or John will favour us with his company."—" Neither wealth nor honour can secure the happiness of its votaries." "What virtue or what mental grace, Will boast it their possession ?"-Cowper, on Friendship. OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XIII. OBS. 1.-When two or more singular antecedents are connected by or or nor, the pronoun which represents them, ought in general to be singular, because or and nor are disjunctives; and, to form a complete concord, the nouns ought also to be of the same person and gender, that the pronoun may agree in all respects with each of them. But when plural nouns are connected in this manner, the pronoun will of course be plural, though it still agrees with the antecedents singly; as, "Neither riches nor honours ever satisfy their pursuers." Sometimes, when different numbers occur together, we find the plural noun put last, and the pronoun made plural after both, especially if this noun is a mere substitute for the other; as, "What's justice to a man, or laws, That never comes within their claws."-Hudibras. OBS. 2.-When antecedents of different persons, numbers, or genders, are connected by or or nor, they cannot very properly be represented by any pronoun that is not applicable to each of them. The following sentences are therefore inaccurate; or at least they contradict the teachings of their own authors: "Either thou or I am greatly mistaken, in our judgment on this subject."-Murray's Key, p. 184. Your character, which 1, or any other writer, may now value ourselves by (upon) drawing."-SWIFT: Lowth's Gram., p. 96. "Either you or I will be in our place in due time."-Cooper's Gram., p. 127. But different pronouns may be so connected as to refer to such antecedents taken separately; as, "By requiring greater labour from such slave or slaves, than he or she or they are able to perform."-Prince's Digest. Or, if the gender only be different, the masculine may involve the feminine by implication; as, "If a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.”— Exodus, xxi, 26. OBS. 3.-It is however very common to resort to the plural number in such instances as the foregoing, because our plural pronouns are alike in all the genders; as, "When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite."-Numbers, vi, 2. “Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman unto thy gates, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die."-Deut., xvii, 5. "Not on outward charms could he or she build their pretensions to please."-Opie, on Lying, p. 148. "Complimenting either man or woman on agreeable qualities which they do not possess, in hopes of imposing on their credulity."—Ib., p. 108. "Avidien, or his wife, (no matter which,) sell their presented partridges and fruits."-Pope, Sat. ii, 1. 50. "Beginning with Latin or Greek hexameter, which are the same."-Kames, El. of Crit., i, 79. "Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch, Transform themselves so strangely as the rich ?"-Pope, Ep. i, 1. 152. OBS. 4.—From the observations and examples above, it may be perceived, that whenever there is a difference of person, number, or gender, in antecedents connected disjunctively, there is an inherent difficulty respecting the form of the pronoun personal. The best mode of meeting this inconvenience, or of avoiding it by a change of the phraseology, may be different on different occasions. The disjunctive connexion of explicit pronouns is the most correct, but it savours too much of legal precision and wordiness to be always eligible. Commonly an ingenious mind may invent some better expression, and yet avoid any syntactical anomaly. In Latin, when nouns are connected by the conjunctions which correspond to or or nor, the pronoun or verb is so often made plural, that no such principle as that of the foregoing Rule, or of Rule 17th, is taught by the common grammars of that language. How such usage can be logically right, however, it is difficult to imagine. Lowth, Murray, Webster, and most other English grammarians, teach, that, "The conjunction disjunctive has an effect contrary to that of the copulative; and, as the verb, noun, or pronoun, is referred to the preceding terms taken separately, it must be in the singular number."-Lowth's Gram., p. 75; L. Murray's, 151; Churchill's, 142; W. Allen's, 133; Lennie's, 83; and many others. If there is any allowable exception to this principle, it is for the adoption of the plural when the concord cannot be made by any one pronoun singular; as, "If I value my friend's wife or son upon account of their connexion with him."-Kames, El. of Crit., i, 73. "Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation."-Levit., x, 8. These examples, though they do not accord with the preceding rule, seem not to be susceptible of any change for the better. There are also some other modes of expression, in which nouns that are connected disjunctively, may afterwards be represented together; as "Foppery is a sort of folly much more contagious THAN pedantry; but as they result alike from affectation. they deserve alike to be proscribed."-Campbell's Rhet., p. 217. IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION. FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE XIII. PRONOUNS WITH ANTECEDENTS CONNECTED BY OR OR NOR. "Neither prelate nor priest can give their flocks any decisive evidence that you are lawful pastors."-Dr. Brownlee. [FORMULE.-Not proper, because the pronoun their is of the plural number, and does not correctly represent its two antecedents prelate and priest, which are connected by nor, and taken disjunctively. But, according to Rule 13th, "When a pronoun has two or more antecedents connected by or or nor, it must agree with them singly, and not as if taken together." Therefore, their should be his; thus, "Neither prelate nor priest can give his flocks any decisive evidence that you are lawful pastors."'] "And is there a heart of parent or of child, that does not beat and burn within them?"——— Maturin's Sermons, p. 367. "This is just as if an eye or a foot should demand a salary for their service to the body." ·Collier's Antoninus, p. 178. "If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee."-Matt., xviii, 8. "The same might as well be said of Virgil, or any great author, whose general character will infallibly raise many casual additions to their reputation."-Pope's Pref. to Homer. "Either James or John, one of them, will come."Smith's New Gram., p. 37. "Even a rugged rock or barren heath, though in themselves disagreeable, contribute by contrast to the beauty of the whole."-Kames, El. of Crit., i, 185. "That neither Count Rechteren nor Monsieur Mesnager had behaved themselves right in this affair."-Spect., No. 481. "If an Aristotle, a Pythagoras, or a Galileo, suffer for their opinions, they are martyrs.' ·Gospel its own Witness, p. 80. "If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox shall be surely stoned."-Exodus, xxi, 28. "She was calling out to one or an other, at every step, that a Habit was ensnaring them."-DR. JOHNSON: Murray's Sequel, "Here is a Task put upon Children, that neither this Author, nor any other have yet undergone themselves."-Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 162. "Hence, if an adjective or participle be subjoined to the verb, when of the singular number, they will agree both in gender and number with the collective noun."-Adam's Lat. Gram., p. 154; Gould's, 158. "And if you can find a diphthong, or a triphthong, be pleased to point them out too."-Bucke's Classical Gram., p. 16. "And if you can find a diphthong, or a triphthong, a trissyllable, or a polysyllable, point them respectively out."-Ib., p. 25. "The false refuges in which the atheist or the sceptic have intrenched themselves."-Christian Spect., viii, 185. "While the man or woman thus assisted by art expects their charms will be imputed to nature alone."-Opie, 141. "When you press a watch, or pull a clock, they answer your question with precision; for they repeat exactly the hour of the day, and tell you neither more nor less than you desire to know."—Bolingbroke, on History, p. 102. 181. "Not the Mogul, or Czar of Muscovy, Not Prester John, or Cham of Tartary, Are in their houses Monarch more than I."-KING: Brit. Poets, Vol. iii, p. 613. CHAPTER VI.-VERBS. In this work, the syntax of Verbs is embraced in six consecutive rules, with the necessary exceptions, notes, and observations, under them; hence this chapter extends from the fourteenth to the twentieth rule in the series. RULE XIV.-FINITE VERBS. Every finite Verb must agree with its subject, or nominative, in person and number: as, "I know; thou knowst, or knowest; he knows, or knoweth."-"The bird flies; the birds fly." "Our fathers' fertile fields by slaves are till'd, OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XIV. OBS. 1.-To this general rule for the verb, there are properly no exceptions ;* and all the special rules that follow, which prescribe the concord of verbs in particular instances, virtually accord • In their speculations on the personal pronouns, grammarians sometimes contrive, by a sort of abstraction, to reduce all the persons to the third; that is, the author or speaker puts I, not for himself in particular, but for any one who utters the word, and thou, not for his particular hearer or reader, but for any one who is addressed; and, conceiving of these as persons merely spoken of by himself, he puts the verb in the third person, with it. Every finite verb, (that is, every verb not in the infinitive mood,) must have some noun, pronoun, or phrase equivalent, known as the subject of the being, action, or passion;* and with this subject, whether expressed or understood, the verb must agree in person and number. The infinitive mood, as it does not unite with a nominative to form an assertion, is of course exempt from any such agreement. These may be considered principles of Universal Grammar. The Greeks, however, had a strange custom of using a plural noun of the neuter gender, with a verb of the third person singular; and in both Greek and Latin, the infinitive mood with an accusative before it was often equivalent to a finite verb with its nominative. In English we have neither of these usages; and plural nouns, even when they denote no absolute plurality, (as shears, scissors, trousers, pantaloons, tongs,) require plural verbs or pronouns: as, "Your shears come too late, to clip the bird's wings."-SIDNEY: Churchill's Gram., p. 30. OBS. 2.-When a book that bears a plural title, is spoken of as one thing, there is sometimes presented an apparent exception to the foregoing rule; as, "The Pleasures of Memory was published in the year 1792, and became at once popular."—Allan Cunningham. "The Sentiments and not in the first or second: as, "I is the speaker, thou [is] the hearer, and he, she, or it, is the person or thing spoken of. All denote qualities of existence, but such qualities as make different impressions on the mind. I is the being of consciousness, thou [is the being] of perception, and he of memory.”—Booth's Introd., p. 44. This is such syntax as I should not choose to imitate; nor is it very proper to say, that the three persons in grammar "denote qualities of existence." But, supposing the phraseology to be correct, it is no real exception to the foregoing rule of concord; for I and thou are here made to be pronouns of the third person. So in the following example, which I take to be bad English; "I, or the person who speaks, is the first person; you, is the second; he, she, or it, is the third person singular."-Bartlett's Manual, Part ii, p. 70. Again, in the following; which is perhaps a little better: "The person I is spoken of as acted upon."-Bullions, Prin of E. Gram., 2d Edition, p. 29. But there is a manifest absurdity in saying, with this learned "Professor of Languages," that the pronouns of the different persons are those persons: as, "I is the first person, and denotes the speaker. Thou is the second, and denotes the person spoken to."—Ib., p. 22. (1.) Concerning the verb need, Dr. Webster has the following note: "In the use of this verb there is another irregularity, which is peculiar, the verb being without a nominative, expressed or implied. Whereof here needs no account.'-Milt., P. L., 4. 235. There is no evidence of the fact, and there needs none. This is an established use of need."-Philos. Gram., p. 178; Improved Gram., 127; Greenleaf's Gram. Simp., p. 38; Fowler's E. Gram., p. 537. "Established use?" To be sure, it is "an established use;" but the learned Doctor's comment is a most unconscionable blunder,- pedantic violation of a sure principle of Universal Grammar, perversion worthy only of the veriest ignoramus. Yet Greenleaf profitably publishes it, with other plagiarisms, for "Grammar Simplified!" Now the verb "needs," like the Latin eget, signifying is necessary, is here not active, but neuter; and has the nominative set after it, as any verb must, when the adverb there or here is before it. The verbs lack and want may have the same construction, and can have no other, when the word there, and not a nominative, precedes them; as, "Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous."-Gen., xviii, 28. There is therefore neither "irregularity," nor any thing "peculiar," in thus placing the verb and its nominative. (2.) Yet have we other grammarians, who, with astonishing facility, have allowed themselves to be misled, and whose books are now misleading the schools, in regard to this very simple matter. Thus Wells: "The transitive verbs need and want, are sometimes employed in a general sense, without a nominative, expressed or implied. Examples:- There needed a new dispensation.'-Caleb Cushing. There needs no better picture.'-Irving. There wintel not patro is to stand up.'-Sparks. Nor did there want Cornice, or frieze.' -Milton."—Wells's School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 141: 113th Ed., p. 154. In my edition of Milton, the text is, "Nor did they want Cornice or frieze."-P. L., B. i, 1. 715, 716. This reading makes want a "transitive" verb, but the other makes it neuter, with the nominative following it. Again, thus Weld: "A verb in the imperative mode, and the transitive verbs need, want, and require, sometimes appear to be used indefinitely, without a nominative; as, let there be light; There required haste in the business; There needs no argument for proving, &c. There wanted not men who would, &c. The last expressions have an active form with a passive sense, and should perhaps rather be considered elliptical than wanting a nominative; as, haste is required, no argument is needed, &c."-Weld's English Grammar Illustrated, p. 143. Is there anywhere, in print, viler pedantry than this? The only elliptical example, "Let there be light," kind of sentence from which the nominative is usually suppressed,-is here absurdly represented as being full, yet without a subject for its verb; while other examples, which are full, and in which the nominative must follow the verb, because the adverb "there" precedes, are first denied to have nominatives, and then most bunglingly tortured with false ellipses, to prove that they have them! (3.) The idea of a command wherein no person or thing is commanded, seems to have originated with Webster, by whom it has been taught, since 1897, as follows: "In some cases, the imperative verb is used without a definite nominative."-Philos. Gram., p. 141; Imp. Gram., 96; Rudiments, CO. See the same words in Fraze's Gram., p. 133. Wells has something similar: "A verb in the imperative is sometimes used absolutely, having no direct reference to any particular subject expressed or implied; as, And God said, Let there be light."-School Gram., p. 141. But, when this command was uttered to the dark waves of primeval chaos, it must have meant, "Do ye let light be there." What else could it mean? There may frequently be difficulty in determining what or who is addressed by the imperative let, but there seems to be more in affirming that it has no subject. Nutting, puzzled with this word, makes the following dubious and unsatisfactory suggestion: "Perhaps it may be, in many cases, equivalent to may; or it may be termed itself an imperative mode impersonal; that is, containing a command or an entreaty addressed to no particular person."—Ñutting's Practical Gram., p. 47. (4.) These several errors, about the "Imperative used Absolutely," with "no subject addressed," as in "Let there be light," and the Indicative "verbs NEED and WANT, employed without a nominative, either expressed or implied," are again carefully reiterated by the learned Professor Fowler, in his great text-book of philology “in its Elements and Forms,"-called, rather extravagantly, an "English Grammar." See, in his edition of 1850, § 507, Note 3 and Note 7; also § 520, Note 2. Wells's authorities for "Imperatives Absolute," are, "Frazee, Allen and Cornwell, Nutting, Lynde, and Chapin;" and, with reference to "NEED and WANT," he says, "See Webster, Perley, and Ingersoll."-School Gram., 1850, § 209. (5.) But, in obvious absurdity most strangely overlooked by the writer, all these blunderers are outdone by a later one, who says: "Need and dare are sometimes used in a general sense without a nominative: as, 'There needed no prophet to tell us that;'There wanted no advocates to secure the voice of the people.' It is better, however, to supply it, as a nominative, than admit an anomala. Sometimes, when intransitive, they have the plural form with a singular noun: as, He need not fear; He dare not hurt you.'"-Rev. R. W. Bailey's E. Gram., 1854, p. 128. The last example-" He dare"-is bad English: dare should be dares. "He need not fear," if admitted to be right, is of the potential mood; in which no verb is inflected in the third person. "He," too, is not a "noun;" nor can it ever rightly have a "plural" verb. "To supply it, as a nominative," where the verb is declared to be "without a nominative," and to make “wanted" an example of "dare," are blunders precisely worthy of an author who knows not how to spell anomaly! of a Church-of-England Man' is written with great coolness, moderation, ease, and perspicuity." -Johnson's Life of Swift. "The Pleasures of Hope' is a splendid poem; it was written for perpetuity."-Samuel L. Knapp. In these instances, there is, I apprehend, either an agreement of the verb, by the figure syllepsis, with the mental conception of the thing spoken of, or an improper ellipsis of the common noun, with which each sentence ought to commence; as, "The poem entitled,"- "The work entitled," &c. But the plural title sometimes controls the form of the verb; as, "My Lives are reprinting."-Dr. Johnson. OBS. 3.-In the figurative use of the present tense for the past or imperfect, the vulgar have a habit of putting the third person singular with the pronoun I; as, "Thinks I to myself."-Rev. J. Marriott. "O, says I, Jacky, are you at that work?"-Day's Sandford and Merton. "Huzza! huzza! Sir Condy Rackrent forever, was the first thing I hears in the morning."-Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, p. 97. This vulgarism is to be avoided, not by a simple omission of the terminational s, but rather by the use of the literal preterit: as, Thought I to myself;"-"O, said I;”— "The first thing I heard." The same mode of correction is.also proper, when, under like circumstances, there occurs a disagreement in number; as, " After the election was over, there comes shoals of people from all parts."-Castle Rackrent, p. 103. "Didn't ye hear it? says they that were looking on."-Ib., p. 147. Write, "there came,"—" said they." Ors. 4.-It has already been noticed, that the article a, or a singular adjective, sometimes precedes an arithmetical number with a plural noun; as, "A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday."-Psalms, xc, 4. So we might say, "One thousand years are,"-" Each thousand years are," "Every thousand years are," &c. But it would not be proper to say, A thousand years is," or, "Every thousand years is" because the noun years is plainly plural, and the anomaly of putting a singular verb after it, is both needless and unauthorized. Yet, to this general rule for the verb, the author of a certain "English Grammar on the Productive System," (a strange perversion of Murray's compilation, and a mere catch-penny work, now extensively used in New England,) is endeavouring to establish, by his own bare word, the following exception: "Every is sometimes associated with a plural noun, in which case the verb must be singular; as, 'Every hundred years constitutes a century.'"-Smith's New Gram., p. 103. His reason is this; that the phrase containing the nominative, “signifies a single period of time, and is, therefore, in reality singular."-Ib. Cutler also, a more recent writer, seems to have imbibed the same notion; for he gives the following sentence as an example of "false construction: Every hundred years are called a century."-Cutler's Grammar and Parser, p. 145. But, according to this argument, no plural verb could ever be used with any definite number of the parts of time; for any three years, forty years, or threescore years and ten, are as single a period of time, as "every hundred years," "every four years," or "every twenty-four hours." Nor is it true, that, "Every is sometimes associated with a plural noun;" for "every years," or every hours," would be worse than nonsense. I, therefore, acknowledge no such exception; but, discarding the principle of the note, put this author's pretended corrections among my quotations of false syntax. OBS. 5.-Different verbs always have different subjects, expressed or understood; except when two or more verbs are connected in the same construction, or when the same word is repeated for the sake of emphasis. But let not the reader believe the common doctrine of our grammarians, respecting either the ellipsis of nominatives or the ellipsis of verbs. In the text, "The man was old and crafty," Murray sees no connexion of the ideas of age and craftiness, but thinks the text a compound sentence, containing two nominatives and two verbs; i. e., "The man was old, and the man was crafty."* And all his other instances of "the ellipsis of the verb" are equally fanciful! See his Octavo Gram., p. 219; Duodecimo, 175. In the text, "God loves, protects, supports, and rewards the righteous," there are four verbs in the same construction, agreeing with the same nominative, and governing the same object; but Buchanan and others expound it, "God loves, and God protects, and God supports, and God rewards the righteous.”—English Syntax, p. 76; British Gram., 192. This also is fanciful and inconsistent. If the nominative is here "elegantly understood to each verb," so is the objective, which they do not repeat. And again," they immediately add, "the verb is often understood to its noun or nouns; as, He dreams of gibbets, halters, racks, daggers, &c. i. e. He dreams of gibbets, and he dreams of halters, &c."Same works and places. In none of these examples is there any occasion to suppose an ellipsis, if we admit that two or more words can be connected in the same construction! OBS. 6.-Verbs in the imperative mood commonly agree with the pronoun thou, ye, or you, understood after them; as, Heal [ye] the sick, cleanse [ye] the lepers, raise [ye] the dead, cast [ye] out devils."-Matt., x, 8. "Trust God and be doing, and leave the rest with him."-Dr. Sibs. When the door of a thing must first proceed to the place of action, we sometimes use go or come before an other verb, without any conjunction between the two; as," Son, go work to-day in my vineyard."-Matt., xxi, 28. "Come see a man who [has] told me all things that ever I did."John, iv, 29. "He ordered his soldiers to go murder every child about Bethlehem, or near it."Wood's Dict. of Bible, w. Herod. "Take a present in thine hand, and go meet the man of God."— 2 Kings, viii, 8. "I will go see if he be at home."-Walker's Particles, p. 169. OBS. 7.-The place of the verb has reference mainly to that of the subject with which it agrees, and that of the object which it governs; and as the arrangement of these, with the instances in which they come before or after the verb, has already been noticed, the position of the This interpretation, and others like it, are given not only by Murray, but by many other grammarians, one of whom at least was earlier than he. See Bicknell's Gram., Part i, p. 123; Ingersoll's, 153; Guy's, 91; Alger's, 73: Merchant's, 100; Picket's, 211; Fisk's, 146; D. Adams's, 81; R. C. Smith's, 182. latter seems to require no further explanation. See Obs. 2d under Rule 2d, and Obs. 2d under Rule 5th. OBS. 8.-The infinitive mood, a phrase, or a sentence, (and, according to some authors, the participle in ing, or a phrase beginning with this participle,) is sometimes the proper subject of a verb, being equivalent to a nominative of the third person singular; as, "To play is pleasant.”Lowth's Gram., p. 80. "To write well, is difficult; to speak eloquently, is still more difficult." -Bair's Ret., p. 81. "To take men off from prayer, tends to irreligiousness, is granted.”Barclay's Works, i, 214. "To educato a child perfectly, requires profounder thought, greater wisdom, than to govern a state."— ·Channing's Self-Culture, p. 30. To determine these points, belongs to good sense."-Blair's Rhet., p. 321. "How far the change would contribute to his welfare, comes to be considered."-Id., Sermons. "That too much care does hurt in any of our tas's, is a doctrine so flattering to indolence, that we ought to receive it with extreme caution." -Life of Schiller, p. 148. "That there is no disputing about taste, is a saying so generally received as to have become a proverb."-Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 360. "For what purpose they embarked, is not yet known.”—“ To live in sin and yet to believe the forgiveness of sin, is utterly impossible."-Dr. J. Owen. "There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, But drinking largely sobers us again.”—Pope. OBS. 9.-The same meaning will be expressed, if the pronoun it be placed before the verb, and the infinitive, phrase, or sentence, after it; as, "It is pleasant to play,"--" It is difficult to write well;" &c. The construction of the following sentences is rendered defective by the omission of this pronoun: "Why do yo that which [it] is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?"-Luke, vi, 2. "The show-bread, which [it] is not lawful to eat, but for the priests only."—Ib., vi, 4. "We have done that which [it] was our duty to do."-Ib., xvii, 10. Here the relative which ought to be in the objective case, governed by the infinitives; but the omission of the word it makes this relative the nominative to is or was, and leaves to do and to eat without any regimen. This is not ellipsis, but error. It is an accidental gap into which a side piece falls, and leaves a breach elsewhere. The following is somewhat like it, though what falls in, appears to leave no chasm: "From this deduction, [it] may be easily seen how it comes to pass, that personification makes so great a figure."-Blair's Rhet., p. 155. "Whether the author had any meaning in this expression, or what it was, [it] is not easy to determine."-Murray's Gram., Vol. i, p. 298. "That warm climates should accelerate the growth of the human body, and shorten its duration, [it] is very reasonable to believe."-lb., p. 144. These also need the pronoun, though Murray thought them complete without it. Obs. 10. When the infinitivo mood is made the subject of a finite verb, it is most commonly used to express action or state in the abstract; as, "To be contents his natural desire.”—Pope. Here to be stands for simple existence; or if for the existence of the Indian, of whom the author speaks, that relation is merely implied. "To define ridicule, has puzzled and vexed every critic." Kames, El. of Crit., i, 300. Here "to define" expresses an action quite as distinct from any agent, as would the participial noun; as, “The defining of ridicule,” &c. In connexion with the infinitive, a concrete quality may also be taken as an abstract; as, "To be good is to be happy." Here good and happy express the quality of goodness and the state of happiness considered abstractly; and therefore these adjectives do not relate to any particular noun. So also the passive infinitive, or a perfect participle taken in a passive sense; as, "To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom."-"To appear discouraged, is the way to become so.' Here the satisfaction and the discouragement are considered abstractly, and without reference to any particular person. (See Obs. 12th and 13th on Rule 6th.) So too, apparently, the participles doing and suffering, as well as the adjective weak, in the following example: "Fallen Cherub, to bo weak is miserable, Doing or suffering."-Milton's Paradise Lost. OBS. 11.-When the action or state is to be expressly limited to one class of beings, or to a particular person or thing, without making the verb finite; the noun or pronoun may be introduced before the infinitive by the preposition for: as, "For men to search their own glory, is not glory."-Prov., xxv, 27. "For a prince to be reduced by villany to my distressful circumstances, is calamity enough."-Translation of Sallust. "For holy persons to be humble, is as hard, as for a prince to submit himself to be guided by tutors."-TAYLOR: Priestley's Gram., p. 132; Murray's, 184. But such a limitation is sometimes implied, when the expression itself is general; as, 66 Not to know me, argues thyself unknown."-Milton. That is, "For thee not to know me." The phrase is put for, "Thy ignorance of me;" for an other's ignorance would be no argument in regard to the individual addressed. "I, to bear this, that never knew but better, is some burden." -Beauties of Shak., p. 327. Here the infinitive to bear, which is the subject of the verb is, is limited in sense by the pronoun I, which is put absolute in the nominative, though perhaps improperly; because, "For me to bear this," &c., will convey the same meaning, in a form much more common, and perhaps more grammatical. In the following couplet, there is an ellipsis of the infinitive; for the phrase, “fool with fool,” means, "for fool to contend with fool," or, "for one fool to contend with an other:" "Blockheads with reason wicked wits abhor, But fool with fool is barb'rous civil war.”—Pope, Dunciad, B. iii, l. 175. OBS. 12.-The objective noun or pronoun thus introduced by for before the infinitive, was erro |