Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/544

 ly, as Cicero did before the Roman Senate."--Webster's Essays, p. 27. "A lad of about twelve years old, who was taken captive by the Indians."--Ib., p. 235. "Of nothing else but that individual white figure of five inches long which is before him."--Campbell's Rhet., p. 288. "Where lies the fault, that boys of eight or ten years old, are with great difficulty made to understand any of its principles."--Guy's Gram., p. v. "Where language of three centuries old is employed."--Booth's Introd. to Dict., p. 21. "Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high."--Esther, v. 14. "I say to this child of nine years old bring me that hat, he hastens and brings it me."--Osborn's Key, p. 3. "He laid a floor twelve feet long, and nine feet wide; that is, over the extent of twelve feet long, and of nine feet wide."--Merchants School Gram., p. 95. "The Goulah people are a tribe of about fifty thousand strong."--Examiner, No. 71. RULE VIII.--NOM. ABSOLUTE.

A Noun or a Pronoun is put absolute in the nominative, when its case depends on no other word: as, "He failing, who shall meet success?"--"Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live forever?"--Zech., i, 5. "Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working?"--1 Cor., ix, 6. "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?"--Rom., ix, 20. "O rare we!"--Cowper. "Miserable they!"--Thomson.

"The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear, Death still draws nearer, never seeming near."--Pope.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE VIII.

OBS. 1.--Many grammarians make an idle distinction between the nominative absolute and the nominative independent, as if these epithets were not synonymous; and, at the same time, they are miserably deficient in directions for disposing of the words so employed. Their two rules do not embrace more than one half of those frequent examples in which the case of the noun or pronoun depends on no other word. Of course, the remaining half cannot be parsed by any of the rules which they give. The lack of a comprehensive rule, like the one above, is a great and glaring defect in all the English grammars that the author has seen, except his own, and such as are indebted to him for such a rule. It is proper, however, that the different forms of expression which are embraced in this general rule, should be discriminated, one from an other, by the scholar: let him therefore, in parsing any nominative absolute, tell how it is put so; whether with a participle, by direct address, by pleonasm, or by exclamation. For, in discourse, a noun or a pronoun is put absolute in the nominative, after four modes, or under the following ''four circumstances'': (of which Murray's "case absolute," or "nominative absolute," contains only the first:)

I. When, with a participle, it is used to express a cause, or a concomitant fact; as, "I say, this being so, the law being broken, justice takes place."--Law and Grace, p. 27. "Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea." &c.--Luke, iii, 1. "I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren."--Gen., xxiv, 27.

-"While shame, thou looking on,   Shame to be overcome or overreach'd,    Would utmost vigor raise."--Milton, P. L., B. ix, 1, 312.

II. When, by direct address, it is put in the second person, and set off from the verb, by a comma or an exclamation point; as, "At length, Seged, reflect and be wise."--Dr. Johnson. "It may be, drunkard, swearer, liar, thief, thou dost not think of this."--Law and Grace, p. 27.

"This said, he form'd thee, Adam! thee, O man!   Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breath'd    The breath of life."--Milton's Paradise Lost, B. vii, l. 524.

III. When, by pleonasm, it is introduced abruptly for the sake of emphasis, and is not made the subject or the object of any verb; as, "He that hath, to him shall be given."--Mark, iv, 25. "He that is holy, let him be holy still."--Rev., xxii, 11. "Gad, a troop shall overcome him."--Gen., xlix, 19. "The north and the south, thou hast created them."--Psalms, lxxxix, 12. "And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them."--1 Tim., vi, 2. "And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare."--Levit., xiii, 45. "They who serve me with adoration,--I am in them, and they [are] in me."--R. W. EMERSON: Liberator, No. 996.

-"What may this mean,   That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,    Revisitst thus the glimpses of the moon,    Making night hideous; and, we fools of nature,[371]    So horribly to shake our disposition    With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?"--''Shak. Hamlet.''