Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/534

 omission of an i which was formerly inserted, and made an addition of a syllable to the word."—Priestley's Gram., p. 67. "There are few, whom I can refer to, with more advantage than Mr. Addison."—Blair's Rhet., p. 139. "DEATH, in theology, [is a] perpetual separation from God, and eternal torments."—Webster's Dict. "That could inform the traveler as well as the old man himself!"—O. B. Peirce's Gram., p. 345.

UNDER NOTE VIII.—YE AND YOU IN SCRIPTURE.

"Ye daughters of Rabbah, gird ye with sackcloth."—ALGER'S BIBLE: Jer., xlix, 3. "Wash ye, make you clean."—Brown's Concordance, w. Wash. "Strip ye, and make ye bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins."—ALGER'S BIBLE: Isaiah, xxxii, 11. "You are not ashamed that you make yourselves strange to me."—FRIENDS' BIBLE: Job, xix, 3. "You are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me."—ALGER'S BIBLE: ib. "If you knew the gift of God."—Brown's Concordance, w. Knew. "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, I know ye not."—Penington's Works, ii, 122.

RULE VI.—SAME CASES.

A Noun or a Pronoun put after a verb or participle not transitive, agrees in case with a preceding noun or pronoun referring to the same thing: as, "It is I."—"These are they."—"The child was named John."—"It could not be he."—"The Lord sitteth King forever."—Psalms, xxix, 10.

"What war could ravish, commerce could bestow,   And he return'd a friend, who came a foe." —Pope, Ep. iii, l. 206.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE VI.

OBS. 1.—Active-transitive verbs, and their imperfect and preperfect participles, always govern the objective case; but active-intransitive, passive, and neuter verbs, and their participles, take the same case after as before them, when both words refer to the same thing. The latter are rightly supposed not to govern[357] any case; nor are they in general followed by any noun or pronoun. But, because they are not transitive, some of them become connectives to such words as are in the same case and signify the same thing. That is, their finite tenses may be followed by a nominative, and their infinitives and participles by a nominative or an objective, agreeing with a noun or a pronoun which precedes them. The cases are the same, because the person or thing is one; as, "I am he."—"Thou art Peter."—"Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent."—Jefferson's Notes, p. 129. Identity is both the foundation and the characteristic of this construction. We chiefly use it to affirm or deny, to suggest or question, the sameness of things; but sometimes figuratively, to illustrate the relations of persons or things by comparison:[358] as, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman."—John, xv, 1. "I am the vine, ye are the branches."—John, xv, 5. Even the names of direct opposites, are sometimes put in the same case, under this rule; as, "By such a change thy darkness is made light,   Thy chaos order, and thy weakness might."—Cowper, Vol. i, p. 88.

OBS. 2.—In this rule, the terms after and preceding refer rather to the order of the sense and construction, than to the mere placing of the words; for the words in fact admit of various positions. The proper subject of the verb is the nominative to it, or before it, by Rule 2d; and the other nominative, however placed, is understood to be that which comes after it, by Rule 6th. In general, however, the proper subject precedes the verb, and the other word follows it, agreeably to the literal sense of the rule. But when the proper subject is placed after the verb, as in certain instances specified in the second observation under Rule 2d, the explanatory nominative is commonly introduced still later; as, "But be thou an example of the believers."—1 Tim. iv, 12. "But what! is thy servant a dog?"—2 Kings, viii, 13. "And so would I, were I Parmenio."—Goldsmith. "O Conloch's daughter! is it thou?"—Ossian. But in the following example, on the contrary, there is a transposition of the entire lines, and the verb agrees with the two nominatives in the latter: "To thee were solemn toys or empty show,   The robes of pleasure and the veils of wo."—Dr. Johnson.

OBS. 3.—In interrogative sentences, the terms are usually transposed,[359] or both are placed after