Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/491



RULE I.--ARTICLES.

Articles relate to the nouns which they limit:[335] as, "At a little distance from the ruins of the abbey, stands an aged elm."

"See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing,   The sot a hero, lunatic a king."--Pope's Essay, Ep. ii, l. 268.

EXCEPTION FIRST.

The definite article used intensively, may relate to an adjective or adverb of the comparative or the superlative degree; as, "A land which was the mightiest."--Byron. "The farther they proceeded, the greater appeared their alacrity."--Dr. Johnson. "He chooses it the rather"--Cowper. See Obs. 10th, below.

EXCEPTION SECOND.

The indefinite article is sometimes used to give a collective meaning to what seems a plural adjective of number; as, "Thou hast a few names even in Sardis."--Rev., iii, 4. "There are a thousand things which crowd into my memory."--Spectator, No. 468. "The centurion commanded a hundred men."--Webster. See Etymology, Articles, Obs. 26.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE I.

OBS. 1.--The article is a kind of index, usually pointing to some noun; and it is a general, if not a universal, principle, that no one noun admits of more than one article. Hence, two or more articles in a sentence are signs of two or more nouns; and hence too, by a very convenient ellipsis, an article before an adjective is often made to relate to a noun understood; as, "The grave [people] rebuke the gay [people], and the gay [people] mock the grave" [people].--Maturin's Sermons, p. 103. "The wise [persons] shall inherit glory."--Prov., iii, 35. "The vile [person] will talk villainy."--Coleridge's Lay Sermons, p. 105: see Isaiah, xxxii, 6. "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple" [ones].--Psal., xix, 7. "The Old [Testament] and the New Testament are alike authentic."--"The animal [world] and the vegetable world are adapted to each other."--"An epic [poem] and a dramatic poem are the same in substance."--''Ld. Kames, El. of Crit.'', ii, 274. "The neuter verb is conjugated like the active" [verb].--Murray's Gram., p. 99. "Each section is supposed to contain a heavy [portion] and a light portion; the heavy [portion] being the accented syllable, and the light [portion] the unaccented" [syllable].--''Rush, on the Voice'', p. 364.

OBS. 2.--Our language does not, like the French, require a repetition of the article before every noun in a series; because the same article may serve to limit the signification of several nouns, provided they all stand in the same construction. Hence the following sentence is bad English: "The understanding and language have a strict connexion."--Murray's Gram., i, p. 356. The sense of the former noun only was meant to be limited. The expression therefore should have been, "Language and the understanding have a strict connexion," or, "The understanding has a strict connexion with language." In some instances, one article seems to limit the sense of several nouns that are not all in the same construction, thus: "As it proves a greater or smaller obstruction to the speaker's or writer's aim."--Campbell's Rhet., p. 200. That is--"to the aim of the speaker or the writer." It is, in fact, the possessive, that limits the other nouns; for, "a man's foes" means, "the foes of a man;" and, "man's wisdom," means, "the wisdom of man." The governing noun cannot have an article immediately before it. Yet the omission of articles, when it occurs, is not properly by ellipsis, as some grammarians declare it to be; for there never can be a proper ellipsis of an article, when there is not also an ellipsis of its noun. Ellipsis supposes the omitted words to be necessary to the construction, when they are not so to the sense; and this, it would seem, cannot be the case with a mere article. If such a sign be in any wise necessary, it ought to be used; and if not needed in any respect, it cannot be said to be understood. The definite article being generally required before adjectives that are used by ellipsis as nouns, we in this case repeat it before every term in a series; as, "They are singled out from among their fellows, as the kind, the amiable, the sweet-tempered, the upright."--Dr. Chalmers.

"The great, the gay, shall they partake   The heav'n that thou alone canst make?"--Cowper.

OBS. 3.--The article precedes its noun, and is never, by itself, placed after it; as, "Passion is the drunkenness of the mind."--Southey. When an adjective likewise precedes the noun, the article is usually placed before the adjective, that its power of limitation may extend over that also; as, "A concise writer compresses his thoughts into the fewest possible words."--Blair's Rhet., p. 176.

"The private