[43] "Those philosophers whose ideas of being and knowledge are derived from body and sensation, have a short method to explain the nature of Truth.—It is a factitious thing, made by every man for himself; which comes and goes, just as it is remembered and forgot; which in the order of things makes its appearance the last of all, being not only subsequent to sensible objects, but even to our sensations of them! According to this hypothesis, there are many truths, which have been, and are no longer; others, that will be, and have not been yet; and multitudes, that possibly may never exist at all. But there are other reasoners, who must surely have had very different notions; those, I mean, who represent Truth not as the last, but as the first of beings; who call it immutable, eternal, omnipresent; attributes that all indicate something more than human."—Harris's Hermes, p. 403.

[44] Of the best method of teaching grammar, I shall discourse in an other chapter. That methods radically different must lend to different results, is no more than every intelligent person will suppose. The formation of just methods of instruction, or true systems of science, is work for those minds which are capable of the most accurate and comprehensive views of the things to be taught. He that is capable of "originating and producing" truth, or true "ideas," if any but the Divine Being is so, has surely no need to be trained into such truth by any factitious scheme of education. In all that he thus originates, he is himself a Novum Organon of knowledge, and capable of teaching others, especially those officious men who would help him with their second-hand authorship, and their paltry catechisms of common-places. I allude here to the fundamental principle of what in some books is called "The Productive System of Instruction," and to those schemes of grammar which are professedly founded on it. We are told that, "The leading principle of this system, is that which its name indicates—that the child should be regarded not as a mere recipient of the ideas of others, but as an agent capable of collecting, and originating, and producing most of the ideas which are necessary for its education, when presented with the objects or the facts from which they may be derived."—Smith's New Gram., Pref., p. 5: Amer. Journal of Education, New Series, Vol. I, No. 6, Art. 1. It ought to be enough for any teacher, or for any writer, if he finds his readers or his pupils ready recipients of the ideas which he aims to convey. What more they know, they can never owe to him, unless they learn it from him against his will; and what they happen to lack, of understanding or believing him, may very possibly be more his fault than theirs.

[45] Lindley Murray, anonymously copying somebody, I know not whom, says: "Words derive their meaning from the consent and practice of those who use them. There is no necessary connexion between words and ideas. The association between the sign and the thing signified, is purely arbitrary."—Octavo Gram., Vol. i, p. 139. The second assertion here made, is very far from being literally true. However arbitrary may be the use or application of words, their connexion with ideas is so necessary, that they cannot be words without it. Signification, as I shall hereafter prove, is a part of the very essence of a word, the most important element of its nature. And Murray himself says, "The understanding and language have a strict connexion."—Ib., Vol. i, p. 356. In this, he changes without amendment the words of Blair: "Logic and rhetoric have here, as in many other cases, a strict connexion."—Blair's Rhet., p. 120.

[46] "The language which is, at present, spoken throughout Great Britain, is neither the ancient primitive speech of the island, nor derived from it; but is altogether of foreign origin. The language of the first inhabitants of our island, beyond doubt, was the Celtic, or Gaelic, common to them with Gaul; from which country, it appears, by many circumstances, that Great Britain was peopled. This Celtic tongue, which is said to be very expressive and copious, and is, probably, one of the most ancient languages in the world, obtained once in most of the western regions of Europe. It was the language of Gaul, of Great Britain, of Ireland, and very probably, of Spain also; till, in the course of those revolutions which by means of the conquests, first, of the Romans, and afterwards, of the northern nations, changed the government, speech, and, in a manner, the whole face of Europe, this tongue was gradually obliterated; and now subsists only in the mountains of Wales, in the Highlands of Scotland, and among the wild Irish. For the Irish, the Welsh, and the Erse, are no other than different dialects of the same tongue, the ancient Celtic."—Blair's Rhetoric, Lect. IX, p. 85.

[47] With some writers, the Celtic language is the Welsh; as may be seen by the following extract: "By this he requires an Impossibility, since much the greater Part of Mankind can by no means spare 10 or 11 Years of their Lives in learning those dead Languages, to arrive at a perfect Knowledge of their own. But by this Gentleman's way of Arguing, we ought not only to be Masters of Latin and Greek, but of Spanish, Italian, High- Dutch, Low-Dutch, French, the Old Saxon, Welsh, Runic, Gothic, and Islandic; since much the greater number of Words of common and general Use are derived from those Tongues. Nay, by the same way of Reasoning we may prove, that the Romans and Greeks did not understand their own Tongues, because they were not acquainted with the Welsh, or ancient Celtic, there being above 620 radical Greek Words derived from the Celtic, and of the Latin a much greater Number."—Preface to Brightland's Grammar, p. 5.

[48] The author of this specimen, through a solemn and sublime poem in ten books, generally simplified the preterit verb of the second person singular, by omitting the termination st or est, whenever his measure did not require the additional syllable. But his tuneless editors have, in many instances, taken the rude liberty both to spoil his versification, and to publish under his name what he did not write. They have given him bad prosody, or unutterable harshness of phraseology, for the sake of what they conceived to be grammar. So Kirkham, in copying the foregoing passage, alters it as he will; and alters it differently, when he happens to write some part of it twice: as,

"That morning, thou, that slumberedst not before, Nor slept, great Ocean! laidst thy waves at rest, And hushed thy mighty minstrelsy."—Kirkham's Elocution, p. 203.

Again:

"That morning, thou, that slumberedst not before, Nor sleptst, great Ocean, laidst thy waves at rest, And hush'dst thy mighty minstrelsy."—Kirkham's Elocution, p. 44.

[49] Camenes, the Muses, whom Horace called Camaenae. The former is an English plural from the latter, or from the Latin word camena, a muse or song. These lines are copied from Dr. Johnson's History of the English Language; their orthography is, in some respects, too modern for the age to which they are assigned.

[50] The Saxon characters being known nowadays to but very few readers, I have thought proper to substitute for them, in the latter specimens of this chapter, the Roman; and, as the old use of colons and periods for the smallest pauses, is liable to mislead a common observer, the punctuation too has here been modernized.

[51] Essay on Language, by William S. Cardell, New York, 1825, p. 2. This writer was a great admirer of Horne Tooke, from whom he borrowed many of his notions of grammar, but not this extravagance. Speaking of the words right and just, the latter says, "They are applicable only to man; to whom alone language belongs, and of whose sensations only words are the representatives."—Diversions of Purley, Vol. ii, p. 9.

[52] CARDELL: Both Grammars, p. 4.

[53] "Quoties dicimus, toties de nobis judicatur."—Cicero. "As often as we speak, so often are we judged."

[54] "Nor had he far to seek for the source of our impropriety in the use of words, when he should reflect that the study of our own language, has never been made a part of the education of our youth. Consequently, the use of words is got wholly by chance, according to the company that we keep, or the books that we read." SHERIDAN'S ELOCUTION, Introd., p. viii, dated "July 10, 1762," 2d Amer. Ed.

[55] "To Write and Speak correctly, gives a Grace, and gains a favourable Attention to what one has to say: And since 'tis English, that an English Gentleman will have constant use of, that is the Language he should chiefly Cultivate, and wherein most care should be taken to polish and perfect his Stile. To speak or write better Latin than English, may make a Man be talk'd of, but he would find it more to his purpose to Express himself well in his own Tongue, that he uses every moment, than to have the vain Commendation of others for a very insignificant quality. This I find universally neglected, and no care taken any where to improve Young Men in their own Language, that they may thoroughly understand and be Masters of it. If any one among us have a facility or purity more than ordinary in his Mother Tongue, it is owing to Chance, or his Genius, or any thing, rather than to his Education or any care of his Teacher. To Mind what English his Pupil speaks or writes is below the Dignity of one bred up amongst Greek and Latin, though he have but little of them himself. These are the learned Languages fit only for learned Men to meddle with and teach: English is the Language of the illiterate Vulgar."—Locke, on Education, p. 339; Fourth Ed., London, 1699.

[56] A late author, in apologizing for his choice in publishing a grammar without forms of praxis, (that is, without any provision for a stated application of its principles by the learner,) describes the whole business of Parsing as a "dry and uninteresting recapitulation of the disposal of a few parts of speech, and their often times told positions and influence;" urges "the unimportance of parsing, generally;" and represents it to be only "a finical and ostentatious parade of practical pedantry."—Wright's Philosophical Gram., pp. 224 and 226. It would be no great mistake to imagine, that this gentleman's system of grammar, applied in any way to practice, could not fail to come under this unflattering description; but, to entertain this notion of parsing in general, is as great an error, as that which some writers have adopted on the other hand, of making this exercise their sole process of inculcation, and supposing it may profitably supersede both the usual arrangement of the principles of grammar and the practice of explaining them by definitions. It is asserted in Parkhurst's "English Grammar for Beginners, on the Inductive Method of Instruction," that, "to teach the child a definition at the outset, is beginning at the wrong end;" that, "with respect to all that goes under the name of etymology in grammar, it is learned chiefly by practice in parsing, and scarcely at all by the aid of definitions."— Preface, pp. 5 and 6.

[57] Hesitation in speech may arise from very different causes. If we do not consider this, our efforts to remove it may make it worse. In most instances, however, it may be overcome by proper treatment, "Stammering," says a late author, "is occasioned by an over-effort to articulate; for when the mind of the speaker is so occupied with his subject as not to allow him to reflect upon his defect, he will talk without difficulty. All stammerers can sing, owing to the continuous sound, and the slight manner in which the consonants are touched in singing; so a drunken man can run, though he cannot walk or stand still."—Gardiner's Music of Nature, p. 30.

"To think rightly, is of knowledge; to speak fluently, is of nature; To read with profit, is of care; but to write aptly, is of practice." Book of Thoughts, p. 140.

[58] "There is nothing more becoming [to] a Gentleman, or more useful in all the occurrences of life, than to be able, on any occasion, to speak well, and to the purpose."—Locke, on Education, Sec.171. "But yet, I think I may ask my reader, whether he doth not know a great many, who live upon their estates, and so, with the name, should have the qualities of Gentlemen, who cannot so much as tell a story as they should; much less speak clearly and persuasively in any business. This I think not to be so much their fault, as the fault of their education.—They have been taught Rhetoric, but yet never taught how to express themselves handsomely with their tongues or pens in the language they are always to use; as if the names of the figures that embellish the discourses of those who understood the art of speaking, were the very art and skill of speaking well. This, as all other things of practice, is to be learned, not by a few, or a great many rules given; but by EXERCISE and APPLICATION according to GOOD RULES, or rather PATTERNS, till habits are got, and a facility of doing it well."—Ib., Sec.189. The forms of parsing and correcting which the following work supplies, are "patterns," for the performance of these practical "exercises;" and such patterns as ought to be implicitly followed, by every one who means to be a ready and correct speaker on these subjects.

[59] The principal claimants of "the Inductive Method" of Grammar, are Richard W. Green, Roswell C. Smith, John L. Parkhurst, Dyor H. Sanborn, Bradford Frazee, and, Solomon Barrett, Jr.; a set of writers, differing indeed in their qualifications, but in general not a little deficient in what constitutes an accurate grammarian.

[60] William C. Woodbridge edited the Journal, and probably wrote the article, from which the author of "English Grammar on the Productive System" took his "Preface."

[61] Many other grammars, later than Murray's, have been published, some in England, some in America, and some in both countries; and among these there are, I think, a few in which a little improvement has been made, in the methods prescribed for the exercises of parsing and correcting. In most, however, nothing of the kind has been attempted. And, of the formularies which have been given, the best that I have seen, are still miserably defective, and worthy of all the censure that is expressed in the paragraph above; while others, that appear in works not entirely destitute of merit, are absolutely much worse than Murray's, and worthy to condemn to a speedy oblivion the books in which they are printed. In lieu of forms of expression, clear, orderly, accurate, and full; such as a young parser might profitably imitate; such as an experienced one would be sure to approve; what have we? A chaos of half-formed sentences, for the ignorant pupil to flounder in; an infinite abyss of blunders, which a world of criticism could not fully expose! See, for example, the seven pages of parsing, in the neat little book entitled, "A Practical Grammar of the English Language, by the Rev. David Blair: Seventh Edition: London, 1815:" pp. 49 to 57. I cannot consent to quote more than one short paragraph of the miserable jumble which these pages contain. Yet the author is evidently a man of learning, and capable of writing well on some subjects, if not on this. "Bless the Lord, O my soul!" Form: "Bless, a verb, (repeat 97); active (repeat 99); active voice (102); infinitive mood (107); third person, soul being the nominative (118); present tense (111); conjugate the verb after the pattern (129); its object is Lord (99)."—Blair's Gram., p. 50. Of the paragraphs referred to, I must take some notice: "107. The imperative mood commands or orders or intreats."—Ib., p. 19. "118. The second person is always the pronoun thou or you in the singular, and ye or you in the plural."—Ib., p. 21. "111. The imperative mood has no distinction of tense: and the infinitive has no distinction of persons."—Ib., p. 20. Now the author should have said: "Bless is a redundant active-transitive verb, from bless, blessed or blest, blessing, blessed or blest; found in the imperative mood, present tense, second person, and singular number:" and, if he meant to parse the word syntactically, he should have added: "and agrees with its nominative thou understood; according to the rule which says, 'Every finite verb must agree with its subject or nominative, in person and number.' Because the meaning is—Bless thou the Lord." This is the whole story. But, in the form above, several things are false; many, superfluous; some, deficient; several, misplaced; nothing, right. Not much better are the models furnished by Kirkham, Smith, Lennie, Bullions, and other late authors.

[62] Of Dr. Bullions's forms of parsing, as exhibited in his English Grammar, which is a modification of Lennie's Grammar, it is difficult to say, whether they are most remarkable for their deficiencies, their redundancies, or their contrariety to other teachings of the same author or authors. Both Lennie and Bullions adopt the rule, that, "An ellipsis is not allowable when it would obscure the sentence, weaken its force, or be attended with an impropriety."—L., p. 91; B., p. 130. And the latter strengthens this doctrine with several additional observations, the first of which reads thus: "In general, no word should be omitted that is necessary to the full and correct construction, or even harmony of a sentence."—Bullions, E. Gr., 130. Now the parsing above alluded to, has been thought particularly commendable for its brevity—a quality certainly desirable, so far as it consists with the end of parsing, or with the more needful properties of a good style, clearness, accuracy, ease, and elegance. But, if the foregoing rule and observation are true, the models furnished by these writers are not commendably brief, but miserably defective. Their brevity is, in fact, such as renders them all bad English; and not only so, it makes them obviously inadequate to their purpose, as bringing into use but a part of the principles which the learner had studied. It consists only in the omission of what ought to have been inserted. For example, this short line, "I lean upon the Lord," is parsed by both of these gentlemen thus: "I, the first personal pronoun, masculine, or feminine, singular, the nominative—lean, a verb, neuter, first person singular, present, indicative—upon, a preposition—the, an article, the definite—Lord, a noun, masculine, singular, the objective, (governed by upon.)"—Lennie's Principles of English Gram., p. 51; Bullions's, 74. This is a little sample of their etymological parsing, in which exercise they generally omit not only all the definitions or "reasons" of the various terms applied, but also all the following particulars: first, the verb is, and certain definitives and connectives, which are "necessary to the full and correct construction" of their sentences; secondly, the distinction of nouns as proper or common; thirdly, the person of nouns, first, second, or third; fourthly, the words, number, gender, and case, which are necessary to the sense and construction of certain words used; fifthly, the distinction of adjectives as belonging to different classes; sixthly, the division of verbs as being regular or irregular, redundant or defective; seventhly, sometimes, (Lennie excepted,) the division of verbs as active, passive, or neuter; eighthly, the words mood and tense, which Bullions, on page 131, pronounces "quite unnecessary," and inserts in his own formule on page 132; ninthly, the distinction of adverbs as expressing time, place, degree, or manner; tenthly, the distinction of conjunctions as copulative or disjunctive; lastly, the distinction of interjections as indicating different emotions. All these things does their completest specimen of etymological parsing lack, while it is grossly encumbered with parentheses of syntax, which "must be omitted till the pupil get the rules of syntax."—Lennie, p. 51. It is also vitiated with several absurdities, contradictions, and improper changes of expression: as, "His, the third personal pronoun;" (B., p. 23;)—"me, the first personal pronoun;" (Id., 74;)—"A, The indefinite article;" (Id., 73;)—"a, an article, the indefinite;" (Id., 74;)—"When the verb is passive, parse thus: 'A verb active, in the passive voice, regular, irregular,' &c."—Bullions, p. 131. In stead of teaching sufficiently, as elements of etymological parsing, the definitions which belong to this exercise, and then dismissing them for the principles of syntax, Dr. Bullions encumbers his method of syntactical parsing with such a series of etymological questions and answers as cannot but make it one of the slowest, longest, and most tiresome ever invented. He thinks that the pupil, after parsing any word syntactically, "should be requested to assign a reason for every thing contained in his statement!"—Principles of E. Grammar, p. 131. And the teacher is to ask questions as numerous as the reasons! Such is the parsing of a text-book which has been pronounced "superior to any other, for use in our common schools"—"a complete grammar of the language, and available for every purpose for which Mr. Brown's can possibly be used."—Ralph K. Finch's Report, p, 12.

[63] There are many other critics, besides Murray and Alger, who seem not to have observed the import of after and before in connexion with the tenses. Dr. Bullions, on page 139th of his English Grammar, copied the foregoing example from Lennie, who took it from Murray. Even Richard Hiley, and William Harvey Wells, grammarians of more than ordinary tact, have been obviously misled by the false criticism above cited. One of Hiley's Rules of Syntax, with its illustration, stands thus: "In the use of the different tenses, we must particularly observe to use that tense which clearly and properly conveys the sense intended; thus, instead of saying, 'After I visited Europe, I returned to America;' we should say, 'After I had visited Europe, I returned to America."—Hiley's Gram., p. 90. Upon this he thought it needful to comment thus: "'After I visited Europe, I returned to America;' this sentence is incorrect; visited ought to be had visited, because the action implied by the verb visited WAS COMPLETED before the other past action returned."—Ib., p. 91. See nearly the same thing in Wells's School Grammar, 1st Edition, p. 151; but his later editions are wisely altered. Since "visited and was completed" are of the same tense, the argument from the latter, if it proves any thing, proves the former to be right, and the proposed change needless, or perhaps worse than needless. "I visited Europe before I returned to America," or, "I visited Europe, and afterwards returned to America," is good English, and not to be improved by any change of tense; yet here too we see the visiting "was completed before" the return, or HAD BEEN COMPLETED at the time of the return. I say, "The Pluperfect Tense is that which expresses what had taken place at some past time mentioned: as, 'I had seen him, when I met you.'" Murray says, "The Pluperfect Tense represents a thing not only as past, but also as prior to some other point of time specified in the sentence: as, I had finished my letter before he arrived." Hiley says, "The Past-Perfect expresses an action or event which was past before some other past action or event mentioned in the sentence, and to which it refers; as, I had finished my lessons before he came." With this, Wells appears to concur, his example being similar. It seems to me, that these last two definitions, and their example too, are bad; because by the help of before or after, "the past before the past" may be clearly expressed by the simple past tense: as, "I finished my letter before he arrived."—"I finished my lessons before he came." "He arrived soon after I finished the letter."—"Soon after it was completed, he came in."

[64] Samuel Kirkham, whose grammar is briefly described in the third chapter of this introduction, boldly lays the blame of all his philological faults, upon our noble language itself; and even conceives, that a well-written and faultless grammar cannot be a good one, because it will not accord with that reasonless jumble which he takes every existing language to be! How diligently he laboured to perfect his work, and with what zeal for truth and accuracy, may be guessed from the following citation: "The truth is, after all which can be done to render the definitions and rules of grammar comprehensive and accurate, they will still be found, when critically examined by men of learning and science, more or less exceptionable. These exceptions and imperfections are the unavoidable consequence of the imperfections of the language. Language as well as every thing else of human invention, will always be imperfect. Consequently, a perfect system of grammatical principles, would not suit it. A perfect grammar will not be produced, until some perfect being writes it for a perfect language; and a perfect language will not be constructed, until some super-human agency is employed in its production. All grammatical principles and systems which are not perfect are exceptionable."—Kirkham's Grammar, p. 66. The unplausible sophistry of these strange remarks, and the palliation they afford to the multitudinous defects of the book which contains them, may be left, without further comment, to the judgement of the reader.

[65] The phrase complex ideas, or compound ideas, has been used for the notions which we have of things consisting of different parts, or having various properties, so as to embrace some sort of plurality: thus our ideas of all bodies and classes of things are said to be complex or compound. Simple ideas are those in which the mind discovers no parts or plurality: such are the ideas of heat, cold, blueness, redness, pleasure, pain, volition, &c. But some writers have contended, that the composition of ideas is a fiction; and that all the complexity, in any case, consists only in the use of a general term in lieu of many particular ones. Locke is on one side of this debate, Horne Tooke, on the other.

[66] Dilworth appears to have had a true idea of the thing, but he does not express it as a definition; "Q. Is an Unit of one, a Number? A. An Unit is a number, because it may properly answer the question how many!"—Schoolmaster's Assistant, p. 2. A number in arithmetic, and a number in grammar, are totally different things. The plural number, as men or horses, does not tell how many; nor does the word singular mean one, as the author of a recent grammar says it does. The plural number is one number, but it is not the singular. "The Productive System" teaches thus: "What does the word singular mean? It means one."—Smith's New Gram., p. 7.

[67] It is truly astonishing that so great a majority of our grammarians could have been so blindly misled, as they have been, in this matter; and the more so, because a very good definition of a Letter was both published and republished, about the time at which Lowth's first appeared: viz., "What is a letter? A Letter is the Sign, Mark, or Character of a simple or uncompounded Sound. Are Letters Sounds? No. Letters are only the Signs or Symbols of Sounds, not the Sounds themselves."—The British Grammar, p. 3. See the very same words on the second page of Buchanan's "English Syntax," a work which was published as early as 1767.

[68] In Murray's octavo Grammar, this word is the in the first chapter, and their in the second; in the duodecimo, it is their in both places.

[69] "The definitions and the rules throughout the Grammar, are expressed with neatness and perspicuity. They are as short and comprehensive as the nature of the subject would admit: and they are well adapted both to the understanding and the memory of young persons."—Life of L. Murray, p. 245. "It may truly be said that the language in every part of the work, is simple, correct, and perspicuous."—Ib., p. 246.

[70] For this definition, see Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 40; Duodecimo, 41; Smaller Gram., 18; Alger's, 18; Bacon's, 15; Frost's, 8, Ingersoll's, 17; A Teacher's, 8; Maltby's, 14; T. H. Miller's, 20; Pond's, 18; S. Putnam's, 15; Russell's, 11; Merchant's Murray, 25; and Worcester's Univ. and Crit. Dictionary. Many other grammarians have attempted to define number; with what success a few examples will show: (1.) "Number is the distinction of one from many."—W. Allen's Gram., p. 40; Merchant's School Gram., 28; Greenleaf's, 22; Nutting's, 17; Picket's, 19; D. Adams's, 31. (2.) "Number is the distinction of one from more."—Fisher's Gram., 51; Alden's, 7. (3.) "Number is the distinction of one from several or many."—Coar's Gram., p. 24. (4.) "Number is the distinction of one from more than one."—Sanborn's Gram., p. 24; J. Flint's, 27; Wells's, 52. (5.) "Number is the distinction of one from more than one, or many."—Grant's Latin Gram., p. 7. (6.) "What is number? Number is the Distinction of one, from two, or many."—British Gram., p. 89; Buchanan's, 16. (7.) "You inquire, 'What is number?' Merely this: the distinction of one from two, or many. Greek substantives have three numbers."—Bucke's Classical Gram., p. 38. All these authors say, that, in English, "there are two numbers, the singular and the plural." According to their explanations, then, we have two "distinctions of one from two, several, more, or many;" and the Greeks, by adding a dual number, have three! Which, then, of the two or three modifications or forms, do they mean, when they say, "Number is the distinction" &c.? Or, if none of them, what else is meant? All these definitions had their origin in an old Latin one, which, although it is somewhat better, makes doubtful logic in its application: "NUMERUS est, unius et multorum distinctio. Numeri igitur sunt duo; Singularis et Pluralis."— Ruddiman's Gram., p. 21. This means: (8.) "Number is a distinction of one and many. The numbers therefore are two; the Singular and the Plural." But we have yet other examples: as, (9.) "Number is the distinction of objects, as one or more."—Kirkham's Gram., p. 39. "The distinction of objects as one," is very much like "the consideration of an object as more than one." (10.) "Number distinguishes objects as one or more."—Cooper's Murray, p. 21; Practical Gram., p. 18. That is, number makes the plural to be either plural or singular for distinction's sake! (11.) "Number is the distinction of nouns with regard to the objects signified, as one or more."—Fisk's Murray, p. 19. Here, too, number has "regard" to the same confusion: while, by a gross error, its "distinction" is confined to "nouns" only! (12.) "Number is that property of a noun by which it expresses one or more than one."—Bullions's E. Gram., p. 12; Analyt. Gram., 25. Here again number is improperly limited to "a noun;" and is said to be one sign of two, or either of two, incompatible ideas! (13.) "Number shows how many are meant, whether one or more."—Smith's new Gram., p. 45. This is not a definition, but a false assertion, in which Smith again confounds arithmetic with grammar! Wheat and oats are of different numbers; but neither of these numbers "means a sum that may be counted," or really "shows how many are meant." So of "Man in general, Horses in general, &c."—Brightland's Gram., p. 77. (14.) "Number is the difference in a noun or pronoun, to denote either a single thing or more than one."—Davenport's Gram., p. 14. This excludes the numbers of a verb, and makes the singular and the plural to be essentially one thing. (15.) "Number is a modification of nouns and verbs, &c. according as the thing spoken of is represented, as, one or more, with regard to number."—Burn's Gram., p. 32. This also has many faults, which I leave to the discernment of the reader. (16.) "What is number? Number shows the distinction of one from many."—Wilcox's Gram., p. 6. This is no answer to the question asked; besides, it is obviously worse than the first form, which has "is," for "shows." (17.) "What is Number? It is the representation of objects with respect to singleness, or plurality." —O. B. Peirce's Gram., p. 34. If there are two numbers, they are neither of them properly described in this definition, or in any of the preceding ones. There is a gross misconception, in taking each or either of them to be an alternate representation of two incompatible ideas. And this sort of error is far from being confined to the present subject; it runs through a vast number of the various definitions contained in our grammars. (18.) "Number is the inflection of a noun, to indicate one object or more than one. Or, Number is the expression of unity or of more than unity."—Hiley's Gram., p. 14. How hard this author laboured to think what number is, and could not! (19.) "Number is the distinction of unity and plurality."—Hart's E. Gram., p. 40, Why say, "distinction;" the numbers, or distinctions, being two? (20.) "Number is the capacity of nouns to represent either one or more than one object."—Barrett's Revised Gram., p. 40. (21.) "Number is a property of the noun which denotes one or more than one."—Weld's Gram., 2d Ed., p. 55. (22.) "Number is a property of the noun or pronoun [,] by which it denotes one, or more than one."—Weld's Gram., Abridged Ed., p. 49. (23.) "Number is the property that distinguishes one from more than one."—Weld's Gram., Improved Ed., p. 60. This, of course, excludes the plural. (24.) "Number is a modification of nouns to denote whether one object is meant, or more than one."—Butler's Gram., p. 19. (25.) "Number is that modification of the Noun which distinguishes one from more than one."—Spencer's Gram., p. 26. Now, it is plain, that not one of these twenty-five definitions comports with the idea that the singular is one number and the plural an other! Not one of them exhibits any tolerable approach to accuracy, either of thought or of expression! Many of the grammarians have not attempted any definition of number, or of the numbers, though they speak of both the singular and the plural, and perhaps sometimes apply the term number to the distinction which is in each: for it is the property of the singular number, to distinguish unity from plurality: and of the plural, to distinguish plurality from unity. Among the authors who are thus silent, are Lily, Colet, Brightland, Harris, Lowth, Ash, Priestly, Bicknell, Adam, Gould, Harrison, Comly, Jaudon, Webster, Webber, Churchill, Staniford, Lennie, Dalton, Blair, Cobbett, Cobb, A. Flint, Felch, Guy, Hall, and S. W. Clark. Adam and Gould, however, in explaining the properties of verbs, say: "Number marks how many we suppose to be, to act, or to suffer."—A., 80; G., 78.

[71] These are the parts of speech in some late grammars; as, Barrett's, of 1854, Butler's, Covell's, Day's, Frazee's, Fowle's New, Spear's, Weld's, Wells's, and the Well-wishers'. In Frost's Practical Grammar, the words of the language are said to be "divided into eight classes," and the names are given thus: "Noun, Article, Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, and Interjection."—P. 29. But the author afterwards treats of the Adjective, between the Article and the Pronoun, just as if he had forgotten to name it, and could not count nine with accuracy! In Perley's Grammar, the parts of speech are a different eight: namely, "Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions, Interjections, and Particles!"—P. 8. S. W. Clark has Priestley's classes, but calls Interjections "Exclamations."

[72] Felton, who is confessedly a modifier of Murray, claims as a merit, "the rejection of several useless parts of speech" yet acknowledges "nine," and treats of ten; "viz., Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Participles, Prepositions, Adjectives, [Articles,] Adverbs, Conjunctions, Exclamations."—O. C. Felton's Gram. p. 5, and p. 9.

[73] Quintilian is at fault here; for, in some of his writings, if not generally, Aristotle recognized four parts of speech; namely, verbs, nouns, conjunctions, and articles. See Aristot. de Poetica, Cap. xx.

[74] "As there are ten different characters or figures in arithmetic to represent all possible quantities, there are also ten kinds of words or parts of speech to represent all possible sentences: viz.: article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection."—Chauvier's Punctuation, p. 104.

[75] The Friend, 1829, Vol. ii, p. 117.

[76] The Friend, Vol. ii, p. 105.

[77] See the Preface to my Compendious English Grammar in the American editions of the Treasury of Knowledge, Vol. i, p. 8.

[78] Some say that Brightland himself was the writer of this grammar; but to suppose him the sole author, hardly comports with its dedication to the Queen, by her "most Obedient and Dutiful Subjects, the Authors;" or with the manner in which these are spoken of, in the following lines, by the laureate:

"Then say what Thanks, what Praises must attend The Gen'rous Wits, who thus could condescend! Skill, that to Art's sublimest Orb can reach, Employ'd its humble Elements to Teach! Yet worthily Esteem'd, because we know To raise Their Country's Fame they stoop'd so low."—TATE.

[79] Dr. Campbell, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, page 158th, makes a difficulty respecting the meaning of this passage: cites it as an instance of the misapplication of the term grammar; and supposes the writer's notion of the thing to have been, "of grammar in the abstract, an universal archetype by which the particular grammars of all different tongues ought to be regulated." And adds, "If this was his meaning, I cannot say whether he is in the right or in the wrong, in this accusation. I acknowledge myself to be entirely ignorant of this ideal grammar." It would be more fair to suppose that Dr. Swift meant by "grammar" the rules and principles according to which the English language ought to be spoken and written; and, (as I shall hereafter show,) it is no great hyperbole to affirm, that every part of the code—nay, well-nigh every one of these rules and principles—is, in many instances, violated, if not by what may be called the language itself, at least by those speakers and writers who are under the strongest obligations to know and observe its true use.

[80] The phrase "of any" is here erroneous. These words ought to have been omitted; or the author should have said—"the least valuable of all his productions."

[81] This word latter should have been last; for three works are here spoken of.

[82] With this opinion concurred the learned James White, author of a Grammatical Essay on the English Verb, an octavo volume of more than three hundred pages, published in London in 1761. This author says, "Our Essays towards forming an English Grammar, have not been very many: from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, to that of Queen Ann, there are but Two that the author of the Present knows of: one in English by the renown'd Ben Jonson, and one in Latin by the learn'd Dr. Wallis. In the reign of Queen Ann indeed, there seems to have arisen a noble Spirit of ingenious Emulation in this Literary way: and to this we owe the treatises compos'd at that period for the use of schools, by Brightland, Greenwood, and Maittaire. But, since that time, nothing hath appear'd, that hath come to this Essayist's knowledge, deserving to be taken any notice of as tending to illustrate our Language by ascertaining the Grammar of it; except Anselm Bayly's Introduction to Languages, Johnson's Grammar prefix'd to the Abridgement of his Dictionary, and the late Dr. Ward's Essays upon the English Language.—These are all the Treatises he hath met with, relative to this subject; all which he hath perus'd very attentively, and made the best use of them in his power. But notwithstanding all these aids, something still remains to be done, at least it so appears to him, preparatory to attempting with success the Grammar of our Language. All our efforts of this kind seem to have been render'd ineffectual hitherto, chiefly by the prevaliency of two false notions: one of which is, that our Verbs have no Moods; and the other, that our Language hath no Syntax."—White's English Verb, p. viii.

[83] A similar doctrine, however, is taught by no less an author than "the Rev. Alexander Crombie, LL. D.," who says, in the first paragraph of his introduction, "LANGUAGE consists of intelligible signs, and is the medium, by which the mind communicates its thoughts. It is either articulate, or inarticulate; artificial, or natural. The former is peculiar to man; the latter is common to all animals. By inarticulate language, we mean those instinctive cries, by which the several tribes of inferior creatures are enabled to express their sensations and desires. By articulate language is understood a system of expression, composed of simple sounds, differently modified by the organs of speech, and variously combined."—Treatise on the Etymology and Syntax of the English Language, p. 1. See the same doctrine also in Hiley's Gram., p. 141. The language which "is common to all animals," can be no other than that in which AEsop's wolves and weasels, goats and grasshoppers, talked—a language quite too unreal for grammar. On the other hand, that which is composed of sounds only, and not of letters, includes but a mere fraction of the science.

[84] The pronoun whom is not properly applicable to beasts, unless they are personified: the relative which would therefore, perhaps, have been preferable here, though whom has a better sound.—G. B.

[85] "The great difference between men and brutes, in the utterance of sound by the mouth, consists in the power of articulation in man, and the entire want of it in brutes."—Webster's Improved Gram., p. 8.

[86] Strictly speaking, an articulate sound is not a simple element of speech, but rather a complex one, whether syllable or word; for articulate literally means jointed. But our grammarians in general, have applied the term to the sound of a letter, a syllable, or a word, indiscriminately: for which reason, it seems not very suitable to be used alone in describing any of the three. Sheridan says, "The essence of a syllable consists in articulation only, for every articulate sound of course forms a syllable."—Lectures on Elocution, p. 62. If he is right in this, not many of our letters—or, perhaps more properly, none of them—can singly represent articulate sounds. The looseness of this term induces me to add or prefer an other. "The Rev. W. Allen," who comes as near as any of our grammarians, to the true definition of a letter, says: 1. "The sounds used in language are called articulate sounds." 2. "A letter is a character used in printing or writing, to represent an articulate sound."—Allen's Elements of E. Gram., p. 2. Dr. Adam says: 1. "A letter is the mark of a sound, or of an articulation of sound." 2. "A vowel is properly called a simple sound; and the sounds formed by the concourse of vowels and consonants, articulate sounds."—Latin and English Gram., pp. 1 and 2.

[87] Of this sort of blunder, the following false definition is an instance: "A Vowel is a letter, the name of which makes a full open sound."—Lennie's Gram., p. 5; Brace's, 7; Hazen's, 10. All this is just as true of a consonant as of a vowel. The comma too, used in this sentence, defeats even the sense which the writers intended. It is surely no description either of a vowel or of a consonant, to say, that it is a letter, and that the name of a letter makes a full open sound. Again, a late grammarian teaches, that the names of all the letters are nothing but Roman capitals, and then seems to inquire which of these names are vowels, thus: "Q. How many letters are in the alphabet? A. Twenty-six. Q. What are their names? A. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Q. Which of these are called Vowels?"—Fowle's Common School Gram., Part First, p. 7. If my worthy friend Fowle had known or considered what are the names of the letters in English, he might have made a better beginning to his grammar than this.

[88] By the colloquial phrase, "to a Tee" we mean, "to a nicety, to a tittle, a jot, an iota. Had the British poet Cawthorn, himself a noted schoolmaster, known how to write the name of "T," he would probably have preferred it in the following couplet:

"And swore by Varro's shade that he Conceived the medal to a T."—British Poets, Vol. VII, p. 65.

Here the name would certainly be much fitter than the letter, because the text does not in reality speak of the letter. With the names of the Greek letters, the author was better acquainted; the same poem exhibits two of them, where the characters themselves are spoken of:

"My eye can trace divinely true, In this dark curve a little Mu; And here, you see, there seems to lie The ruins of a Doric Xi."—Ibidem.

The critical reader will see that "seems" should be seem, to agree with its nominative "ruins."

[89] Lily, reckoning without the H, J, or V, speaks of the Latin letters as "twenty-two;" but says nothing concerning their names. Ruddiman, Adam, Grant, Gould, and others, who include the H, J, and V, rightly state the number to be "twenty-five;" but, concerning their names, are likewise entirely silent. Andrews and Stoddard, not admitting the K, teach thus: "The letters of the Latin language are twenty-four. They have the same names as the corresponding characters in English."—Andrews and Stoddard's Latin Gram., p. 1. A later author speaks thus: "The Latin Alphabet consists of twenty-five letters, the same in name and form as the English, but without the w."—Bullions's Latin Gram., p. 1. It would probably be nearer to the truth, to say, "The Latin Alphabet, like the French, has no W; it consists of twenty-five letters, which are the same in name and form as the French." Will it be pretended that the French names and the English do not differ?

[90] The Scotch Iz and the Craven Izzet, if still in use anywhere, are names strictly local, not properly English, nor likely to spread. "IZZET, the letter Z. This is probably the corruption of izzard, the old and common name for the letter, though I know not, says Nares, on what authority."—Glossary of Craven, w. Izzet. "Z z, zed, more commonly called izzard or uzzard, that is, s hard."—Dr. Johnson's Gram., p. 1.

"And how she sooth'd me when with study sad I labour'd on to reach the final Zad."—Crabbe's Borough, p. 228.

[91] William Bolles, in his new Dictionary, says of the letter Z: "Its sound is uniformly that of a hard S." The name, however, he pronounces as I do; though he writes it not Zee but ze; giving not the orthography of the name, as he should have done, but a mere index of its pronunciation. Walker proves by citations from Professor Ward and Dr. Wallis, that these authors considered the sharp or hissing sound of s the "hard" sound; and the flat sound, like that of z, its "soft" sound. See his Dictionary, 8vo, p. 53.

[92] Dr. Webster died in 1843. Most of this work was written while he was yet in vigour.

[93] This old definition John L. Parkhurst disputes:—says it "is ambiguous;"—questions whether it means, "that the name of such a letter, or the simple sound," requires a vowel! "If the latter," says he, "the assertion is false. The simple sounds, represented by the consonants, can be uttered separately, distinctly, and perfectly. It can be done with the utmost ease, even by a little child."—Parkhurst's Inductive Gram. for Beginners, p. 164. He must be one of these modern philosophers who delight to make mouths of these voiceless elements, to show how much may be done without sound from the larynx.

[94] This test of what is, or is not, a vowel sound or a consonant sound, is often appealed to, and is generally admitted to be a just one. Errors in the application of an or a are not unfrequent, but they do not affect the argument. It cannot be denied, that it is proper to use a, and not proper to use an, before the initial sound of w or y with a vowel following. And this rule holds good, whether the sound be expressed by these particular letters, or by others; as in the phrases, "a wonder, a one, a yew, a use, a ewer, a humour, a yielding temper." But I have heard it contended, that these are vowel sounds, notwithstanding they require a; and that the w and y are always vowels, because even a vowel sound (it was said) requires a and not an, whenever an other vowel sound immediately follows it. Of this notion, the following examples are a sufficient refutation: an aeronaut, an aerial tour, an oeiliad, an eyewink, an eyas, an iambus, an oaesis, an o'ersight, an oil, an oyster, an owl, an ounce. The initial sound of yielding requires a, and not an; but those who call the y a vowel, say, it is equivalent to the unaccented long e. This does not seem to me to be exactly true; because the latter sound requires an, and not a; as, "Athens, as well as Thebes, had an Eetion."

[95] Dr. Rush, in his Philosophy of the Human Voice, has exhibited some acuteness of observation, and has written with commendable originality. But his accuracy is certainly not greater than his confidence. On page 57th, he says, "The m, n, and ng, are purely nasal;" on page 401st, "Some of the tonic elements, and one of the subtonics, are made by the assistance of the lips; they are o-we, oo-ze, ou-r, and m." Of the intrinsic value of his work, I am not prepared or inclined to offer any opinion; I criticise him only so far as he strikes at grammatical principles long established, and worthy still to be maintained.

[96] Dr. Comstock, by enumerating as elementary the sound of the diphthong ou, as in our, and the complex power of wh, as in what, (which sounds ought not to be so reckoned,) makes the whole number of vocal elements in English to be "thirty-eight." See Comstock's Elocution, p. 19.

[97] This word is commonly heard in two syllables, yune'yun; but if Walker is right in making it three, yu'ne-un, the sound of y consonant is heard in it but once. Worcester's notation is "y=un'yun." The long sound of u is yu; hence Walker calls the letter, when thus sounded, a "semi-consonant diphthong."

[98] Children ought to be accustomed to speak loud, and to pronounce all possible sounds and articulations, even those of such foreign languages as they will be obliged to learn; for almost every language has its particular sounds which we pronounce with difficulty, if we have not been early accustomed to them. Accordingly, nations who have the greatest number of sounds in their speech, learn the most easily to pronounce foreign languages, since they know their articulations by having met with similar sounds in their own language."—Spurzheim, on Education, p. 159.

[99] If it be admitted that the two semivowels l and n have vocality enough of their own to form a very feeble syllable, it will prove only that there are these exceptions to an important general rule. If the name of Haydn rhymes with maiden, it makes one exception to the rule of writing; but it is no part of the English language. The obscure sound of which I speak, is sometimes improperly confounded with that of short u; thus a recent writer, who professes great skill in respect to such matters, says, "One of the most common sounds in our language is that of the vowel u, as in the word urn, or as the diphthong ea in the word earth, for which we have no character. Writers have made various efforts to express it, as in earth, berth, mirth, worth, turf, in which all the vowels are indiscriminately used in turn. [Fist] This defect has led to the absurd method of placing the vowel after the consonants, instead of between them, when a word terminates with this sound; as in the following, Bible, pure, centre, circle, instead of Bibel, puer, center, cirkel."—Gardiner's Music of Nature, p. 498. "It would be a great step towards perfection to spell our words as they are pronounced!"—Ibid., p. 499. How often do the reformers of language multiply the irregularities of which they complain!

[100] "The number of simple sounds in our tongue is twenty-eight, 9 Vowels and 19 Consonants. H is no letter, but merely a mark of aspiration."—Jones's Prosodial Gram. before his Dict., p. 14.

"The number of simple vowel and consonant sounds in our tongue is twenty-eight, and one pure aspiration h, making in all twenty-nine."—Bolles's Octavo Dict., Introd., p. 9.

"The number of letters in the English language is twenty-six; but the number of elements is thirty-eight."—Comstock's Elocution, p. 18. "There are thirty-eight elements in the English alphabet, and to represent those elements by appropriate characters, we should have thirty-eight letters. There is, then, a deficiency in our alphabet of twelve letters—and he who shall supply this imperfection, will be one of the greatest benefactors of the human race."—Ib., p. 19. "Our alphabet is both redundant and defective. C, q, and z, are respectively represented by k or s, k, and ks, or gz; and the remaining twenty-three letters are employed to represent forty-one elementary sounds."—Wells's School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 36.

"The simple sounds were in no wise to be reckoned of any certain number: by the first men they were determined to no more than ten, as spine suppose; as others, fifteen or twenty; it is however certain that mankind in general never exceed twenty simple sounds; and of these only five are reckoned strictly such."—Bicknell's Grammar, Part ii, p. 4.

[101] "When these sounds are openly pronounced, they produce the familiar assent ay: which, by the old English dramatic writers, was often expressed by I."—Walker. We still hear it so among the vulgar; as, "I, I, sir, presently!" for "Ay, ay, sir, presently!" Shakspeare wrote,

"To sleepe, perchance to dreame; I, there's the rub." —Bucke's Classical Gram., p. 143.

[102] Walker pronounces yew and you precisely alike, "yoo;" but, certainly, ew is not commonly equivalent to oo, though some make it so: thus Gardiner, in his scheme of the vowels, says, "ew equals oo, as in new, noo."—Music of Nature, p. 483. Noo for new, is a vulgarism, to my ear.—G. BROWN.

[103] "As harmony is an inherent property of sound, the ear should he first called to the attention of simple sounds; though, in reality, all are composed of three, so nicely blended as to appear but as one."—Gardiner's Music of Nature, p. 8. "Every sound is a mixture of three tones; as much as a ray of light is composed of three prismatic colours."—Ib., p. 387.

[104] The titulary name of the sacred volume is "The Holy Bible." The word Scripture or Scriptures is a common name for the writings contained in this inestimable volume, and, in the book itself, is seldom distinguished by a capital; but, in other works, it seems proper in general to write it so, by way of eminence.

[105] "Benedictus es Domine Deus Israel patris nostri ab eterno in eternum."—Vulgate. "O Eternel! Dieu d'Israel, notre pere, tu es beni de tout temps et a toujours."—Common French Bible. "[Greek: Eulogaetos ei Kyrie ho theos Israel ho pataer haemon apo tou aionos kai heos tou aionos.]"—Septuagint.

[106] Where the word "See" accompanies the reference, the reader may generally understand that the citation, whether right or wrong in regard to grammar, is not in all respects exactly as it will be found in the place referred to. Cases of this kind, however, will occur but seldom; and it is hoped the reasons for admitting a few, will be sufficiently obvious. Brevity is indispensable; and some rules are so generally known and observed, that one might search long for half a dozen examples of their undesigned violation. Wherever an error is made intentionally in the Exercises, the true reading and reference are to be expected in the Key.

[107] "Et irritaverunt ascendentes in mare, Mare rubrum."—Latin Vulgate, folio, Psal. cv, 7. This, I think, should have been "Mare Rubrum," with two capitals.—G. BROWN.

[108] The printers, from the manner in which they place their types before them, call the small letters "lower-case letters," or "letters of the lower case."

[109] I imagine that "plagues" should here be plague, in the singular number, and not plural. "Ero more ius, o mors; morsus tuus ero, inferne."—Vulgate. "[Greek: Pou hae dikae sou, thanate; pou to kentron sou, aidae;]"—Septuagint, ibid.

[110] It is hoped that not many persons will be so much puzzled as are Dr. Latham and Professor Fowler, about the application of this rule. In their recent works on The English Language, these gentlemen say, "In certain words of more than one syllable, it is difficult to say to which syllable the intervening Consonant belongs. For instance, does the v in river and the v in fever belong to the first or to the second syllable? Are the words to be divided thus, ri-ver, fe-ver? or thus, riv-er, fev-er?"—Fowler's E. Gram., 1850, Sec.85; Latham's Hand-Book, p. 95. Now I suppose it plain, that, by the rule given above, fever is to be divided in the former way, and river in the latter; thus, fe-ver, riv-er. But this paragraph of Latham's or Fowler's is written, not to disembarrass the learner, but just as if it were a grammarian's business to confound his readers with fictitious dilemmas—and those expressed ungrammatically! Of the two Vees, so illogically associated in one question, and so solecistically spoken of by the singular verb "does," one belongs to the former syllable, and the other, to the latter; nor do I discover that "it is difficult to say" this, or to be well assured that it is right. What an admirable passage for one great linguist to steal from an other!

[111] "The usual rules for dividing [words into] syllables, are not only arbitrary but false and absurd. They contradict the very definition of a syllable given by the authors themselves. * * * * A syllable in pronunciation is an indivisible thing; and strange as it may appear, what is indivisible in utterance is divided in writing: when the very purpose of dividing words into syllables in writing, is to lead the learner to a just pronunciation."—Webster's Improved Gram., p. 156; Philosophical Gram., 221.

[112] This word, like distich and monostich, is from the Greek stichos, a verse; and is improperly spelled by Walker with a final k. It should be hemistich, with the accent on the first syllable. See Webster, Scott, Perry, Worcester, and others.

[113] According to Aristotle, the compounding of terms, or the writing of them as separate words, must needs be a matter of great importance to the sense. For he will have the parts of a compound noun, or of a compound verb, to be, like other syllables, destitute of any distinct signification in themselves, whatever may be their meaning when written separately. See his definitions of the parts of speech, in his Poetics, Chapter 20th of the Greek; or Goulston's Version in Latin, Chapter 12th.

[114] Whether worshipper should follow this principle, or not, is questionable. If Dr. Webster is right in making worship a compound of worth and ship, he furnishes a reason against his own practice of using a single p in worshiper, worshiped, and worshiping. The Saxon word appears to have been weorthscype. But words ending in ship are derivatives, rather than compounds; and therefore they seem to belong to the rule, rather than to the exception: as, "So we fellowshiped him."—Herald of Freedom: Liberator, Vol. ix, p. 68.

[115] When ee comes before e, or may be supposed to do so, or when ll comes before l, one of the letters is dropped that three of the same kind may not meet: as, free, freer, freest, freeth, freed; skill, skilless; full, fully; droll, drolly. And, as burgess-ship, hostess-ship, and mistress-ship are derivatives, and not compounds, I think they ought to follow the same principle, and be written burgesship, hostesship, mistresship. The proper form of gall-less is perhaps more doubtful. It ought not to be gallless, as Dr. Webster has it; and galless, the analogical form, is yet, so far as I know without authority. But is it not preferable to the hyphened form, with three Ells, which has authority? "GALL-LESS, a. Without gall or bitterness. Cleaveland."—Chalmers, Bolles, Worcester.

"Ah! mild and gall-less dove, Which dost the pure and candid dwellings love, Canst thou in Albion still delight?"—Cowley's Odes.

Worcester's Dictionary has also the questionable word bellless. Treen, for trees, or for an adjective meaning a tree's, or made of a tree, is exhibited in several of our dictionaries, and pronounced as a monosyllable: but Dr. Beattie, in his Poems, p. 84, has made it a dissyllable, with three like letters divided by a hyphen, thus:—

"Plucking from tree-en bough her simple food."

[116] Handiwork, handicraft, and handicraftsman, appear to have been corruptly written for handwork, handcraft, and handcraftsman. They were formerly in good use, and consequently obtained a place in our vocabulary, from which no lexicographer, so far as I know, has yet thought fit to discard them; but, being irregular, they are manifestly becoming obsolete, or at least showing a tendency to throw off these questionable forms. Handcraft and handcraftsman are now exhibited in some dictionaries, and handiwork seems likely to be resolved into handy and work, from which Johnson supposes it to have been formed. See Psalm xix, 1. The text is varied thus: "And the firmament sheweth his handiwork."—Johnson's Dict.. "And the firmament sheweth his handy-work."—Scott's Bible; Bruce's Bible; Harrison's Gram., p. 83. "And the firmament showeth his handy work."—Alger's Bible; Friends' Bible; Harrison's Gram., p. 103.

[117] Here a word, formed from its root by means of the termination ize, afterwards assumes a prefix, to make a secondary derivative: thus, organ, organize, disorganize. In such a case, the latter derivative must of course be like the former; and I assume that the essential or primary formation of both from the word organ is by the termination ize; but it is easy to see that disguise, demise, surmise, and the like, are essentially or primarily formed by means of the prefixes, dis, de, and sur. As to advertise, exercise, detonize, and recognize, which I have noted among the exceptions, it is not easy to discover by which method we ought to suppose them to have been formed; but with respect to nearly all others, the distinction is very plain; and though there may be no natural reason for founding upon it such a rule as the foregoing, the voice of general custom is as clear in this as in most other points or principles of orthography, and, surely, some rule in this case is greatly needed.

[118] Criticise, with s, is the orthography of Johnson, Walker, Webster, Jones, Scott, Bolles, Chalmers, Cobb, and others; and so did Worcester spell it in his Comprehensive Dictionary of 1831, but, in his Universal and Critical Dictionary of 1846, he wrote it with z, as did Bailey in his folio, about a hundred years ago. Here the z conforms to the foregoing rule, and the s does not.

[119] Like this, the compound brim-full ought to be written with a hyphen and accented on the last syllable; but all our lexicographers have corrupted it into brim'ful, and, contrary to the authorities they quote, accented it on the first. Their noun brim'fulness, with a like accent, is also a corruption; and the text of Shakspeare, which they quote for it, is nonsense, unless brim, be there made a separate adjective:—

"With ample and brimfulness of his force."—Johnson's Dict. et al.

"With ample and brim fullness of his force," would be better.

[120] According to Littleton, the coraliticus lapis was a kind of Phrygian marble, "called Coralius or by an other name Sangarius." But this substance seems to be different from all that are described by Webster, under the names of "coralline," "corallinite," and "corallite." See Webster's Octavo Dict.

[121] The Greek word for argil is [Greek: argilos], or [Greek: argillos], (from [Greek: argos], white,) meaning pure white earth; and is as often spelled with one Lamda as with two.

[122] Dr. Webster, with apparent propriety, writes caviling and cavilous with one l, like dialing and perilous; but he has in general no more uniformity than Johnson, in respect to the doubling of l final. He also, in some instances, accents similar words variously: as, cor'alliform, upon the first syllable, metal'liform, upon the second; cav'ilous and pap'illous, upon the first, argil'lous, upon the second; ax'illar, upon the first, medul'lar, upon the second. See Webster's Octavo Dict.

[123] Perry wrote crystaline, crystalize, crystalization, metaline, metalist, metalurgist, and metalurgy; and these forms, as well as crystalography, metalic, metalography, and metaliferous, are noticed and preferred by the authors of the Red Book, on pp. 288 and 302.

[124] "But if a diphthong precedes, or the accent is on the preceding syllable, the consonant remains single: as, to toil, toiling; to offer, an offering."—Murray's Octavo Gram., p. 24; Walker's Rhym. Dict., Introd., p. ix.

[125] Johnson, Walker, and Webster, all spell this word sep'ilible; which is obviously wrong; as is Johnson's derivation of it from sepio, to hedge in. Sepio would make, not this word, but sepibilis and sepible, hedgeable.

[126] If the variable word control, controul, or controll, is from con and troul or troll, it should be spelled with ll, by Rule 7th, and retain the ll by Rule 6th. Dr. Webster has it so, but he gives control also.

[127] Ache, and its plural, aches, appear to have been formerly pronounced like the name of the eighth letter, with its plural, Aitch, and Aitches; for the old poets made "aches" two syllables. But Johnson says of ache, a pain, it is "now generally written ake, and in the plural akes, of one syllable."—See his Quarto Dict. So Walker: "It is now almost universally written ake and akes."—See Walker's Principles, No. 355. So Webster: "Ake, less properly written ache."—See his Octavo Dict. But Worcester seems rather to prefer ache.—G. B.

[128] This book has, probably, more recommenders than any other of the sort. I have not patience to count them accurately, but it would seem that more than a thousand of the great and learned have certified to the world, that they never before had seen so good a spelling-book! With personal knowledge of more than fifty of the signers, G. B. refused to add his poor name, being ashamed of the mischievous facility with which very respectable men had loaned their signatures.

[129] Scrat, for scratch. The word is now obsolete, and may be altered by taking ch in the correction.

[130] "Hairbrained, adj. This should rather be written harebrained; unconstant, unsettled, wild as a hare."—Johnson's Dict. Webster writes it harebrained, as from hare and brain. Worcester, too, prefers this form.

[131] "The whole number of verbs in the English language, regular and irregular, simple and compounded, taken together, is about 4,300. See, in Dr. Ward's Essays on the English language, the catalogue of English verbs. The whole number of irregular verbs, the defective included, is about 176."—Lowth's Gram., Philad., 1799, p. 59. Lindley Murray copied the first and the last of these three sentences, but made the latter number "about 177."—Octavo Gram., p. 109; Duodecimo, p. 88. In the latter work, he has this note: "The whole number of words, in the English language, is about thirty-five thousand."—Ib. Churchill says, "The whole number of verbs in the English language, according to Dr. Ward, is about 4,300. The irregulars, including the auxilaries [sic—KTH], scarcely exceed 200."—New Gram., p. 113. An other late author has the following enumeration: "There are in the English language about twenty thousand five hundred nouns, forty pronouns, eight thousand verbs, nine thousand two hundred adnouns, two thousand six hundred adverbs, sixty-nine prepositions, nineteen conjunctions, and sixty-eight interjections; in all, above forty thousand words."—Rev. David Blair's Gram., p. 10. William Ward, M. A., in an old grammar undated, which speaks of Dr. Lowth's as one with which the public had "very lately been favoured," says: "There are four Thousand and about Five Hundred Verbs in the English [language]."—Ward's Practical Gram., p. 52.

[132] These definitions are numbered here, because each of them is the first of a series now begun. In class rehearsals, the pupils may be required to give the definitions in turn; and, to prevent any from losing the place, it is important that the numbers be mentioned. When all have become sufficiently familiar with the definitions, the exercise may be performed without them. They are to be read or repeated till faults disappear—or till the teacher is satisfied with the performance. He may then save time, by commanding his class to proceed more briefly; making such distinctions as are required in the praxis, but ceasing to explain the terms employed; that is, omitting all the definitions, for brevity's sake. This remark is applicable likewise to all the subsequent praxes of etymological parsing.]

[133] The modifications which belong to the different parts of speech consist chiefly of the inflections or changes to which certain words are subject. But I use the term sometimes in a rather broader sense, as including not only variations of words, but, in certain instances, their original forms, and also such of their relations as serve to indicate peculiar properties. This is no questionable license in the use of the term; for when the position of a word modifies its meaning, or changes its person or case, this effect is clearly a grammatical modification, though there be no absolute inflection. Lord Kames observes, "That quality, which distinguishes one genus, one species, or even one individual, from an other, is termed a modification: thus the same particular that is termed a property or quality, when considered as belonging to an individual, or a class of individuals, is termed a modification, when considered as distinguishing the individual or the class from an other."—Elements of Criticism, Vol. ii, p. 392.

[134] Wells, having put the articles into the class of adjectives, produces authority as follows: "'The words a or an, and the, are reckoned by some grammarians a separate part of speech; but, as they in all respects come under the definition of the adjective, it is unnecessary, as well as improper, to rank them as a class by themselves.'—Cannon." To this he adds, "The articles are also ranked with adjectives by Priestley, E. Oliver, Bell, Elphinston, M'Culloch, D'Orsey, Lindsay, Joel, Greenwood. Smetham, Dalton, King, Hort, Buchanan, Crane, J. Russell, Frazee, Cutler, Perley, Swett, Day. Goodenow, Willard, Robbins, Felton, Snyder, Butler, S. Barrett, Badgley, Howe, Whiting, Davenport, Fowle, Weld, and others."—Wells's School Gram., p. 69. In this way, he may have made it seem to many, that, after thorough investigation, he had decided the point discreetly, and with preponderance of authority. For it is claimed as a "peculiar merit" of this grammar, that, "Every point of practical importance is thoroughly investigated, and reference is carefully made to the researches of preceding writers, in all cases which admit of being determined by weight of authority."—WILLIAM RUSSELL, on the cover. But, in this instance, as in sundry others, wherein he opposes the more common doctrine, and cites concurrent authors, both he and all his authorities are demonstrably to the wrong. For how can they be right, while reason, usage, and the prevailing opinion, are still against them? If we have forty grammars which reject, the articles as a part of speech, we have more than twice as many which recognize them as such; among which are those of the following authors: viz., Adam, D. Adams, Ainsworth, Alden, Alger, W. Allen, Ash, Bacon, Barnard, Beattie, Beck, Bicknell, Bingham, Blair, J. H. Brown, Bucke, Bullions, Burn, Burr, Chandler, Churchill, Coar, Cobbett, Cobbin, Comly, Cooper, Davis, Dearborn, Ensell, Everett, Farnum, Fisk, A. Flint, Folker, Fowler, Frost, R. G. Greene, Greenleaf, Guy, Hall, Hallock, Hart, Harrison, Matt. Harrison, Hazen, Hendrick, Hiley, Hull, Ingersoll, Jaudon, Johnson, Kirkham, Latham, Lennie, A. Lewis, Lowth, Maltby, Maunder, Mennye, Merchant, T. H. Miller, Murray, Nixon, Nutting, Parker and Fox, John Peirce, Picket, Pond, S. Putnam, Russell, Sanborn, Sanders, R. C. Smith, Rev. T. Smith, Spencer, Tower, Tucker, Walker, Webber, Wilcox, Wilson, Woodworth, J. E. Worcester, S. Worcester, Wright. The articles characterize our language more than some of the other parts of speech, and are worthy of distinction for many reasons, one of which is the very great frequency of their use.

[135] In Murray's Abridgement, and in his "Second Edition," 12mo, the connective in this place is "or;" and so is it given by most of his amenders; as in Alger's Murray, p. 68; Alden's, 89; Bacon's, 48; Cooper's, 111; A. Flint's, 65; Maltby's, 60; Miller's, 67; S. Putnam's, 74; Russell's, 52; T. Smith's, 61. All these, and many more, repeat both of these ill-devised rules.

[136] When this was written, Dr. Webster was living.

[137] In French, the preposition a, (to,) is always carefully distinguished from the verb a, (has,) by means of the grave accent, which is placed over the former for that purpose. And in general also the Latin word a, (from,) is marked in the same way. But, with us, no appropriate sign has hitherto been adopted to distinguish the preposition a from the article a; though the Saxon a, (to,) is given by Johnson with an acute, even where no other a is found. Hence, in their ignorance, thousands of vulgar readers, and among them the authors of sundry grammars, have constantly mistaken this preposition for an article. Examples: "Some adverbs are composed of the article a prefixed to nouns; as a-side, a-thirst, a-sleep, a-shore, a-ground, &c."—Comly's Gram., p67. "Repeat some [adverbs] that are composed of the article a and nouns."—Kirkham's Gram., p. 89. "To go a fishing;" "To go a hunting;" i.e. "to go on a fishing voyage or business;" "to go on a hunting party."—Murray's Gram., p. 221; Fisk's, 147; Ingersoll's, 157; Smith's, 184; Bullions's, 129; Merchant's, 101; Weld's, 192, and others. That this interpretation is false and absurd, may be seen at once by any body who can read Latin; for, a hunting, a fishing, &c., are expressed by the supine in um: as, "Venatum ire."—Virg. AEn. I.e., "To go a hunting." "Abeo piscatum."—Beza. I.e. "I go a fishing."—John, xxi, 3. Every school-boy ought to know better than to call this a an article. A fishing is equivalent to the infinitive to fish. For the Greek of the foregoing text is [Greek: Hupago halieuein,] which is rendered by Montanus, "Vado piscari;" i.e., "I go to fish." One author ignorantly says, "The article a seems to have no particular meaning, and is hardly proper in such expressions as these. 'He went a-hunting,' She lies a-bed all day.'"—Wilcox's Gram., p. 59. No marvel that he could not find the meaning of an article in this a! With doltish and double inconsistency, Weld first calls this "The article a employed in the sense of a preposition," (E. Gram., p. 177,) and afterwards adopts Murray's interpretation as above cited! Some, too, have an absurd practice of joining this preposition to the participle; generally with the hyphen, but sometimes without: thus, "A-GOING, In motion; as, to set a mill agoing."—Webster's Dict. The doctor does not tell us what part of speech agoing is; but, certainly, "to set the mill to going," expresses just the same meaning, and is about as often heard. In the burial-service of the Common Prayer Book, we read, "They are even as asleep;" but, in the ninetieth Psalm, from which this is taken, we find the text thus: "They are as a sleep;" that is, as a dream that is fled. Now these are very different readings, and cannot both he right.

[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 Plataea."—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!