Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/564



OBS. 23.--The antecedent is sometimes suppressed, especially in poetry; as, "Who will, may be a judge."--Churchill. "How shall I curse [him or them] whom God hath not cursed?"--Numbers, xxiii, 8. "There are, indeed, [some persons] who seem disposed to extend her authority much farther."--Campbell's Philosophy of Rhet., p. 187.

[He] "Who lives to nature, rarely can be poor;   [He] Who lives to fancy, never can be rich."--Young.

"Serious should be an author's final views;   [They] Who write for pure amusement, ne'er amuse."--Id.

OBS. 24.--Which, as well as who, was formerly applied to persons; as, "Our Father which art in heaven."--Bible. "Pray for them which despitefully use you."--Luke, vi, 28. And, as to the former example here cited, some British critics, still preferring the archaism, have accused "The Americans" of "poor criticism," in that they "have changed which into who, as being more consonant to the rules of Grammar." Falsely imagining, that which and who, with the same antecedent, can be of different genders, they allege, that, "The use of the neuter pronoun carried with it a certain vagueness and sublimity, not inappropriate in reminding us that our worship is addressed to a Being, infinite, and superior to all distinctions applicable to material objects."--''Men and Manners in America'': quoted and endorsed by the REV. MATT. HARRISON, in his treatise on the English Language, p. 191. This is all fancy; and, in my opinion, absurd. It is just like the religious prejudice which could discern "a singular propriety" in "the double superlative most highest."--Lowth's Gram., p. 28. But which may still be applied to a young child, if sex and intelligence be disregarded; as, "The child which died." Or even to adults, when they are spoken of without regard to a distinct personality or identity; as, "Which of you will go?"--"Crabb knoweth not which is which, himself or his parodist."--Leigh Hunt.

OBS. 25.--A proper name taken merely as a name, or an appellative taken in any sense not strictly personal, must be represented by which, and not by who; as, "Herod--which is but an other name for cruelty."--"In every prescription of duty, God proposeth himself as a rewarder; which he is only to those that please him."--Dr. J. Owen. Which would perhaps be more proper than whom, in the following passage: "They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the Lord commanded them."--Psalms, cvi, 34. Dr. Blair has preferred it in the following instance: "My lion and my pillar are sufficiently interpreted by the mention of Achilles and the minister, which I join to them."--Lectures, p. 151. He meant, "whose names I connect with theirs;" and not, that he joined the person of Achilles to a lion, or that of a minister to a pillar.

OBS. 26.--When two or more relative clauses pertain to the same antecedent, if they are connected by a conjunction, the same relative ought to be employed in each, agreeably to the doctrine of the seventh note below; but if no conjunction is expressed or understood between them, the pronouns ought rather to be different; as, "There are many things that you can speak of, which cannot be seen."--R W. Green's Gram., p. 11. This distinction is noticed in the fifth chapter of Etymology, Obs. 29th, on the Classes of Pronouns. Dr. Priestley says, "Whatever relative be used, in a series of clauses, relating to the same antecedent, the same ought to be used in them all. 'It is remarkable, that Holland, against which the war was undertaken, and that, in the very beginning, was reduced to the brink of destruction, lost nothing.'--Universal History, Vol. 25, p. 117. It ought to have been, and which in the very beginning."--Priestley's Gram., p. 102. L. Murray, (as I have shown in the Introduction, Ch. x, ¶ 22,) assumes all this, without references; adding as a salvo the word "generally," which merely impairs the certainty of the rule:--"the same relative ought generally to be used in them all."--Octavo Gram., p. 155. And, of who and that, Cobbett says: "Either may do; but both never ought to be relatives of the same antecedent in the same sentence."--Gram., ¶ 202. The inaccuracy of these rules is as great as that of the phraseology which is corrected under them. In the following sentence, the first relative only is restrictive, and consequently the other may be different: "These were the officers that were called Homotimoi, and who signalized themselves afterwards so gloriously upon all occasions."--Rollin's Hist., ii, 62. See also in Rev., x, 6th, a similar example without the conjunction.

OBS. 27.--In conversation, the possessive pronoun your is sometimes used in a droll way, being shortened into your in pronunciation, and nothing more being meant by it, than might be expressed by the article an or a: as, "Rich honesty dwells, like your miser, sir, in a poor house; as, your pearl in your foul oyster."--Shakspeare.

NOTES TO RULE X.

NOTE 1.--A pronoun should not be introduced in connexion with words that belong more properly to the antecedent, or to an other pronoun; as, "And then there is good use for Pallas her glass."--Bacon's Wisdom, p. 22. Say--"for Pallas's glass."

"My banks they are furnish'd with bees,   Whose murmur invites one to sleep."--Shenstone, p. 284.

This last instance, however, is only an example of pleonasm; which is allowable and frequent in animated discourse, but inelegant in any other. Our grammarians