Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/1077

 dim, or bedim; gird, or begird; lure, or allure; move, or emove; reave, or bereave; vails, or avails; vanish, or evanish; wail, or bewail; weep, or beweep; wilder, or bewilder:--

1. "All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide   In heav'n, or earth, or under earth in hell." --Milton, P. L., B. iii, l. 321.

2. "Of a horse, ware the heels; of a bull-dog, the jaws;   Of a bear, the embrace; of a lion, the paws." --Churchills Cram., p. 215.

XXVIII. Some few verbs they abbreviate: as list, for listen; ope, for open; hark, for hearken; dark, for darken; threat, for threaten; sharp, for sharpen.

XXIX. They employ several verbs that are not used in prose, or are used but rarely; as, appal, astound, brook, cower, doff, ken, wend, ween, trow.

XXX. They sometimes imitate a Greek construction of the infinitive; as,

1. "Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew   Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme." --Milton.

2. "For not, to have been dipp'd in Lethè lake,   Could save the son of Thetis from to die." --Spenser.

XXXI. They employ the PARTICIPLES more frequently than prose writers, and in a construction somewhat peculiar; often intensive by accumulation: as,

1. "He came, and, standing in the midst, explain'd   The peace rejected, but the truce obtain'd." --Pope.

2. "As a poor miserable captive thrall   Comes to the place where he before had sat    Among the prime in splendor, now depos'd,    Ejected, emptied, gaz'd, unpitied, shunn'd,    A spectacle of ruin or of scorn." --Milton, P. R., B. i, l. 411.

3. "Though from our birth the faculty divine   Is chain'd and tortured--cabin'd, cribb'd, confined." --Byron, Pilg., C. iv, St. 127.

XXXII. In turning participles to adjectives, they sometimes ascribe actions, or active properties, to things to which they do not literally belong; as,

"The green leaf quivering in the gale,   The warbling hill, the lowing vale." --MALLET: Union Poems, p. 26.

XXXIII. They employ several ADVERBS that are not used in prose, or are used but seldom; as, oft, haply, inly, blithely, cheerily, deftly, felly, rifely, starkly.

XXXIV. They give to adverbs a peculiar location in respect to other words; as,

1. "Peeping from forth their alleys green." --Collins.

2. "Erect the standard there of ancient Night" --Milton.

3. "The silence often of pure innocence   Persuades, when speaking fails." --Shakspeare.

4. "Where Universal Love not smiles around." --Thomson.

5. "Robs me of that which not enriches him." --Shakspeare.

XXXV. They sometimes omit the introductory adverb there: as,

"Was nought around but images of rest." --Thomson.

XXXVI. They briefly compare actions by a kind of compound adverbs, ending in like; as,

"Who bid the stork, Columbus-like, explore   Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before?" --Pope.

XXXVII. They employ the CONJUNCTIONS, or--or, and nor--nor, as correspondents; as,

1. "Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po." --Goldsmith.

2. "Wealth heap'd on wealth, nor truth, nor safety buys." --Johnson.

3. "Who by repentance is not satisfied,   Is nor of heaven, nor earth; for these are pleas'd." --Shakspeare.

4. "Toss it, or to the fowls, or to the flames." --Young, N. T., p. 157.

5. "Nor shall the pow'rs of hell, nor wastes of time,   Or vanquish, or destroy." --Gibbon's Elegy on Davies.

XXXVIII. They oftener place PREPOSITIONS and their adjuncts, before the words on which they depend, than do prose writers; as,

"Against your fame with fondness hate combines;   The rival batters, and the lover mines." --Dr. Johnson.

XXXIX. They sometimes place a long or dissyllabic preposition after its object; as,

1. "When beauty, Eden's bowers within,   First stretched the arm to deeds of sin,    When passion burn'd and prudence slept,    The pitying angels bent and wept." --James Hogg.