Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/538

 suspicion ''that the fellow was a swindler." (3.) "To prevent its being a dry detail of terms."--Buck. Better, "To prevent it from'' being a dry detail of terms." [361]

NOTE II.--The nominative which follows a verb or participle, ought to accord in signification, either literally or figuratively, with the preceding term which is taken for a sign of the same thing. Errors: (1.) "To be convicted of bribery, was then a crime altogether unpardonable."--Blair's Rhet., p. 265. To be convicted of a crime, is not the crime itself; say, therefore, "Bribery was then a crime altogether unpardonable." (2.) "The second person is the object of the Imperative."--Murray's Gram., Index, ii, 292. Say rather, "The second person is the subject of the imperative;" for the object of a verb is the word governed by it, and not its nominative.

IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE VI.

UNDER THE RULE ITSELF.--OF PROPER IDENTITY.

"Who would not say, 'If it be me,' rather than, If it be I?"--Priestley's Gram., p. 105.

[FORMULE.--Not proper, because the pronoun me,--which comes after the neuter verb be, is in the objective case, and does not agree with the pronoun it, the verb's nominative,[362] which refers to the same thing. But, according to Rule 6th, "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." Therefore, me should be I; thus, "Who would not say, 'If it be I,' rather than, 'If it be me?'"]

"Who is there? It is me."--Priestley, ib., p. 104. "It is him."--''Id., ib.'', 104. "Are these the houses you were speaking of? Yes, they are them."--Id., ib., 104. "It is not me you are in love with."--Addison's Spect., No. 290; Priestley's Gram., p. 104; and Campbell's Rhet., p. 203. "It cannot be me."--SWIFT: Priestley's Gram., p. 104. "To that which once was thee."--PRIOR: ib., 104. "There is but one man that she can have, and that is me."--CLARISSA: ib., 104. "We enter, as it were, into his body, and become, in some measure, him."--ADAM SMITH: ib., p. 105. "Art thou proud yet? Ay, that I am not thee."--Shak., Timon. "He knew not whom they were."--Milnes, Greek Gram., p. 234. "Who do you think me to be?"--Priestley's Gram., p. 108. "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?"--Matt., xvi, 13. "But whom say ye that I am?"--Ib., xvi, 15.--"Whom think ye that I am? I am not he."--Acts, xiii, 25. "No; I am mistaken; I perceive it is not the person whom I supposed it was."--''Winter in London'', ii, 66. "And while it is Him I serve, life is not without value."--Zenobia, i, 76. "Without ever dreaming it was him."--Life of Charles XII, p. 271. "Or he was not the illiterate personage whom he affected to be."--Montgomery's Lect. "Yet was he him, who was to be the greatest apostle of the Gentiles."--Barclay's Works, i, 540. "Sweet was the thrilling ecstacy; I know not if 'twas love, or thee."--Queen's Wake, p. 14. "Time was, when none would cry, that oaf was me."--''Dryden, Prol. "No matter where the vanquish'd be, nor whom."--Rowe's Lucan'', B. i, l. 676. "No, I little thought it had been him."--Life of Oration. "That reverence and godly fear, whose object is 'Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.'"--Maturin's Sermons, p. 312. "It is us that they seek to please, or rather to astonish."--West's Letters, p. 28. "Let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac."--Gen., xxiv, 14. "Although I knew it to be he."--Dickens's Notes, p. 9. "Dear gentle youth, is't none but thee?"--Dorset's Poems, p. 4. "Whom do they say it is?"--Fowler's E. Gram., §493.

"These are her garb, not her; they but express   Her form, her semblance, her appropriate dress."--Hannah More.