacred, profane it not."--The Dial, Vol. i, p. 86. Perhaps the word myself above ought rather to have been two words; thus, "And, in a monarchy, my self is all that I can love." The two words here differ in person and case, perhaps also in gender; and, in the preceding instance, they differ in person, number, gender, and case. But the compound always follows the person, number, and gender of its first part, and only the case of its last. The notion of some grammarians, (to wit, of Wells, and the sixty-eight others whom he cites for it,) that you and your are actually made singular by usage, is demonstrably untrue. Do we, our, and us, become actually singular, as often as a king or a critic applies them to himself? No: for nothing can be worse syntax than, we am, we was, or you was, though some contend for this last construction.

[204] Whose is sometimes used as the possessive case of which; as, "A religion whose origin is divine."--Blair. See Observations 4th and 5th, on the Classes of Pronouns.

[205] After but, as in the following sentence, the double relative what is sometimes applied to persons; and it is here equivalent to the friend who:--

"Lorenzo, pride repress; nor hope to find A friend, but what has found a friend in thee."--Young.

[206] Of all these compounds. L. Murray very improperly says, "They are seldom used, in modern style."--Octavo Gram., p. 54; also Fisk's, p. 65. None of them are yet obsolete, though the shorter forms seem to be now generally preferred. The following suggestion of Cobbett's is erroneous; because it implies that the shorter forms are innovations and faults; and because the author carelessly speaks of them as one thing only: "We sometimes omit the so, and say, whoever, whomever, whatever, and even whosever. It is a mere abbreviation. The so is understood: and, it is best not to omit to write it."--Eng. Gram., ¶ 209. R. C. Smith dismisses the compound relatives with three lines; and these he closes with the following notion: "They are not often used!"--New Gram., p. 61.

[207] Sanborn, with strange ignorance of the history of those words, teaches thus: "Mine and thine appear to have been formed from my and thy by changing y into i and adding n, and then subjoining e to retain the long sound of the vowel."--Analytical Gram., p. 92. This false notion, as we learn from his guillemets and a remark in his preface, he borrowed from "Parkhurst's Systematic Introduction." Dr. Lowth says, "The Saxon Ic hath the possessive case Min; Thu, possessive Thin; He, possessive His: From which our possessive cases of the same pronouns are taken without alteration."--Lowth's Gram., p. 23.

[208] Latham, with a singularity quite remarkable, reverses this doctrine in respect to the two classes, and says, "My, thy, our, your, her, and their signify possession, because they are possessive cases. * * * Mine, thine, ours, yours, hers, theirs, signify possession for a different reason. They partake of the nature of adjectives, and in all the allied languages are declined as such."--Latham's Elementary E. Gram., p. 94. Weld, like Wells, with a few more whose doctrine will be criticised by-and-by, adopting here an other odd opinion, takes the former class only for forms of the possessive case; the latter he disposes of thus: "Ours, yours, theirs, hers, and generally mine and thine, are POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS, used in either the nominative or objective case,"--Weld's Gram., Improved Ed., p. 68. Not only denying the possessives with ellipsis to be instances of the possessive case, but stupidly mistaking at once two dissimilar things for a third which is totally unlike to either,--i. e., assuming together for substitution both an ellipsis of one word and an equivalence to two--(as some others more learned have very strangely done--) he supposes all this class of pronouns to have forsaken every property of their legitimate roots,--their person, their number, their gender, their case,--and to have assumed other properties, such as belong to "the thing possessed!" In the example, "Your house is on the plain, ours is on the hill," he supposes ours to be of the third person, singular number, neuter gender, and nominative case; and not, as it plainly is, of the first person, plural number, masculine gender, and possessive case. Such parsing should condemn forever any book that teaches it.

[209] This word should have been numerals, for two or three reasons. The author speaks of the numeral adjectives; and to say "the numbers must agree in number with their substantives," is tautological--G. Brown.

[210] Cardell assails the common doctrine of the grammarians on this point, with similar assertions, and still more earnestness. See his Essay on Language, p. 80. The notion that "these pretended possessives [are] uniformly used as nominatives or objectives"--though demonstrably absurd, and confessedly repugnant to what is "usually considered" to be their true explanation--was adopted by Jaudon, in 1812; and has recently found several new advocates; among whom are Davis, Felch, Goodenow, Hazen, Smart, Weld, and Wells. There is, however, much diversity, as well as much inaccuracy, in their several expositions of the matter. Smart inserts in his declensions, as the only forms of the possessive case, the words of which he afterwards speaks thus: "The following possessive cases of the personal pronouns, (See page vii,) must be called PERSONAL PRONOUNS POSSESSIVE: mine, thine, his, hers, ours, yours, theirs. For these words are always used substantively, so as to include the meaning of some noun in the third person singular or plural, in the nominative or the objective ease. Thus, if we are speaking of books, and say [,] 'Mine are here,' mine means my books, [Fist] and it must be deemed a personal pronoun possessive in the third person plural, and nominative to the verb are."--Smart's Accidence, p. xxii. If to say, these "possessive cases must be called a class of pronouns, used substantively, and deemed nominatives or objectives," is not absurd, then nothing can be. Nor is any thing in grammar more certain, than that the pronoun "mine" can only be used by the speaker or writer, to denote himself or herself as the owner of something. It is therefore of the first person, singular number, masculine (or feminine) gender, and possessive case; being governed by the name of the thing or things possessed. This name is, of course, always known; and, if known and not expressed, it is "understood." For sometimes a word is repeated to the mind, and clearly understood, where "it cannot properly be" expressed; as, "And he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none."--Luke, xiii, 6. Wells opposes this doctrine, citing a passage from Webster, as above, and also imitating his argument. This author acknowledges three classes of pronouns--"personal, relative, and interrogative;" and then, excluding these words from their true place among personals of the possessive case, absurdly makes them a supernumerary class of possessive nominatives or objectives! "Mine, thine, his, ours, yours, and theirs, are POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS, used in construction either as nominatives or objectives; as, 'Your pleasures are past, mine are to come.' Here the word mine, which is used as a substitute for my pleasures, is the subject of the verb are."--Wells's School Gram., p. 71; 113 Ed., p. 78. Now the question to find the subject of the verb are, is, "My what are to come?" Ans. "pleasures." But the author proceeds to argue in a note thus: "Mine, thine, etc. are often parsed as pronouns in the possessive case, and governed by nouns understood. Thus, in the sentence, 'This book is mine,' the word mine is said to possess book. That the word book is not here understood, is obvious from the fact, that, when it is supplied, the phrase becomes not 'mine book,' but 'my book,' the pronoun being changed from mine to my; so that we are made, by this practice, to parse mine as possessing a word understood, before which it cannot properly be used. The word mine is here evidently employed as a substitute for the two words, my and book."--Wells, ibid. This note appears to me to be, in many respects, faulty. In the first place, its whole design was, to disprove what is true. For, bating the mere difference of person, the author's example above is equal to this: "Your pleasures are past, W. H. Wells's are to come." The ellipsis of "pleasures", is evident in both. But ellipsis is not substitution; no, nor is equivalence. Mine, when it suggests an ellipsis of the governing noun, is equivalent to my and that noun; but certainly, not "a substitute for the two words." It is a substitute, or pronoun, for the name of the speaker or writer; and so is my; both forms representing, and always agreeing with, that name or person only. No possessive agrees with what governs it; but every pronoun ought to agree with that for which it stands. Secondly, if the note above cited does not aver, in its first sentence, that the pronouns in question are "governed by nouns understood," it comes much nearer to saying this, than a writer should who meant to deny it. In the third place, the example, "This book is mine," is not a good one for its purpose. The word "mine" may be regularly parsed as a possessive, without supposing any ellipsis; for "book," the name of the thing possessed, is given, and in obvious connexion with it. And further, the matter affirmed is ownership, requiring different cases; and not the identity of something under different names, which must be put in the same case. In the fourth place, to mistake regimen for possession, and thence speak of one word "as possessing" an other, a mode of expression occurring twice in the foregoing note, is not only unscholarlike, but positively absurd. But, possibly, the author may have meant by it, to ridicule the choice phraseology of the following Rule: "A noun or pronoun in the possessive case, is governed by the noun it possesses."--Kirkham's Gram., p. 181; Frazee's, 1844, p. 25.

[211] In respect to the numbers, the following text is an uncouth exception: "Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir."--Micah, i, 11. The singular and the plural are here strangely confounded. Perhaps the reading should be, "Pass thou away, O inhabitant of Saphir." Nor is the Bible free from abrupt transitions from one number to the other, or from one person to an other, which are neither agreeable nor strictly grammatical; as, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which [who] are spiritual, restore such an [a] one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."--Gal., vi, 1. "Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches," &c--Amos, vi, 9.

[212] "The solemn style is used, chiefly, in the Bible and in prayer. The Society of Friends retain it in common parlance. It consists in using thou in the singular number, and ye in the plural, instead of using you in both numbers as in the familiar style. * * * The third person singular [of verbs] ends with th or eth, which affects only the present indicative, and hath of the perfect. The second person, singular, ends with st, est, or t only."--Sanborn's Gram., p. 58. "In [the] solemn and poetic styles, mine, thine, and thy, are used; and THIS is the style adopted by the Friends' society. In common discourse it appears very stiff and affected."--Bartlett's C. S. Man'l, Part II, p. 72.

[213] "And of the History of his being tost in a Blanket, he saith, 'Here, Scriblerus, thou lessest in what thou assertest concerning the blanket: it was not a blanket, but a rug.--Curlliad, p. 25."--Notes to Pope's Dunciad, B. ii, verse 3. A vulgar idea solemnly expressed, is ludicrous. Uttered in familiar terms, it is simply vulgar: as, "You lie, Scriblerus, in what you say about the blanket."

[214] "Notwithstanding these verbal mistakes, the Bible, for the size of it, is the most accurate grammatical composition that we have in the English language. The authority of several eminent grammarians might be adduced in support of this assertion, but it may be sufficient to mention only that of Dr. Lowth, who says, 'The present translation of the Bible, is the best standard of the English language.'"--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 166. I revere the Bible vastly too much to be pleased with an imitation of its peculiar style, in any man's ordinary speech or writing.--G. BROWN.

[215] "Ye, except in the solemn style, is obsolete; but it is used in the language of tragedy, to express contempt: as, 'When ye shall know what Margaret knows, ye may not be so thankful.' Franklin."--W. Allen's Gram., p. 57. "The second person plural had formerly YE both in the nominative and the objective. This form is now obsolete in the objective, and nearly obsolete in the nominative."--Hart's Gram., p. 55.

[216] So has Milton:--

"To waste it all myself, and leave ye none! So disinherited how would you bless me!"--Par. Lost, B. x, l. 820.

[217] "The word what is a compound of two specifying adjectives, each, of course, referring to a noun, expressed or understood. It is equivalent to the which; that which; which that; or that that; used also in the plural. At different periods, and in different authors, it appears in the varying forms, tha qua, qua tha, qu'tha, quthat, quhat, hwat, and what. This word is found in other forms; but it is needless to multiply them."--Cardell's Essay on Language, p. 86.

[218] This author's distribution of the pronouns, of which I have taken some notice in Obs. 10th above, is remarkable for its inconsistencies and absurdities. First he avers, "Pronouns are generally divided into three kinds, the Personal, the Adjective, and the Relative pronouns. They are all known by the lists."--Kirkham's Gram., p. 96. These short sentences are far from being accurate, clear, or true. He should have made the several kinds known, by a good definition of each. But this was work to which he did not find himself adequate. And if we look to his lists for the particular words of each kind, we shall get little satisfaction. Of the Personal pronouns, he says, "There are five of them; I, thou, he, she, it."--Ib., p. 97. These are simple words, and in their declension they are properly multiplied to forty. (See Ib., p. 99.) Next he seems to double the number, thus: "When self is added to the personal pronouns, as himself, myself, itself, themselves, &c. they are called Compound Personal Pronouns."--Ib., p. 99. Then he asserts that mine, thine, his, hers, ours, yours, and theirs, are compounds of ne or s with mi, thi, hi, &c.: that their application invariably "gives them a compound character:" and that, "They may, therefore, be properly denominated Compound Personal Pronouns."--Ib., p. 101. Next he comes to his Adjective pronouns; and, after proving that he has grossly misplaced and misnamed every one of them, he gives his lists of the three kinds of these. His Relative pronouns are who, which, and that. "What is generally a compound relative."--Ib., p. 111. The compounds of who, which, and what, with ever or soever, he calls "compound pronouns, but not compound relatives."--Ib., pp. 110 and 112. Lastly he discovers, that, "Truth and simplicity" have been shamefully neglected in this his third section of pronouns; that, "Of the words called 'relatives,' who only is a pronoun, and this is strictly personal;" that, "It ought to be classed with the personal pronouns;" and that, "Which, that, and what, are always adjectives. They never stand for, but always belong to nouns, either expressed or implied."--Ib., p. 114. What admirable teachings are these!

[219] "It is now proper to give some examples of the manner in which the learners should be exercised, in order to improve their knowledge, and to render it familiar to them. This is called parsing. The nature of the subject, as well as the adaptation of it to learners, requires that it should be divided into two parts: viz. parsing, as it respects etymology alone; and parsing, as it respects both etymology and syntax."--Murray's Gram., Octavo, Vol. 1, p. 225. How very little real respect for the opinions of Murray, has been entertained by these self-seeking magnifiers and modifiers of his work!

What Murray calls "Syntactical Parsing" is sometimes called "Construing," especially by those who will have Parsing to be nothing more than an etymological exercise. A late author says, "The practice of Construing differs from that of parsing, in the extension of its objects. Parsing merely indicates the parts of speech and their accidents, but construing searches for and points out their syntactical relations."--D. Blair's Gram., p. 49.

Here the distinction which Murray judged to be necessary, is still more strongly marked and insisted on. And though I see no utility in restricting the word Parsing to a mere description of the parts of speech with their accidents, and no impropriety in calling the latter branch of the exercise "Syntactical Parsing;" I cannot but think there is such a necessity for the division, as forms a very grave argument against those tangled schemes of grammar which do not admit of it. Blair is grossly inconsistent with himself. For, after drawing his distinction between Parsing and Construing, as above, he takes no further notice of the latter; but, having filled up seven pages with his most wretched mode of "PARSING," adds, in an emphatic note: "The Teacher should direct the Pupil to CONSTRUE, IN THE SAME MANNER, any passage from MY CLASS-BOOK, or other Work, at the rate of three or four lines per day."--D. Blair's Gram., p. 56.

[220] This is a comment upon the following quotation from Milton, where Hers for His would be a gross barbarism:--

"Should intermitted vengeance arm again His red right hand to plague us."--Par. Lost, B. ii, l. 174.

[221] The Imperfect Participle, when simple, or when taken as one of the four principal terms constituting the verb or springing from it, ends always in ing. But, in a subsequent chapter, I include under this name the first participle of the passive verb; and this, in our language, is always a compound, and the latter term of it does not end in ing: as, "In all languages, indeed, examples are to be found of adjectives being compared whose signification admits neither intension nor remission."--CROMBIE, on Etym. and Syntax, p. 106. According to most of our writers on English grammar, the Present or Imperfect Participle Passive is always a compound of being and the form of the perfect participle: as, being loved, being seen. But some represent it to have two forms, one of which is always simple; as, "PERFECT PASSIVE, obeyed or being obeyed."--Sanborn's Analytical Gram., p. 55. "Loved or being loved."--Parkhurst's Grammar for Beginners, p. 11; Greene's Analysis, p. 225. "Loved, or, being loved."--Clark's Practical Gram., p. 83. I here concur with the majority, who in no instance take the participle in ed or en, alone, for the Present or Imperfect.

[222] In the following example, "he" and "she" are converted into verbs; as "thou" sometimes is, in the writings of Shakspeare, and others: "Is it not an impulse of selfishness or of a depraved nature to he and she inanimate objects?"--Cutler's English Gram., p. 16. Dr. Bullions, who has heretofore published several of the worst definitions of the verb anywhere extant, has now perhaps one of the best: "A VERB is a word used to express the act, being, or state of its subject. "--Analyt. & Pract. Gram., p. 59. Yet it is not very obvious, that "he" and "she" are here verbs under this definition. Dr. Mandeville, perceiving that "the usual definitions of the verb are extremely defective," not long ago helped the schools to the following: "A verb is a word which describes the state or condition of a noun or pronoun in relation to time,"--Course of Reading, p. 24. Now it is plain, that under this definition too, Cutler's infinitives, "to he and she" cannot be verbs; and, in my opinion, very small is the number of words that can be. No verb "describes the state or condition of a noun or pronoun," except in some form of parsing; nor, even in this sort of exercise, do I find any verb "which describes the state or condition" of such a word "in relation to time." Hence, I can make of this definition nothing but nonsense. Against my definition of a verb, this author urges, that it "excludes neuter verbs, expresses no relation to subject or time, and uses terms in a vague or contradictory sense."--Ib., p. 25. The first and the last of these three allegations do not appear to be well founded; and the second, if infinitives are verbs, indicates an excellence rather than a fault. The definition assumes that the mind as well as the body may "act" or "be acted upon." For this cause, Dr. Mandeville, who cannot conceive that "to be loved" is in any wise "to be acted upon," pronounces it "fatally defective!" His argument is a little web of sophistry, not worth unweaving here. One of the best scholars cited in the reverend Doctor's book says, "Of mental powers we have no conception, but as certain capacities of intellectual action." And again, he asks, "Who can be conscious of judgment, memory, and reflection, and doubt that man was made to act!"--EVERETT: Course of Reading, p. 320.

[223] Dr. Johnson says, "English verbs are active, as I love; or neuter, as I languish. The neuters are formed like the actives. The passive voice is formed by joining the participle preterit to the substantive verb, as I am loved." He also observes, "Most verbs signifying action may likewise signify condition or habit, and become neuters; as, I love, I am in love; I strike, I am now striking."--Gram. with his Quarto Dict., p. 7.

[224] The doctrine here referred to, appears in both works in the very same words: to wit, "English Verbs are either Active, Passive, or Neuter. There are two sorts of Active Verbs, viz. active-transitive and active-intransitive Verbs."--British Gram., p. 153; Buchanan's, 56. Buchanan was in this case the copyist.

[225] "The distinction between verbs absolutely neuter, as to sleep, and verbs active intransitive, as to walk, though founded in NATURE and TRUTH, is of little use in grammar. Indeed it would rather perplex than assist the learner; for the difference between verbs active and [verbs] neuter, as transitive and intransitive, is easy and obvious; but the difference between verbs absolutely neuter and [those which are] intransitively active is not always clear. But however these latter may differ in nature, the construction of them both is the same; and grammar is not so much concerned with their real, as with their grammatical properties."--Lowth's Gram; p. 30. But are not "TRUTH, NATURE, and REALITY," worthy to be preferred to any instructions that contradict them? If they are, the good doctor and his worthy copyist have here made an ill choice. It is not only for the sake of these properties, that I retain a distinction which these grammarians, and others above named, reject; but for the sake of avoiding the untruth, confusion, and absurdity, into which one must fall by calling all active-intransitive verbs neuter. The distinction of active verbs, as being either transitive or intransitive, is also necessarily retained. But the suggestion, that this distinction is more "easy and obvious" than the other, is altogether an error. The really neuter verbs, being very few, occasion little or no difficulty. But very many active verbs, perhaps a large majority, are sometimes used intransitively; and of those which our lexicographers record as being always transitive, not a few are occasionally found without any object, either expressed or clearly suggested: as, "He convinces, but he does not elevate nor animate,"--Blair's Rhet., p. 242. "The child imitates, and commits to memory; whilst the riper age digests, and thinks independently."--Dr. Lieber, Lit. Conv., p. 313. Of examples like these, three different views maybe taken; and it is very questionable which is the right one: First, that these verbs are here intransitive, though they are not commonly so; Second, that they are transitive, and have objects understood; Third, that they are used improperly, because no determinate objects are given them. If we assume the second opinion or the last, the full or the correct expressions may be these: "He convinces the judgement, but he does not elevate the imagination, or animate the feelings."--"The child imitates others, and commits words to memory; whilst the riper age digests facts or truths, and thinks independently." These verbs are here transitive, but are they so above? Those grammarians who, supposing no other distinction important, make of verbs but two classes, transitive and intransitive, are still as much at variance, and as much at fault, as others, (and often more so,) when they come to draw the line of this distinction. To "require" an objective, to "govern" an objective, to "admit" an objective, and to "have" an objective, are criterions considerably different. Then it is questionable, whether infinitives, participles, or sentences, must or can have the effect of objectives. One author says, "If a verb has any objective case expressed, it is transitive: if it has none, it is intransitive. Verbs which appear transitive in their nature, may frequently be used intransitively."-- Chandler's Old Gram., p. 32; his Common School Gram., p. 48. An other says, "A transitive verb asserts action which does or can, terminate on some object."--Frazee's Gram., p. 29. An other avers, "There are two classes of verbs perfectly distinct from each other, viz: Those which do, and those which do not, govern an objective case." And his definition is, "A Transitive Verb is one which requires an objective case after it."--Hart's E. Gram., p. 63. Both Frazee and Hart reckon the passive verb transitive! And the latter teaches, that, "Transitive verbs in English, are sometimes used without an objective case; as, The apple tastes sweet!"--Hart's Gram., p, 73.