Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/233

 Cicero, indifferent to Socrates, desirable to Cato."--Home's Art of Thinking, pp. 26-53.

"O thou most high transcendent gift of age!   Youth from its folly thus to disengage."--Denham's Age.

LESSON III.--PARSING.

"Calm was the day, and the scene, delightful. We may expect a calm after a storm. To prevent passion is easier than to calm it."--Murray's Ex., p. 5. "Better is a little with content, than a great deal with anxiety. A little attention will rectify some errors. Unthinking persons care little for the future."--See ib. "Still waters are commonly deepest. He laboured to still the tumult. Though he is out of danger, he is still afraid."--Ib. "Damp air is unwholesome. Guilt often casts a damp over our sprightliest hours. Soft bodies damp the sound much more than hard ones."--Ib. "The hail was very destructive. Hail, virtue! source of every good. We hail you as friends."--Ib., p. 6. "Much money makes no man happy. Think much, and speak little. He has seen much of the world."--See ib. "Every being loves its like. We must make a like space between the lines. Behave like men. We are apt to like pernicious company."--Ib. "Give me more love, or more disdain."--Carew. "He loved Rachel more than Leah."--Genesis. "But how much that more is; he hath no distinct notion."--Locke.

"And my more having would be as a sauce   To make me hunger more."--Shakspeare.

CHAPTER II.--ARTICLES.

An Article is the word the, an, or a, which we put before nouns to limit their signification: as, The air, the stars; an island, a ship.

An and a, being equivalent in meaning, are commonly reckoned one and the same article. An is used in preference to a, whenever the following word begins with a vowel sound; as, An art, an end, an heir, an inch, an ounce, an hour, an urn. A is used in preference to an, whenever the following word begins with a consonant sound; as, A man, a house, a wonder, a one, a yew, a use, a ewer. Thus the consonant sounds of w and y, even when expressed by other letters, require a and not an before them.

A common noun, when taken in its widest sense, usually admits no article: as, "A candid temper is proper for man; that is, for all mankind."--Murray.

In English, nouns without any article, or other definitive, are often used in a sense indefinitely partitive: as, "He took bread, and gave thanks."--Acts. That is, "some bread." "To buy food are thy servants come."--Genesis. That is, "some food." "There are fishes that have wings, and are not strangers to the airy region."--Locke's Essay, p. 322. That is, "some fishes."

"Words in which nothing but the mere being of any thing is implied, are used without articles: as, 'This is not beer, but water;' 'This is not brass, but steel.'"--See Dr. Johnson's Gram., p. 5.

An or a before the genus, may refer to a whole species; and thebefore the species, may denote that whole species emphatically: as, "A certain bird is termed the cuckoo, from the sound which it emits."--Blair.

But an or a is commonly used to denote individuals as unknown, or as not specially distinguished from others: as, "I see an object pass by, which I never saw till now; and I say, 'There goes a beggar with a long beard.'"--Harris.

And the is commonly used to denote individuals as known, or as specially distinguished from others: as, "The man departs, and returns a week after; and I say, 'There goes the beggar with the long beard.'"--Id.