often violated by good writers, but yet it is much more frequently observed. Even in Buckingham's Canada, where it is seventy times violated, I have no doubt that it is a thousand times observed. In such cases, the grammarian's duty is clearly to recognise the usage of the greatest number. The same principle which led Murray to condemn, with more than his usual distinctness, such expressions as "tranquillity and peace dwells there," would have led him, if consistently applied, to withhold his sanction from such as "To fear no eye and to suspect no tongue, is the great prerogative of innocence," for both are equally, and in the same way, contrary to the first principles of grammar." 66 236. From what we have already said, the student may perceive that our seventh rule is included in the sixth, for the verb to be does nothing more, in such cases, than mark that the two nouns between which it is put are different names for the same thing. On this subject, Mr James Mill reasons with his usual acuteness. In showing how the name of a class comes to be used for the name of an individual, he says, "I have the name of the individual, John, and the name of the class, man; and I can set down my two names, John, man, in juxtaposition. But this is not sufficient to effect the communication I desire, namely, that the word man is a mark of the same idea of which John is a mark, and a mark of other ideas along with it; those, to wit, of. which James, Thomas, &c., are marks. To complete my contrivance, I invent a mark which, placed between my marks John and man, fixes the idea I mean to convey, that man is another mark to that idea of which John is a mark, while it is a mark of other ideas, of which James, Thomas, &c., are marks. For this purpose, we use in English the mark is. By help of this, my object is immediately attained."* 237. Whoever will take the trouble to understand this dissertation, will immediately see the virtual identity of our sixth and seventh rules; but here, as in other cases, we have been anxious to depart as little as possible from the * Analysis of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 117. common doctrines, and the repetition of the rule, while it may be useful to some by presenting the same truth under a different aspect, can do harm to none. EXAMPLES. 1. Work is the mission of man on this earth.-Carlyle. 2. Such men are the flower of this lower world; they are the vanguard in the march of mind.-Idem. 3. Humility is the first fruit of religion.-Hall. 4. In ancient times, Egypt and Libya, it is well known, were the granary of Rome.-Alison. 5. They [newspapers] are the literature of the multitude.Channing. 6. Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.-Gibbon. 7. His annotations are the earliest specimen of explanations founded on the original language.-Hallam. 8. The quality and extent of these ideal stores, and the degree in which they are available as materials for the other faculties to work upon, are the chief reason of the vast difference between one mind and another.-Isaac Taylor. 9. To see distinctly the right way, and to pursue it, are not precisely the same thing.-Hall. 10. The shame of apostacy and an anxiety not to embroil himself irreparably with a Protestant successor, were the motives for delay.-Mackintosh. 11. Economy, justice, and moderation, were the bases of its administration.-Alison. 12. Dante and Petrarch were, as it were, the morning stars of our modern literature.-Hallam. 13. Jealousy and discord were the effects of their conjunct authority.-Robertson. 238. There has been a good deal of discussion among grammarians about the relative in the question, "Whom do men say that I am?" but an English scholar will immediately see that it is wrong, though to one accustomed to the Latin idiom, the idea of the accusative or objective is so associated with that, that he finds it difficult to reconcile himself to its being connected with the nominative. In the same manner, we find in Addison, "It is not me you are in love with," which is obviously incorrect, the idea to be expressed by with being allowed to influence the language too soon. What Addison had in his mind when he began the sentence was probably, "It is not I whom you are in love with," but determining afterwards to throw out the relative, (an allowable idiom in English) he put the pronoun in the case properly assigned to the relative. In the same manner, the student will have no difficulty in showing that the following expressions are ungrammatical :-"I believe it to be he," "A great recompense was offered to whomsoever would bring it," "The philosopher who he saw to be a man of profound knowledge." The error is not uncommon in authors before and about the time of Addison; example of the kind has fallen under my notice, in any recent author of note, except one already quoted at the foot of page 116 from Alison. 66 but no if 239. These we consider the leading rules or principles by the thorough understanding of which the construction of any sentence may be seen. Many idiomatic expressions will of course remain unaccounted for, nor would it be easy, it be possible in the case of a living language, to collect and explain them. Dr Johnson, in the short grammar prefixed to his celebrated Dictionary, dismisses the subject of Syntax in a few lines, remarking that "our language has so little inflection or variety of terminations, that its construction neither requires nor admits many rules ;" an observation worthy of the dictator of English literature, and too little attended to by succeeding grammarians. While, however, we hold these seven rules sufficient, yet a few supplementary remarks may still be made. They do not present any thing absolutely new, being in fact implied in the definitions of the different parts of speech, or in the seven rules already laid down; yet, for the sake of uniformity and convenience of reference, I shall number them continuously, and give instances both of illustration, and if necessary of violation too, of the rules, as we proceed. RULE VIII. THE ADJECTIVE. 240. Every adjective must qualify a noun either expressed or understood; thus, "Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment, that we are always impatient of the present."―Johnson. Here we have two adjectives, the one, human, qualifying the noun enjoyment, which comes immediately after it, and the other qualifying time, or some such noun understood. 241. We have already (115) seen that the adjective in English has no distinction of gender, and therefore any rule about its agreeing with nouns is quite inapplicable; except indeed to the demonstrative adjectives, this and that, which must be made to correspond in number with the nouns which they qualify: thus, "These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation.”—Chatham. 242. The adjectives a and an (commonly called the indefinite article) are identical in meaning, but they differ slightly in application; a being prefixed to words beginning with the sound of a consonant, the long sound of u, and vowels sounding like w; and an, to words which begin with the sound of a vowel. Thus, we say, a man, but an ox; a house, but an hospital; a one-horse coach; a unicorn; an easterly wind, &c. There is a delicacy about the use of the article not to be taught by rule. Sometimes it is omitted where it ought to be inserted, and sometimes inserted when it ought to be left out. EXAMPLES. 1. In the Delta of Egypt, a level surface of great extent is annually submerged by the fertilizing floods of the Nile.-Alison. 2. Whatever makes the past or the future predominate over the present, exalts us in the scale of thinking beings.-Johnson. 3. To the mean eye, all things are trivial, as certainly as to the jaundiced they are yellow.-Carlyle. 4. When the Spaniards settled in South America, they had no intention of giving to the natives that energy and those powers which might enable them, in future times, to overthrow their oppressors.-Alison. 5. They had chosen for themselves a singular but an inoffensive mode of worship.-Gibbon. 6. If existence be a good, the eternal loss of it must be a great evil; if it be an evil, reason suggests the propriety of inquiring why it is so.-Hall. 7. These times are the ancient times when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient, ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from ourselves.-Bacon. SENTENCES TO BE CORRECTED.-240-242. 1. The government of Egypt was an hereditary monarchy.Tytler. 2. As if an attachment to the king were to be measured by an hatred to dissenters.-Hall. 3. The arguments advanced on both sides are worthy of notice even in an European history, as involving the fundamental principles on which constitutional monarchy are (?) rested.—Alison. 4. The five represented a symbol of the sun.-Tytler. 5. Modern authors have given a currency to this false idea.-Idem. 6. Thus was New Carthage taken in the one day.-Keightley. 7. Luxuriance of ornament and the fondness for point are certain indications of the decline of good taste.-Tytler. 8. We observe at least as frequent an use of them, &c.-Hallam. RULE IX. THE DISTRIBUTIVES. 243. The exact import of the four words, each, every, either, and neither, which are known by the name of Distributive Adjectives, ought to be carefully attended to, and, from their very meaning, it will appear that they must always be joined to a noun in the singular. 244. Each means the one and the other of two: thus Hallam, speaking of Dante and Milton, says, " Each of these great men chose the subject that suited his natural temper and genius." Every refers to any number more than two, considered individually: thus, " England expects every man to do his duty,"-a memento addressed by the hero of Trafalgar to his whole fleet, and meant to rouse the courage of every individual belonging to it as if the fate of his country depended on him alone. Either means the one or the other of two; neither, not either, not the one or the other of two. The use of both words cannot be better seen than in the lines quoted by Johnson from Shakspeare, "Lepidas flatters both, Of both is flattered; but he neither loves, 245. Such are the distinctions usually laid down between these words, and upon the whole justly; but it must be allowed that hitherto good use has not been uniform, each |