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

left in disgust."—Ib., p. 172. "He left, and took his brother with him."—Ib., p. 254. "This stating, or declaring, or denying any thing, is called the indicative mode, or manner of speaking."—Weld's Gram., 2d Ed., p. 72; Abr. Ed., 59. "This took place at our friend Sir Joshua Reynold's."—Weld's Gram., 2d Ed., p. 150; Imp. Ed., 154. "The manner of a young lady's employing herself usefully in reading will be the subject of another paper."—Ib., 150; or 154. "Very little time is necessary for Johnson's concluding a treaty with the bookseller."—Ib., 150; or 154. "My father is not now sick, but if he was your services would be welcome."—Chandler's Grammar, 1821, p. 54. "When we begin to write or speak, we ought previously to fix in our minds a clear conception of the end to be aimed at."—Blair's Rhetoric, p. 193. "Length of days are in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor."—Bullions's Analytical and Practical Grammar, 1849, p. 59. "The active and passive present express different ideas."—Ib., p. 235. "An Improper Diphthong, or Digraph, is a diphthong in which only one of the vowels are sounded."—Fowler's E. Gram., 8vo, 1850, §115. "The real origin of the words are to be sought in the Latin."—Ib., §120. "What sort of an alphabet the Gothic languages possess, we know; what sort of alphabet they require, we can determine."—Ib., §127. "The Runic Alphabet whether borrowed or invented by the early Goths, is of greater antiquity than either the oldest Teutonic or the Moeso-Gothic Alphabets."—Ib., §129. "Common to the Masculine and the Neuter Genders."—Ib., §222. "In the Anglo-Saxon his was common to both the Masculine and Neuter Genders."—Ib., §222. "When time, number, or dimension are specified, the adjective follows the substantive."—Ib., §459. "Nor pain, nor grief, nor anxious fear Invade thy bounds."—Ib., §563. "To Brighton the Pavilion lends a lath and plaster grace."—Ib., §590. "From this consideration nouns have been given but one person, the THIRD."—D. C. Allen's Grammatic Guide, p. 10.

   "For it seems to guard and cherish
    Even the wayward dreamer—I."—Home Journal.

EXAMPLES FOR PARSING. PRAXIS XIII.—SYNTACTICAL.

In the following Lessons, are exemplified most of the Exceptions, some of the Notes, and many of the Observations, under the preceding Rules of Syntax; to which Exceptions, Notes, or Observations, the learner may recur, for an explanation of whatsoever is difficult in the parsing, or peculiar in the construction, of these examples or others.

LESSON I.—PROSE.

"The higher a bird flies, the more out of danger he is; and the higher a Christian soars above the world, the safer are his comforts."—Sparke.

"In this point of view, and with this explanation, it is supposed by some grammarians, that our language contains a few Impersonal Verbs; that is, verbs which declare the existence of some action or state, but which do not refer to any animate being, or any determinate particluar subject."—L. Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 109.

"Thus in England and France, a great landholder possesses a hundred times the property that is necessary for the subsistence of a family; and each landlord has perhaps a hundred families dependent on him for subsistence."—Webster's Essays, p. 87.

"It is as possible to become pedantick by fear of pedantry, as to be troublesome by ill timed civility."—Johnson's Rambler, No. 173.

"To commence author, is to claim praise; and no man can justly aspire to honour, but at the hazard of disgrace."—Ib., No. 93.

"For ministers to be silent in the cause of Christ, is to renounce it; and to fly is to desert it."—SOUTH: Crabb's Synonymes, p. 7.

"Such instances shew how much the sublime depends upon a just selection of circumstances; and with how great care every circumstance must be avoided, which by bordering in the least upon the mean, or even upon the gay or the trifling, alters the tone of the emotion."—Blair's Rhet., p. 43.

"This great poet and philosopher, the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth, and that he lost himself in the thought instead of finding an end to it."—Addison. "Odin, which in Anglo-Saxon was Woden, was the supreme god of the Goths, answering to the Jupiter of the Greeks."—Webster's Essays, p. 262.

"Because confidence, that charm and cement of intimacy, is wholly wanting in the intercourse."—Opie, on Lying, p. 146.

"Objects of hearing may be compared together, as also of taste, of smell, and of touch: but the chief fund of comparison are objects of sight."—Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. ii, p. 136.

"The various relations of the various Objects exhibited by this (I mean relations of near and distant, present and absent, same and different, definite and indefinite, &c.) made it necessary that here there should not be one, but many Pronouns, such as He, This, That, Other, Any, Some, &c."—Harris's Hermes, p. 72.

"Mr. Pope's Ethical Epistles deserve to be mentioned with signal honour, as a model, next to perfect, of this kind of poetry."—Blair's Rhet., p. 402.

"The knowledge of why they so exist, must be the last act of favour which time and toil will bestow."—Rush, on the Voice, p. 253.

"It is unbelief, and not faith, that sinks the sinner into despondency.—Christianity disowns such characters."—Fuller, on the Gospel, p. 141.

"That God created the universe, [and] that men are accountable for their actions, are frequently mentioned by logicians, as instances of the mind judging."

LESSON II.—PROSE.

"To censure works, not men, is the just prerogative of criticism, and accordingly all personal censure is here avoided, unless where necessary to illustrate some general proposition."—Kames, El. of Crit., Introduction, p. 27.

"There remains to show by examples the manner of treating subjects, so as to give them a ridiculous appearance."—Ib., Vol. i, p. 303.

"The making of poetry, like any other handicraft, may be learned by industry."—Macpherson's Preface to Ossian, p. xiv.

"Whatever is found more strange or beautiful than was expected, is judged to be more strange or beautiful than it is in reality."—Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. i, p. 243.

"Thus the body of an animal, and of a plant, are composed of certain great vessels; these[,] of smaller; and these again[,] of still smaller, without end, as far as we can discover."—Id., ib., p. 270.

"This cause of beauty, is too extensive to be handled as a branch of any other subject: for to ascertain with accuracy even the proper meaning of words, not to talk of their figurative power, would require a large volume; an useful work indeed, but not to be attempted without a large stock of time, study, and reflection."—Id., Vol. ii, p. 16.

"O the hourly dangers that we here walk in! Every sense, and member, is a snare; every creature, and every duty, is a snare to us."—Baxter, Saints's Rest.

"For a man to give his opinion of what he sees but in part, is an unjustifiable piece of rashness and folly."—Addison.

"That the sentiments thus prevalent among the early Jews respecting the divine authority of the Old Testament were correct, appears from the testimony of Jesus Christ and his apostles."—Gurney's Essays, p. 69.

"So in Society we are not our own, but Christ's, and the church's, to good works and services, yet all in love."—Barclay's Works, Vol. i, p. 84.

"He [Dr. Johnson] sat up in his bed, clapped his hands, and cried, 'O brave we!'—a peculiar exclamation of his when he rejoices."— Boswell's Life of Johnson, Vol. iii, p. 56.

"Single, double, and treble emphasis are nothing but examples of antithesis."—Knowles's Elocutionist, p. xxviii.

"The curious thing, and what, I would almost say, settles the point, is, that we do Horace no service, even according to our view of the matter, by rejecting the scholiast's explanation. No two eggs can be more like each other than Horace's Malthinus and Seneca's Mecenas."— Philological Museum, Vol. i, p. 477. "Acting, conduct, behaviour, abstracted from all regard to what is, in fact and event, the consequence of it, is itself the natural object of this moral discernment, as speculative truth and [say or] falsehood is of speculative reason."—Butler's Analogy, p. 277.

"To do what is right, with unperverted faculties, is ten times easier than to undo what is wrong."—Porter's Analysis, p. 37.

"Some natures the more pains a man takes to reclaim them, the worse they are."—L'ESTRANGE: Johnson's Dict., w. Pains.

"Says John Milton, in that impassioned speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, where every word leaps with intellectual life, 'Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden upon the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life!'"—Louisville Examiner, June, 1850.

LESSON III.—PROSE.

"The philosopher, the saint, or the hero—the wise, the good, or the great man—very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred and brought to light."—Addison.

"The year before, he had so used the matter, that what by force, what by policy, he had taken from the Christians above thirty small castles."—Knolles.

"It is an important truth, that religion, vital religion, the religion of the heart, is the most powerful auxiliary of reason, in waging war with the passions, and promoting that sweet composure which constitutes the peace of God."—Murray's Key, p. 181.

"Pray, sir, be pleased to take the part of us beauties and fortunes into your consideration, and do not let us be flattered out of our senses. Tell people that we fair ones expect honest plain answers, as well as other folks."—Spectator, No. 534. "Unhappy it would be for us, did not uniformity prevail in morals: that our actions should uniformly be directed to what is good and against what is ill, is the greatest blessing in society; and in order to uniformity of action, uniformity of sentiment is indispensable."—Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. ii, p. 366.

"Thus the pleasure of all the senses is the same in all, high and low, learned and unlearned."—Burke, on Taste, p. 39.

"Upwards of eight millions of acres have, I believe, been thus disposed of."—Society in America, Vol. i, p. 333.

"The Latin Grammar comes something nearer, but yet does not hit the mark neither."—Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 281.

"Of the like nature is the following inaccuracy of Dean Swift's."—Blair's Rhet., p. 105. "Thus, Sir, I have given you my own opinion, relating to this weighty affair, as well as that of a great majority of both houses here."—Ib.

"A foot is just twelve times as long as an inch; and an hour is sixty times the length of a minute."—Murray's Gram., p. 48.

"What can we expect, who come a gleaning, not after the first reapers, but after the very beggars?"—Cowley's Pref. to Poems, p. x.

"In our Lord's being betrayed into the hands of the chief-priests and scribes, by Judas Iscariot; in his being by them delivered to the Gentiles; in his being mocked, scourged, spitted on, [say spit upon,] and crucified; and in his rising from the dead after three days; there was much that was singular, complicated, and not to be easily calculated on before hand."—Gurney's Essays, p. 40.

"To be morose, implacable, inexorable, and revengeful, is one of the greatest degeneracies of human nature."—Dr. J. Owen.

"Now, says he, if tragedy, which is in its nature grand and lofty, will not admit of this, who can forbear laughing to hear the historian Gorgias Leontinus styling Xerxes, that cowardly Persian king, Jupiter; and vultures, living sepulchres?"—Holmes's Rhetoric?, Part II, p. 14.

"O let thy all-seeing eye, and not the eye of the world, be the star to steer my course by; and let thy blessed favour, more than the liking of any sinful men, be ever my study and delight."—Jenks's Prayers, p. 156.

LESSON IV.—PROSE.

"O the Hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a way-faring man, that turneth aside to tarry for a night?"—Jeremiah, xiv, 8.

"When once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved."—1 Peter, iii, 20.

"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other."—Psalms, lxxxv, 10.

"But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."—Matt., xv, 9.

"Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon the earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?"—Job, xx, 4, 5.

"For now we see through a glass darkly; but then,