Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/550

 h ''many a wonderful adventure, and many a landscape of nature."--Blair's Rhet.'', p. 436." There starts up many a writer."--Kames, El. of Crit., i, 306.

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,   And waste its sweetness on the desert air."--Gray.

OBS. 10.--Though this and that cannot relate to plurals, many writers do not hesitate to place them before singulars taken conjointly, which are equivalent to plurals; as, "This power and will do necessarily produce that which man is empowered to do."--Sale's Koran, i, 229. "That sobriety and self-denial which are essential to the support of virtue."--Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 218. "This modesty and decency were looked upon by them as a law of nature."--Rollin's Hist., ii, 45. Here the plural forms, these and those, cannot be substituted; but the singular may be repeated, if the repetition be thought necessary. Yet, when these same pronominal adjectives are placed after the nouns to suggest the things again, they must be made plural; as, "Modesty and decency were thus carefully guarded, for these were looked upon as being enjoined by the law of nature."

OBS. 11.--In prose, the use of adjectives for adverbs is improper; but, in poetry, an adjective relating to the noun or pronoun, is sometimes elegantly used in stead of an adverb qualifying the verb or participle; as; "Gradual sinks the breeze Into a perfect calm."--Thomson's Seasons, p. 34. "To Thee I bend the knee; to Thee my thoughts Continual climb."--Ib., p. 48. "As on he walks Graceful, and crows defiance."--Ib., p. 56. "As through the falling glooms Pensive I stray."--Ib., p. 80. "They, sportive, wheel; or, sailing down the stream, Are snatch'd immediate by the quick-eyed trout."--Ib., p. 82. "Incessant still you flow."--Ib., p. 91. "The shatter'd clouds Tumultuous rove, the interminable sky Sublimer swells."--Ib., p. 116. In order to determine, in difficult cases, whether an adjective or an adverb is required, the learner should carefully attend to the definitions of these parts of speech, and consider whether, in the case in question, quality is to be expressed, or manner: if the former, an adjective is always proper; if the latter, an adverb. That is, in this case, the adverb, though not always required in poetry, is specially requisite in prose. The following examples will illustrate this point: "She looks cold;"--"She looks coldly on him."--"I sat silent;"--"I sat silently musing."--"Stand firm; maintain your cause firmly." See Etymology, Chap, viii, Obs. 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th, on the Modifications of Adverbs.

OBS. 12.--In English, an adjective and its noun are often taken as a sort of compound term, to which other adjectives may be added; as, "An old man; a good old man; a very learned, judicious, good old man."--L. Murray's Gram., p. 169; ''Brit. Gram., 195; Buchanan's'', 79. "Of an other determinate positive new birth, subsequent to baptism, we know nothing."--West's Letters, p. 183. When adjectives are thus accumulated, the subsequent ones should convey such ideas as the former may consistently qualify, otherwise the expression will be objectionable. Thus the ordinal adjectives, first, second, third, next, and last, may qualify the cardinal numbers, but they cannot very properly be qualified by them. When, therefore, we specify any part of a series, the cardinal adjective ought, by good right, to follow the ordinal, and not, as in the following phrase, be placed before it: "In reading the nine last chapters of John."--Fuller. Properly speaking, there is but one last chapter in any book. Say, therefore, "the last nine chapters;" for, out of the twenty-one chapters in John, a man may select several different nines. (See Etymology, Chap, iv, Obs. 7th, on the Degrees of Comparison.) When one of the adjectives merely qualifies the other, they should be joined together by a hyphen; as, "A red-hot iron."--"A dead-ripe melon." And when both or all refer equally and solely to the noun, they ought either to be connected by a conjunction, or to be separated by a comma. The following example is therefore faulty: "It is the business of an epic poet, to form a probable interesting tale."--Blair's Rhet., p. 427. Say, "probable and interesting;" or else insert a comma in lieu of the conjunction.

"Around him wide a sable army stand,   A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band." --Dunciad, B. ii, l. 355.

OBS. 13.--Dr. Priestley has observed: "There is a remarkable ambiguity in the use of the negative adjective no; and I do not see," says he, "how it can be remedied in any language. If I say, 'No laws are better than the English,' it is only my known sentiments that can inform a person whether I mean to praise, or dispraise them."--Priestley's Gram., p. 136. It may not be possible to remove the ambiguity from the phraseology here cited, but it is easy enough to avoid the form, and say in stead of it, "The English laws are worse than none," or, "The English laws are as good as any;" and, in neither of these expressions, is there any ambiguity, though the other may doubtless be taken in either of these senses. Such an ambiguity is sometimes used on purpose: as when one man says of an other, "He is no small knave;" or, "He is no small fool."

"There liv'd in primo Georgii (they record)   A worthy member, no small fool, a lord."--Pope, p. 409.

NOTES TO RULE IX.

NOTE I.--Adjectives that imply unity or plurality, must agree with their nouns in number: as, "That sort, those sorts;"--"This hand, these hands." [373]