Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/259

 10< S. III. MARCH IS, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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turns on the position of the particle to, whic is the prefix to our verb infinitive and th sign of it. It is omitted before infinitive following what we call the auxiliary verbs shall, will, can, may, do, and also must anc let, and oftener than not, bid, dare, hear make, see, and perhaps some others. (Se ' The English of Shakespeare,' by G. L. Craik fourth edition, pp. 64-5.) But Dr. Guest, a we learn from this excellent work, ha produced " citations from the same write which exhibit the auxiliaries may, will, can with the to. And he also produces from Spenser (' F. Q.,' iv. 7, 32) Whom when on ground she grovelling saw to roll ; and from Shakspeare ('Othello,' IV. ii.) I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest. In a few other cases we find that the sign of the infinitive may be omitted, but we al know, or ought to know, in what mood the verb is. It may even be elegantly suppressed as when the blushing bride promises "to love, cherish, and to obey till death do us part" her "wedded husband." But in modern English hat is, "the English oi the last four centuries" ('The Making oi English,' by Henry Bradley, p. 8) if we examine the works of Chaucer, Ascham, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Addisonj Pope, and, coming to our own time, those of Thackeray, Tennyson, Newman, and Ruskin, we shall find it to be the universal custom of these great writers to place the sign to before the verb, as in to love. If half a dozen examples of a split infinitive could be found in their works, they would only show that genius cannot always command perfect expression and now and then trips in its grammar. The exceptions would prove the rule, which I shall give as briefly as possible. In the sixth chapter of Ben Jonson's 'English Grammar' to is recognized as the sign of the verb "infinite." In Dr. Lowth's 'Short Introduction to English Grammar' (1762) we read on p. 108 that " to before a verb is the sign of the infinitive mode." I could add quotations to the same effect from Johnson's 'Dictionary' (sixth ed., 1782), not under to, but under the word for; Harris's Hermes,' bk. i. chap. viii. ; Home Tooke's 'Diversions of Purley,' pt. i. chap, ix., and other authorities ; but I will conclude with paragraph 93 of Cobbett's ' Grammar.' " The infinitive mood," he says, with as much clear- ness as common sense,

" is the verb in its primitive state : as, to march. And this is called the infinitive, because it is with- out bounds or limit. It merely expresses the action of marching, without any constraint as to person or number or time. The little word to makes, in

fact, a part of the verb. This word to is, of itself, a preposition : but as prefixed to verbs, it is merely a siyii of the infinitive mood. In other languages, there is no such sign. In the French, for instance, aller means to go; ecrire means to write. Thus, then, you will bear in mind that in English the to makes a part of the verb itself when in the infini- tive mood."

W. Hazlitt, a most competent judge, does not hesitate to say that Cobbett is "one of the best writers in the language." With his utterance on the matter in dispute I am in full accord, and shall therefore believe that it is a sin against English to employ a split infinitive. What grammar hath joined together, let no man separate.

JOHN T. CURRY.

With a scarcely gracious iteration of the second-hand sneer against critics of a man who, whatever his other merits, rarely wrote a tolerable line, COL. PRIDEAUX says that the employment of the split infinitive is " purely a matter of taste." So be it. The answer is that men of taste do not use it. It is nothing to the point to say that a competent writer is betrayed into its employment. In order to make his example of any value, a writer must be shown deliberately to have selected such a form in preference to another. I defy any one to point to such a writer. The habitual employer of the split infinitive is a delightful flabby creature, such as Fanny Burney, who rarely misses a phrase such as from thence," or the modern journalist, whom I will leave others to describe or cha- racterize. To the philologist I listen with all possible respect. There are subjects, lowever, on which even his far-reaching ntellect may not speak the last word, more (specially since in his joy over his dis-
 * overies his sesthetical sense is apt to

Become blurred. What is a style must )e learnt from great writers, and great vriters do not misuse the split infinitive. '. shall be prepared to accept the split infini- ive when, if ever, by its use an idea gains n precision, emphasis, or euphony, but not until then. MARO.

I am not writing to continue a needless

ontroversy, but to answer an entirely new

uestion, which should have had a new

leading, such as " the use of to with the

nfinitive."

The notion that to in to-day arose from Northern pronunciation of the definite rticle the is answered at once by simply xamining the facts. For, of course, it is a ad guess ; and it seems a very great pity, n these days, that guessing should still be onsidered pardonable in cases where full