Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/574



UNDER NOTE I.--THE IDEA OF UNITY.

"The meeting went on in their business as a united body."--Foster's Report, i, 69. "Every religious association has an undoubted right to adopt a creed for themselves."--Gould's Advocate, iii, 405. "It would therefore be extremely difficult to raise an insurrection in that State against their own government."--Webster's Essays, p. 104. "The mode in which a Lyceum can apply themselves in effecting a reform in common schools."--New York Lyceum. "Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?"--Jeremiah, ii, 11. "In the holy scriptures each of the twelve tribes of Israel is often called by the name of the patriarch, from whom they descended."--J. Q. Adams's Rhet., ii, 331.

UNDER NOTE II.--UNIFORMITY OF NUMBER.

"A nation, by the reparation of their own wrongs, achieves a triumph more glorious than any field of blood can ever give."--J. Q. Adams. "The English nation, from which we descended, have been gaining their liberties inch by inch."--Webster's Essays, p. 45. "If a Yearly Meeting should undertake to alter its fundamental doctrines, is there any power in the society to prevent their doing so?"--Foster's Report, i, 96. "There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother."--Proverbs, xxx, 11. "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness."--Ib., xxx, 12. "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them."--Numb., xxiii, 21. "My people hath forgotten me, they have burnt incense to vanity."--Jer., xviii, 15. "When a quarterly meeting hath come to a judgment respecting any difference, relative to any monthly meeting belonging to them," &c.--Extracts, p. 195; N. E. Discip., p. 118. "The number of such compositions is every day increasing, and appear to be limited only by the pleasure or conveniency of the writer."--''Booth's Introd. to Dict.'', p. 37. "The church of Christ hath the same power now as ever, and are led by the same Spirit into the same practices."--Barclay's Works, i, 477. "The army, whom the chief had thus abandoned, pursued meanwhile their miserable march."--Lockhart's Napoleon, ii, 165.

RULE XII.--PRONOUNS.

When a Pronoun has two or more antecedents connected by and, it must agree with them jointly in the plural, because they are taken together: as, "Minos and Thales sung to the lyre the laws which they composed."--STRABO: Blair's Rhet., p. 379. "Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided."--2 Sam., i, 23.

"Rhesus and Rhodius then unite their rills,   Caresus roaring down the stony hills."--Pope, Il., B. xii, l. 17.

EXCEPTION FIRST.

When two or more antecedents connected by and serve merely to describe one person or thing, they are either in apposition or equivalent to one name, and do not require a plural pronoun; as, "This great philosopher and statesman continued in public life till his eighty-second year."--"The same Spirit, light, and life, which enlighteneth, also sanctifieth, and there is not an other."--Penington. "My Constantius and Philetus confesseth me two years older when I writ it."--Cowley's Preface. "Remember these, O Jacob and Israel! for thou art my servant."--Isaiah, xliv, 21. "In that strength and cogency which renders eloquence powerful."--Blair's Rhet., p. 252.

EXCEPTION SECOND.

When two antecedents connected by and are emphatically distinguished, they belong to different propositions, and, if singular, do not require a plural pronoun; as, "The butler, and not the baker, was restored to his office."--"The good man, and the sinner too, shall have his reward."--"Truth, and truth only, is worth seeking for its own sake."--"It is the sense in which the word is used, and not the letters of which it is composed, that determines what is the part of speech to which it belongs."--Cobbett's Gram., ¶ 130.

EXCEPTION THIRD.

When two or more antecedents connected by and are preceded by the adjective each, every, or no, they are taken separately, and do not require a plural pronoun; as, "Every plant and every tree produces others after its own kind."--"It is the cause of every reproach and distress which has attended your government."--Junius, Let. xxxv. But if the latter be a collective noun, the pronoun may be plural; as, "Each minister and each church act according to their own impressions."--Dr. M'Cartee.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XII.

OBS. 1.--When the antecedents are of different persons, the first person is preferred to the second, and the second to the third; as, "John, and thou, and I, are attached to our country."--"