The Grammar of English Grammars Part 101

LESSON VII.--ADVERBS.

"How cheerfully, how freely, how regularly, how constantly, how unweariedly, how powerfully, how extensively, he communicateth his convincing, his enlightening, his heart-penetrating, warming, and melting; his soul-quickening, healing, refres.h.i.+ng, directing, and fructifying influence!"--_Brown's Metaphors_, p. 96.

"The pa.s.sage, I grant, requires to be well and naturally read, in order to be promptly comprehended; but surely there are very few pa.s.sages worth comprehending, either of verse or prose, that can be promptly understood, when they are read unnaturally and ill."--_Thelwall's Lect_. "They waste life in what are called good resolutions--partial efforts at reformation, feebly commenced, heartlessly conducted, and hopelessly concluded."--_Maturin's Sermons_, p. 262.

"A man may, in respect of grammatical purity, speak unexceptionably, and yet speak obscurely and ambiguously; and though we cannot say, that a man may speak properly, and at the same time speak unintelligibly, yet this last case falls more naturally to be considered as an offence against perspicuity, than as a violation of propriety."--_Jamieson's Rhet._, p.

104.

"Ye are witnesses, and G.o.d also, how holily and justly and unblamably we behaved ourselves among you that believe."--_1 Thes._, ii, 10.

"The question is not, whether they know what is said of Christ in the Scriptures; but whether they know it savingly, truly, livingly, powerfully."--_Penington's Works_, iii, 28.

"How gladly would the man recall to life The boy's neglected sire! a mother too, That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still, Might he demand them at the gates of death!"--_Cowper_.

LESSON VIII.--CONJUNCTIONS.

"Every person's safety requires that he should submit to be governed; for if one man may do harm without suffering punishment, every man has the same right, and no person can be safe."--_Webster's Essays_, p. 38.

"When it becomes a practice to collect debts by law, it is a proof of corruption and degeneracy among the people. Laws and courts are necessary, to settle controverted points between man and man; but a man should pay an acknowledged debt, not because there is a law to oblige him, but because it is just and honest, and because he has promised to pay it."--_Ib._, p. 42.

"The liar, and only the liar, is invariably and universally despised, abandoned, and disowned. It is therefore natural to expect, that a crime thus generally detested, should be generally avoided."--_Hawkesworth_.

"When a man swears to the truth of his tale, he tacitly acknowledges that his bare word does not deserve credit. A swearer will lie, and a liar is not to be believed even upon his oath; nor is he believed, when he happens to speak the truth."--_Red Book_, p. 108.

"John Adams replied, 'I know Great Britain has determined on her system, and that very determination determines me on mine. You know I have been constant and uniform in opposition to her measures. The die is now cast. I have pa.s.sed the Rubicon. Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish with my country, is my unalterable determination.'"--SEWARD'S _Life of John Quincy Adams_, p. 26.

"I returned, and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all."--_Ecclesiastes_, ix, 11.

"Little, alas! is all the good I can; A man oppress'd, dependent, yet a man."--_Pope, Odys._, B. xiv, p. 70.

LESSON IX.--PREPOSITIONS.

"He who legislates only for a party, is engraving his name on the adamantine pillar of his country's history, to be gazed on forever as an object of universal detestation."--_Wayland's Moral Science_, p. 401.

"The Greek language, in the hands of the orator, the poet, and the historian, must be allowed to bear away the palm from every other known in the world; but to that only, in my opinion, need our own yield the precedence."--_Barrow's Essays_, p. 91.

"For my part, I am convinced that the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation, is incomparably the best; since, not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew."--_Burke, on Taste_, p. 37.

Better--"on which _truths grow_."

"All that I have done in this difficult part of grammar, concerning the proper use of prepositions, has been to make a few general remarks upon the subject; and then to give a collection of instances, that have occurred to me, of the improper use of some of them."--_Priestley's Gram._, p. 155.

"This is not an age of encouragement for works of elaborate research and real utility. The genius of the trade of literature is necessarily unfriendly to such productions."--_Thelwall's Lect._, p. 102.

"At length, at the end of a range of trees, I saw three figures seated on a bank of moss, with a silent brook creeping at their feet."--_Steele_.

"Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulph'rous bolt, Splitst the unwedgeable and gnarled oak."--_Shakspeare_.

LESSON X.--INTERJECTIONS.

"Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David; thou, and thy servants, and thy people, that enter in by these gates: thus saith the Lord, Execute ye judgement and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor."--_Jeremiah_, xxii, 2, 3.

"Therefore, thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!

He shall be buried with the burial of an a.s.s, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem."--_Jer._, xxii, 18, 19.

"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires."--_Isaiah_, liv, 11.

"O prince! O friend! lo! here thy Medon stands; Ah! stop the hero's unresisted hands."

--_Pope, Odys._, B. xxii, l. 417.

"When, lo! descending to our hero's aid, Jove's daughter Pallas, war's triumphant maid!"

--_Ib._, B. xxii, l. 222.

"O friends! oh ever exercised in care!

Hear Heaven's commands, and reverence what ye hear!"

--_Ib._, B. xii, l. 324.

"Too daring prince! ah, whither dost thou run?

Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and you!"

--_Pope's Iliad_, B. vi, l. 510.

CHAPTER II.--ARTICLES.

In this chapter, and those which follow it, the Rules of Syntax are again exhibited, in the order of the parts of speech, with Examples, Exceptions, Observations, Notes, and False Syntax. The Notes are all of them, in form and character, subordinate rules of syntax, designed for the detection of errors. The correction of the False Syntax placed under the rules and notes, will form an _oral exercise_, similar to that of parsing, and perhaps more useful.[334]

RULE I.--ARTICLES.

Articles relate to the nouns which they limit:[335] as, "At _a_ little distance from _the_ ruins of _the_ abbey, stands _an_ aged elm."

"See _the_ blind beggar dance, _the_ cripple sing, _The_ sot _a_ hero, lunatic _a_ king."--_Pope's Essay_, Ep. ii, l. 268.

EXCEPTION FIRST.

The definite article used _intensively_, may relate to an _adjective_ or _adverb_ of the comparative or the superlative degree; as, "A land which was _the mightiest_."--_Byron_. "_The farther_ they proceeded, _the greater_ appeared their alacrity."--_Dr. Johnson_. "He chooses it _the rather_"--_Cowper_. See Obs. 10th, below.

EXCEPTION SECOND.

The indefinite article is sometimes used to give a collective meaning to what seems a _plural adjective of number_; as, "Thou hast _a few_ names even in Sardis."--_Rev._, iii, 4. "There are _a thousand_ things which crowd into my memory."--_Spectator_, No. 468. "The centurion commanded _a hundred_ men."--_Webster_. See Etymology, Articles, Obs. 26.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE I.