Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/549

 Unto which of all us?"--2 Kings, ix, 5. In the following instances the adjective is placed after the word to which it relates:

1. When other words depend on the adjective, or stand before it to qualify it; as, "A mind conscious of right,"--"A wall three feet thick,"--"A body of troops fifty thousand strong."

2. When the quality results from an action, or receives its application through a verb or participle; as, "Virtue renders life happy."--"He was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza."--1 Kings, xvi, 9. "All men agree to call vinegar sour, honey sweet, and aloes bitter."--Burke, on Taste, p. 38. "God made thee perfect, not immutable."--Milton.

3. When the quality excites admiration, and the adjective would thus be more clearly distinctive; as, "Goodness infinite,"--"Wisdom unsearchable."--Murray.

4. When a verb comes between the adjective and the noun; as, "Truth stands independent of all external things."--Burgh. "Honour is not seemly for a fool."--Solomon.

5. When the adjective is formed by means of the prefix a; as, afraid, alert, alike, alive, alone, asleep, awake, aware, averse, ashamed, askew. To these may be added a few other words; as, else, enough, extant, extinct, fraught, pursuant.

6. When the adjective has the nature, but not the form, of a participle; as, "A queen regnant,"--"The prince regent,"--"The heir apparent,"--"A lion, not rampant, but couchant or dormant"--"For the time then present."

OBS. 7.--In some instances, the adjective may either precede or follow its noun; and the writer may take his choice, in respect to its position: as, 1. In poetry--provided the sense be obvious; as,

--"Wilt thou to the isles    Atlantic, to the rich Hesperian clime,    Fly in the train of Autumn?" --Akenside, P. of I., Book i, p. 27.

-"Wilt thou fly   With laughing Autumn to the Atlantic isles,     And range with him th' Hesperian field?" --''Id. Bucke's Gram.'', p. 120.

2. When technical usage favours one order, and common usage an other; as, "A notary public," or, "A public notary;"--"The heir presumptive," or, "The presumptive heir."--See Johnson's Dict., and Webster's.

3. When an adverb precedes the adjective; as, "A Being infinitely wise," or, "An infinitely wise Being." Murray, Comly, and others, here approve only the former order; but the latter is certainly not ungrammatical.

4. When several adjectives belong to the same noun; as, "A woman, modest, sensible, and virtuous," or, "A modest, sensible, and virtuous woman." Here again, Murray, Comly, and others, approve only the former order; but I judge the latter to be quite as good.

5. When the adjective is emphatic, it may be foremost in the sentence, though the natural order of the words would bring it last; as, "Weighty is the anger of the righteous."--Bible. "Blessed are the pure in heart."--Ib. "Great is the earth, high is the heaven, swift is the sun in his course."--1 Esdras, iv, 34. "The more laborious the life is, the less populous is the country."--Goldsmith's Essays, p. 151.

6. When the adjective and its noun both follow a verb as parts of the predicate, either may possibly come before the other, yet the arrangement is fixed by the sense intended: thus there is a great difference between the assertions, "We call the boy good," and, "We call the good boy"

OBS. 8.--By an ellipsis of the noun, an adjective with a preposition before it, is sometimes equivalent to an adverb; as, "In particular;" that is, "In a particular manner;" equivalent to particularly. So "in general" is equivalent to generally. It has already been suggested, that, in parsing, the scholar should here supply the ellipsis. See Obs. 3d, under Rule vii.

OBS. 9.--Though English adjectives are, for the most part, incapable of any agreement, yet such of them as denote unity or plurality, ought in general to have nouns of the same number: as, this man, one man, two men, many men.[372] In phrases of this form, the rule is well observed; but in some peculiar ways of numbering things, it is commonly disregarded; for certain nouns are taken in a plural sense without assuming the plural termination. Thus people talk of many stone of cheese,--many sail of vessels,--many stand of arms,--many head of cattle,--many dozen of eggs,--many brace of partridges,--many pair of shoes. So we read in the Bible of "two hundred pennyworth of bread," and "twelve manner of fruits." In all such phraseology, there is, in regard to the form of the latter word, an evident disagreement of the adjective with its immediate noun; but sometimes, (where the preposition of does not occur,) expressions that seem somewhat like these, may be elliptical: as when historians tell of many thousand foot (soldiers), or many hundred horse (troops). To denote a collective number, a singular adjective may precede a plural one; as, "One hundred men,"--"Every six weeks." And to denote plurality, the adjective many may, in like manner, precede an or a with a singular noun; as, "The Odyssey entertains us wit