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Will it be urged, that the four gospels are as old or even older than tradition ?-Bolingbroke, Essays, iv. 19.

The words'as old' and 'older' cannot have a common construction the one should be followed by as, the other by than. If Bolingbroke had said 'as old as tradition and even older,' there would have been no error.-See Campbell, Philosophy of Rhetoric, pp. 182-187.

185. We have seen, § 64, that the word than, commonly called a conjunction, is a later form of the adverb then. Hence, this is better than that' means, 'first this is better; then that [is good].'

The same word than is used after other, rather, else, otherwise, and all forms of speech implying comparison:

Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours,

With larger other eyes than ours,

To make allowance for us all.

Tennyson, In Memoriam, 50.

Style is nothing else than that sort of expression which our thoughts most readily assume.-Blair, Lecture 10. When a comparative is used with than, the thing compared must always be excluded from the class of things with which it is compared. Take this sentence:

Jacob loved Joseph more than all his children.

But Joseph was one of those very children.

Therefore, if he loved Joseph more than all, he loved Joseph more than his other children, and Joseph to boot. If we read 'than his other children " or 'than all his other children,' there could be no room for objection.

The noun or pronoun that follows than, will be in the nominative or objective according to the construction of the subordinate clause. Thus,

means,

But,

means,

I esteem you more than they,

I esteem you more than they [esteem you].

I esteem you more than them,

I esteem you more than [I esteem] them.

186. Dr. Priestley seems to have had a notion that than, in some cases, is a preposition; and this view is very properly rejected by Dr. Campbell, Philosophy of Rhetoric, pp. 182,

183.

Yet there is one construction in which the objective has been so commonly used after than, that we can hardly refuse to accept the anomaly, though it cannot be justified by rule. In the best authors we find such phrases as these:

The Duke of Argyle, than whom no man was more hearty in the cause.- -Hume.

Cromwell, than whom no man was better skilled in artifice.-Hume.

Pope, than whom few men had more vanity.—Johnson. Dr. Lowth says, (Grammar, p. 154):

'The relative who, having reference to no verb or preposition understood, but only to its antecedent, when it follows than is always in the objective case; even though the pronoun, if substituted in its place, would be in the nominative;

as,

Beelzebub, than whom,

Satan except, none higher sat.

Milton, Paradise Lost, ii. 299.

which, if we substitute the pronoun, would be,

'none higher sat than he.'

It is evident that there is no reason for using the objective in this construction. I suspect that this peculiarity has resulted from confounding the English idiom with the Latin, where the comparative is followed by the ablative quo. In Latin quo means 'than who,' and than is expressed by the ablative. Our classical scholars, writing in English, have supplied than, and yet, with the Latin syntax in their minds, have retained the oblique case. The influence of Latin idioms upon English style would form an interesting subject of inquiry; and I think that when boys are translating upon paper, they should not be allowed to follow the original so closely as to violate the English idiom. 'Which when Cæsar saw,' and similar phrases, are not English. They may pass in oral construing, but not in written translation.

CHAPTER VII.

PRONOUNS.

187. A PRO-NOUN is defined as a word used instead of a

noun.

Buttmann, however, says, 'Pronouns cannot be so precisely defined as not to admit many words which may also be considered as adjectives.'-Angus, Handbook of the English Tongue, p. 179.

Grammarians are not all agreed upon the meaning of the word noun. According to some it comprises both substantives and adjectives; and those who take this view distinguish 'nouns substantive' and 'nouns adjective.'

To avoid controversy, we have uniformly used the word noun in the sense of a 6 noun substantive; ' but we shall extend the term 'pronoun' to comprise 'pronouns substantive,' and pronouns adjective.'

Pronouns are divided into the following classes:—

1. Personal.

2. Possessive.

3. Demonstrative.

4. Interrogative.

5. Relative.

6. Reflective.

7. Reciprocal.

We shall consider, in a separate chapter, words which have been variously termed Adjective Pronouns or Pronominal Adjectives.

PERSONAL PRONOUNS.

188. There are three persons which may form the subject of any discourse:

1. The person who speaks, may speak of himself.

2. He may speak of the person to whom he addresses himself.

3. He may speak of some other person, or of some thing. These are called, respectively, the first, second, and third

persons.

The persons speaking and spoken to, being at the same time the subjects of the discourse, are supposed to be present; hence their sex is commonly known, and needs not to be

marked by a distinction of gender in the pronouns; but the third person or thing spoken of, being absent and in many respects unknown, needs to be marked by a distinction of gender. Accordingly the pronoun of the third person has, in the singular, three genders; but in the plural, we have only one set of forms for all the genders.

189. In pronouns, we have some remains of the variations used in Anglo-Saxon. Thus in the First Personal Pronoun, we have,

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We shall remark upon the genitives mine and our under the head of Possessive Pronouns.

The old dative me appears in such forms as me-seems, methinks, meaning 'it seems to me,' it appears to me.' For here thinks' is derived not from thencan, 'to think,' but from thincan, 'to seem.'

The same dative is frequently used as a secondary objective: 'Give me the book,' 'Tell me the story.' In like manner the old dative us is employed as a secondary objective: as, 'He gave us good words.'

190. In the Second Personal Pronoun we have the following forms:

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In former times in England, thou was used as a mark of endearment among relatives; and the corresponding pronoun is still so used in France, Germany, and other countries. Perhaps one reason why it has gone out of common use with us, is that being adopted by the Society of Friends, and used by them on all occasions, it became a token of sectarian distinction.

But, beside expressing affection, it was used, in old times, to denote familiarity; and the transition from familiarity to contempt is soon made:

If thou thouest him some thrice, it shall not be amiss.-Twelfth Night, iii. 2.

We shall discuss thine and your under the head of Possessive Pronouns.

Thee and you, old forms of the dative, are commonly used as secondary objectives.

Thou and ye are very commonly used in solemn language, and in poetry:

Thou sun, said I, fair light!

And thou enlightened earth, so fresh and gay!
Ye hills and dales! Ye rivers, woods, and plains!
And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell,
Tell if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?

Milton, Paradise Lost, viii. 273-7.

It is a common error with young writers to begin by using thou in the early part of a sentence; and then, forgetting the commencement, to slide into you; and sometimes even to mix up 'thou' with 'your,' or 'you' with 'thy' in the same clause.

In poetry this licence is sometimes taken: as,

I pr'ythee give me back my heart,

Since I can not have thine;

For if from yours you will not part,

Why then should'st thou have mine?

Sir John Suckling.

In older English ye was the nominative of the plural, and you the objective: as, 'I know you not, whence ye are.' But the forms were confounded, and in Shakespeare we find ye employed as an objective: so,

The more shame for ye; holy men I thought ye.
Henry VIII., iii. 1.

On the stage it is very common for actors to utter ye in the objective, where the copies have you. They seem to think it more rhetorical.

191. The forms of the Third Personal Pronoun are made up from the Anglo-Saxon personal he, heó, hit, and the demonstrative se, seó, that. We have,

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In Old English the neuter nominative was hit, and the neuter

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