Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/470

 admirable keeping with all the foregoing quotations, and especially with his notion of what it does require; namely, "the objective case of the first person:" but who dares deny that the following exclamation is good English?

"O wretched we! why were we hurried down   This lubric and adulterate age!"--Dryden.

OBS. 6.--The truth of any doctrine in science, can be nothing else than its conformity to facts, or to the nature of things; and chiefly by what he knows of the things themselves, must any one judge of what others say concerning them. Erroneous or inadequate views, confused or inconsistent statements, are the peculiar property of those who advance them; they have, in reality, no relationship to science itself, because they originate in ignorance; but all science is knowledge--it is knowledge methodized. What general rules are requisite for the syntactical parsing of the several parts of speech in English, may be seen at once by any one who will consider for a moment the usual construction of each. The correction of false syntax, in its various forms, will require more--yes, five times as many; but such of these as answer only the latter purpose, are, I think, better reserved for notes under the principal rules. The doctrines which I conceive most worthy to form the leading canons of our syntax, are those which are expressed in the twenty-four rules above. If other authors prefer more, or fewer, or different principles for their chief rules, I must suppose, it is because they have studied the subject less. Biased, as we may be, both by our knowledge and by our ignorance, it is easy for men to differ respecting matters of expediency; but that clearness, order, and consistency, are both expedient, and requisite, in didactic compositions, is what none can doubt.

OBS. 7.--Those English grammarians who tell us, as above, that syntax is divided into parts, or included under a certain number of heads, have almost universally contradicted themselves by treating the subject without any regard to such a division; and, at the same time, not a few have somehow been led into the gross error of supposing broad principles of concord or government where no such things exist. For example, they have invented general RULES like these: "The adjective agrees with its noun in number, case, and gender."--Bingham's English Gram., p. 40. "Interjections govern the nominative case, and sometimes the objective: as, O thou! alas me!"--Ib., p. 43. "Adjectives agree with their nouns in number."--Wilbur and Livingston's Gram., p. 22. "Participles agree with their nouns in number."--Ib., p. 23. "Every adjective agrees in number with some substantive expressed or understood."-- Hiley's Gram., Rule 8th, p. 77. "The article THE agrees with nouns in either number: as, The wood, the woods."--Bucke's Classical Grammar of the English Language, p. 84. "O! oh! ah! require the accusative case of a pronoun in the first person after them: as Ah me! But when the second person is used, it requires a nominative case: as, O thou!"--Ib., p. 87. "Two or more Nominatives in the singular number, connected by the Conjunction or, nor, EITHER, NEITHER, govern a singular Verb. But Pronouns singular, of different persons, joined by or, EITHER, nor, NEITHER, govern a plural Verb."--Ib., p. 94. "One Nominative frequently governs many Verbs."--Ib., p. 95. "Participles are sometimes governed by the article."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 192. "An adverb, an adjective, or a participle, may involve in itself the force of a preposition, and govern the objective case."--Nutting's Gram., p. 99. "The nominative case governs the verb." [326]--Greenleaf's Gram., p. 32; Kirkham's, 176; and others. "The nominative case comes before the verb."--Bingham's Gram., p. 38; Wilbur and Livingston's, 23. "The Verb TO BE, always governs a Nominative, unless it be of the Infinitive Mood."--Buchanan's Syntax, p. 94. "A verb in the infinitive mood may be governed by a verb, noun, adjective, participle, or pronoun."--Kirkham's Gram., p. 187. Or, (as a substitute for the foregoing rule,) say, according to this author: "A verb in the infinitive mood, refers to some noun or pronoun, as its subject or actor."--Ib., p. 188. Now what does he know of English grammar, who supposes any of these rules to be worthy of the place which they hold, or have held, in the halls of instruction?

OBS. 8.--It is a very common fault with the compilers of English grammars, to join together in the same rule the syntax of different parts of speech, uniting laws that must ever be applied separately in parsing. For example: "RULE XI. Articles and adjectives relate to nouns expressed or understood; and the adjectives this, that, one, two, must agree in number with the nouns to which they relate."--Comly's Gram., p. 87. Now, in parsing an article, why should the learner have to tell all this story about adjectives? Such a mode of expressing the rule, is certainly in bad taste; and, after all, the syntax of adjectives is not here comprised, for they often relate to pronouns. "RULE III. Every adjective and participle belongs to some noun or pronoun expressed or understood."--''Frost's El. of Gram.'', p. 44. Here a compiler who in his etymology supposes participles to be verbs, allows them no other construction than that of adjectives. His rule implicitly denies that they can either be parts of their verbs in the formation of tenses, or be governed by prepositions in the character of gerunds. To suppose that a noun may govern the objective case, is both absurd in itself, and contrary to all authority; yet, among his f