Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/561

 thereon''. In the following example, the noun "wolves," which literally requires which, and not who, is used metaphorically for selfish priests; and, in the relative, the figurative or personal sense is allowed to prevail:

"Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves,   Who all the sacred mysteries of Heaven    To their own vile advantages shall turn." --Milton, P. L., B. xii, l. 508.

This seems to me somewhat forced and catachrestical. So too, and worse, the following; which makes a star rise and speak:

"So spake our Morning Star then in his rise,   And looking round on every side beheld    A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades." --Id., P. R., B. i, l. 294.

OBS. 11.--When the antecedent is put by metonymy for a noun of different properties, the pronoun sometimes agrees with it in the figurative, and sometimes in the literal sense; as, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. As they called them, so they went from them: [i. e., When Moses and the prophets called the Israelites, they often refused to hear:] they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burnt incense to graven images. I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them."--Hosea, xi, 1, 2, 3. The mixture and obscurity which are here, ought not to be imitated. The name of a man, put for the nation or tribe of his descendants, may have a pronoun of either number, and a nation may be figuratively represented as feminine; but a mingling of different genders or numbers ought to be avoided: as, "Moab is spoiled, and gone up out of her cities, and his chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter."--Jeremiah, xlviii, 15.

"The wolf, who [say that] from the nightly fold,   Fierce drags the bleating prey, ne'er drunk her milk,    Nor wore her warming fleece."--Thomson's Seasons.

"That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven,   Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,    A hero perish or a sparrow fall."--Pope's Essay on Man.

"And heaven behold its image in his breast."--Ib.

"Such fate to suffering worth is given,   Who long with wants and woes has striven."--Burns.

OBS. 12.--When the antecedent is put by synecdoche for more or less than it literally signifies, the pronoun agrees with it in the figurative, and not in the literal sense; as,

"A dauntless soul erect, who smiled on death."--Thomson

"But to the generous still improving mind,   That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,    To him the long review of ordered life    Is inward rapture only to be felt."--''Id. Seasons''.

OBS. 13.--Pronouns usually follow the words which they represent; but this order is sometimes reversed: as, "Whom the cap fits, let him put it on."--"Hark! they whisper; angels say," &c.--Pope. "Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion."--Old Test. And in some cases of apposition, the pronoun naturally comes first; as, "I Tertius"--"Ye lawyers." The pronoun it, likewise, very often precedes the clause or phrase which it represents; as, "Is it not manifest, that the generality of people speak and write very badly?"--Campbell's Rhet., p. 160; Murray's Gram., i, 358. This arrangement is too natural to be called a transposition. The most common form of the real inversion is that of the antecedent and relative in poetry; as,

"Who stops to plunder at this signal hour,   The birds shall tear him, and the dogs devour." --POPE: Iliad, xv, 400.

OBS. 14.--A pronoun sometimes represents a phrase or a sentence; and in this case the pronoun is always in the third person singular neuter: as, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not."--Gen., xxviii, 10. "Yet men can go on to vilify or disregard Christianity; which is to talk and act as if they had a demonstration of its falsehood."--Butler's Analogy, p. 269. "When it is asked wherein personal identity consists, the answer should be the same as if it were asked, wherein consists similitude or equality."--Ib., p. 270. "Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good."--Prov., xix, 2. In this last example, the pronoun is not really necessary. "That the soul be without knowledge, is not good."--Jenks's Prayers, p. 144. Sometimes an infinitive verb is taken as an antecedent; as, "He will not be able to think, without which it is impertinent to read; nor to act, without which it is impertinent to think."--Bolingbroke, on History, p. 103.

OBS. 15.--When a pronoun follows two words, having a neuter verb between them, and both referring to the same thing, it may represent either of them, but not often with the same meaning: as, 1. "I am the man, who command." Here, who command belongs to the subject I, and the meaning is, "I who command, am the man." (The latter expression places the relative nearer to its antecedent, and is therefore preferable.) 2. "I am the man who commands." Here, who commands belongs to the predicate man, and the meaning is, "I am the commander." Again: "I perceive thou art a pupil, who possessest good talents."--''Cooper's Pl. and Pract. Gram.'', p. 136. Here the construction corresponds not to the perception, which is, of the pupil's talents. Say, therefore, "I perceive thou art a pupil possessing (or, who possesses) good talents."

OBS. 16.--After the expletive it, which may be employed to introduce a noun or a pronoun of