The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive; and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity bestowed upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority."—Dr. Johnson, Rambler, Vol. ii, No. 93.

"Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverend than plausible, and more advised than confident; above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue."—Bacon's Essays, p. 145.

"The wisest nations, having the most and best ideas, will consequently have the best and most copious languages."—Harris's Hermes, p. 408.

"Here we trace the operation of powerful causes, while we remain ignorant of their nature; but everything goes on with such regularity and harmony, as to give a striking and convincing proof of a combining directing intelligence."—Life of W. Allen, Vol. i, p. 170.

   "The wisest, unexperienced, will be ever
    Timorous and loth, with novice modesty,
    Irresolute, unhardy, unadventurous."—Milton.

IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION. ERRORS OF ADJECTIVES. LESSON I.—DEGREES.

"I have the real excuse of the honestest sort of bankrupts."—Cowley's
Preface, p. viii.

[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the adjective honestest is harshly compared by est. But, according to a principle stated on page 283d concerning the regular degrees, "This method of comparison is to be applied only to monosyllables, and to dissyllables of a smooth termination, or such as receive it and still have but one syllable after the accent." Therefore, honestest should be most honest; thus, "I have real excuse of the most honest sort of bankrupts."]

"The honourablest part of talk, is, to give the occasion."—Bacon's Essays, p. 90. "To give him one of his own modestest proverbs."— Barclay's Works, iii, 340. "Our language is now certainly properer and more natural, than it was formerly."—Bp. Burnet. "Which will be of most and frequentest use to him in the world."—Locke, on Education, p. 163. "The same is notified in the notablest places in the diocese."—Whitgift. "But it was the dreadfullest sight that ever I saw."—Pilgrim's Progress, p. 70. "Four of the ancientest, soberest, and discreetest of the brethren, chosen for the occasion, shall regulate it."—Locke, on Church Gov. "Nor can there be any clear understanding of any Roman author, especially of ancienter time, without this skill."—Walker's Particles, p. x. "Far the learnedest of the Greeks."—Ib., p. 120. "The learneder thou art, the humbler be thou."—Ib., p. 228. "He is none of the best or honestest."— Ib., p. 274. "The properest methods of communicating it to others."— Burn's Gram., Prof, p. viii. "What heaven's great King hath powerfullest to send against us."—Paradise Lost. "Benedict is not the unhopefullest husband that I know."—SHAK.: in Joh. Dict. "That he should immediately do all the meanest and triflingest things himself."—RAY: in Johnson's Gram., p. 6. "I shall be named among the famousest of women."—MILTON'S Samson Agonistes: ib. "Those have the inventivest heads for all purposes."—ASCHAM: ib. "The wretcheder are the contemners of all helps."—BEN JONSON: ib. "I will now deliver a few of the properest and naturallest considerations that belong to this piece."—WOTTON: ib. "The mortalest poisons practised by the West Indians, have some mixture of the blood, fat, or flesh of man."—BACON: ib. "He so won upon him, that he rendered him one of the faithfulest and most affectionate allies the Medes ever had."—Rollin, ii, 71. "'You see before you,' says he to him, 'the most devoted servant, and the faithfullest ally, you ever had.'"—Ib., ii, 79. "I chose the flourishing'st tree in all the park."—Cowley. "Which he placed, I think, some centuries backwarder than Julius Africanus thought fit to place it afterwards."—Bolingbroke, on History, p. 53. "The Tiber, the notedest river of Italy."—Littleton's Dict.

   "To fartherest shores the ambrosial spirit flies."
        —Cutler's Gram., p. 140.

    ——"That what she wills to do or say,
    Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best."
        —Milton, B. viii, l. 550.

LESSON II.—MIXED.

"During the three or four first years of its existence."—Taylor's District School, p. 27.

[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the cardinal numbers, three and four are put before the ordinal first. But, according to the 7th part of Obs. 7th, page 280th, "In specifying any part of a series, we ought to place the cardinal number after the ordinal." Therefore the words three and four should be placed after first; thus, "During the first three or four years of its existence."]

"To the first of these divisions, my ten last lectures have been devoted."—Adams's Rhet., Vol. i, p. 391. "There are in the twenty-four states not less than sixty thousand common schools."—Taylor's District School, p. 38. "I know of nothing which gives teachers so much trouble as this want of firmness."—Ib., p. 57. "I know of nothing that throws such darkness over the line which separates right from wrong."—Ib., p. 58. "None need this purity and simplicity of language and thought so much as the common school instructor."—Ib., p. 64. "I know of no periodical that is so valuable to the teacher as the Annals of Education."—Ib., p. 67. "Are not these schools of the highest importance? Should not every individual feel the deepest interest in their character and condition?"—Ib., p. 78. "If instruction were made a profession, teachers would feel a sympathy for each other."—Ib., p. 93. "Nothing is so likely to interest children as novelty and change."—Ib., p. 131. "I know of no labour which affords so much happiness as that of the teacher's."—Ib., p. 136. "Their school exercises are the most pleasant and agreeable of any that they engage in."—Ib., p. 136. "I know of no exercise so beneficial to the pupil as that of drawing maps."—Ib., p. 176. "I know of nothing in which our district schools are so defective as they are in the art of teaching grammar."—Ib., p. 196. "I know of nothing so easily acquired as history."—Ib. p. 206. "I know of nothing for which scholars usually have such an abhorrence, as composition."—Ib., p. 210. "There is nothing in our fellow-men that we should respect with so much sacredness as their good name."—Ib., p. 307. "Sure never any thing was so unbred as that odious man."—CONGREVE: in Joh. Dict. "In the dialogue between the mariner and the shade of the deceast."—Philological Museum, i, 466. "These master-works would still be less excellent and finisht"—Ib., i, 469. "Every attempt to staylace the language of polisht conversation, renders our phraseology inelegant and clumsy."—Ib., i, 678. "Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words that ever blotted paper."—SHAK.: in Joh. Dict. "With the most easy, undisobliging transitions."—BROOME: ib. "Fear is, of all affections, the unaptest to admit any conference with reason."—HOOKER: ib. "Most chymists think glass a body more undestroyable than gold itself."—BOYLE: ib. "To part with unhackt edges, and bear back our barge undinted."—SHAK.: ib. "Erasmus, who was an unbigotted Roman Catholic, was transported with this passage."—ADDISON: ib. "There are no less than five words, with any of which the sentence might have terminated."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 397. "The one preach Christ of contention; but the other, of love."—Philippians, i, 16. "Hence we find less discontent and heart-burnings, than where the subjects are unequally burdened."—Art of Thinking, p. 56.

   "The serpent, subtil'st beast of all the field,
    I knew; but not with human voice indu'd."
        —MILTON: Joh. Dict., w. Human.

   "How much more grievous would our lives appear,
    To reach th' eighth hundred, than the eightieth year?"
        —DENHAM: B. P., ii, 244.

LESSON III.—MIXED.

"Brutus engaged with Aruns; and so fierce was the attack, that they pierced one another at the same time."—Lempriere's Dict.

[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the phrase one another is here applied to two persons only, the words an and other being needlessly compounded. But, according to Observation 15th, on the Classes of Adjectives, each other must be applied to two persons or things, and one an other to more than two. Therefore one another should here be each other; thus, "Brutus engaged with Aruns; and so fierce was the attack, that they pierced each other at the same time."]

"Her two brothers were one after another turned into stone."—Art of Thinking, p. 194. "Nouns are often used as adjectives; as, A gold-ring, a silver-cup."—Lennie's Gram., p. 14. "Fire and water destroy one another."—Wanostrocht's Gram., p. 82. "Two negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an affirmative."—Lowth's Gram., p. 94; E. Devis's, 111; Mack's, 147; Murray's, 198; Churchill's, 148; Putnam's, 135; C. Adams's, 102; Hamlin's, 79; Alger's, 66; Fisk's, 140; Ingersoll's, 207; and many others. "Two negatives destroy one another, and are generally equivalent to an affirmative."—Kirkham's Gram., p. 191; Felton's, 85. "Two negatives destroy one another and make an affirmative."—J. Flint's Gram., p. 79. "Two negatives destroy one another, being equivalent to an affirmative."—Frost's El. of E. Gram., p. 48. "Two objects, resembling one another, are presented to the imagination."—Parker's Exercises in Comp., p. 47. "Mankind, in order to hold converse with each other, found it necessary to give names to objects."—Kirkham's Gram., p. 42. "Words are derived from each other[185] in various ways."—Cooper's Gram., p. 108. "There are many other ways of deriving words from one another."—Murray's Gram., p. 131. "When several verbs connected by conjunctions, succeed each other in a sentence, the auxiliary is usually omitted except with the first."—Frost's Gram., p. 91. "Two or more verbs, having the same nominative case, and immediately following one another, are also separated by commas." [186]—Murray's Gram., p. 270; C. Adams's, 126; Russell's, 113; and others. "Two or more adverbs immediately succeeding each other, must be separated by commas."—Same Grammars. "If, however, the members succeeding each other, are very closely connected, the comma is unnecessary."—Murray's Gram., p. 273; Comly's, 152; and others. "Gratitude, when exerted towards one another, naturally produces a very pleasing sensation in the mind of a grateful man."—Mur., p. 287. "Several verbs in the infinitive mood, having a common dependence, and succeeding one another, are also divided by commas."—Comly's Gram., p. 153. "The several words of which it consists, have so near a relation to each other."—Murray's Gram., p. 268; Comly's, 144; Russell's, 111; and others. "When two or more verbs have the same nominative, and immediately follow one another, or two or more adverbs immediately succeed one another, they must be separated by commas."—Comly's Gram., p. 145. "Nouns frequently succeed each other, meaning the same thing."—Sanborn's Gram., p. 63. "And these two tenses may thus answer one another."—Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 322. "Or some other relation which two objects bear to one another."—Jamieson's Rhet., p. 149. "That the heathens tolerated each other, is allowed."—Gospel its own Witness, p. 76. "And yet these two persons love one another tenderly."—Murray's E. Reader, p. 112. "In the six hundredth and first year."—Gen., viii, 13. "Nor is this arguing of his but a reiterate clamour."—Barclay's Works, i, 250. "In severals of them the inward life of Christianity is to be found."—Ib., iii, 272. "Though Alvarez, Despauterius, and other, allow it not to be Plural."—Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 169. "Even the most dissipate and shameless blushed at the sight."—Lemp. Dict., w. Antiochus. "We feel a superior satisfaction in surveying the life of animals, than that of vegetables."—Jamieson's Rhet., 172. "But this man is so full fraughted with malice."—Barclay's Works, i11, 205. "That I suggest some things concerning the properest means."—Blair's Rhet., p. 337.

   "So hand in hand they pass'd, the loveliest pair
    That ever since in love's embraces met."
        —Milton, P. L., B., iv, l. 321.

   "Aim at the high'est, without the high'est attain'd
    Will be for thee no sitting, or not long."
        —Id., P. R., B. iv, l. 106.

CHAPTER V.—PRONOUNS.

A Pronoun is a word used in stead of a noun: as, The boy loves his book; he has long lessons, and he learns them well.

The pronouns in our language are twenty-four; and their variations are thirty-two: so that the number of words of this class, is fifty-six.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—The word for which a pronoun stands, is called its antecedent, because it usually precedes the pronoun. But some have limited the term antecedent to the word represented by a relative pronoun. There can be no propriety in this, unless we will have every pronoun to be a relative, when it stands for a noun which precedes it; and, if so, it should be called something else, when the noun is to be found elsewhere. In the example above, his and he represent boy, and them represents lessons; and these nouns are as truly the antecedents to the pronouns, as any can be. Yet his, he, and them, in our most approved grammars, are not called relative pronouns, but personal.

OBS. 2.—Every pronoun may be explained as standing for the name of something, for the thing itself unnamed, or for a former pronoun; and, with the noun, pronoun, or thing, for which it stands, every pronoun must agree in person, number, and gender. The exceptions to this, whether apparent or real, are very few; and, as their occurrence is unfrequent, there will be little occasion to notice them till we come to syntax. But if the student will observe the use and import of pronouns, he may easily see, that