15. Could every man apply himself to [the] employments which are most suited to his capabilities, and, in his appointed calling, work only with a view to serviceable, sincere, and ennobling results, the measure of his achievements might still, perchance, fall short of his original aspirations; but, being commensurate with his powers, and conformable to the eternal laws, it could not fail to yield him that assurance of security and contentment which, by necessity, proceeds from all faithfulness of action.— Chambers. 16. By the immortal gods, I wish (pardon me, O my coun try! for I fear what I shall say out of a pious regard for Milo may be deemed impiety against thee) that Clodius not only lived, but were prætor, consul, dictator, rather than [that I should] be witness to such a scene as this. Immortal gods! how brave a man is that, and how worthy of being preserved by you! By no means, he cries; the ruffian met with the punishment he deserved; and let me, if it must be so, suffer the punishment I have not deserved.-Duncan's Cicero. 17. Where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from that Union, by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gathered around it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the proudest monuments of its glory, and on the very spot of its origin.— Webster. 18. So live, that when thy summons comes to join To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, 19. Of chance or change, O let not man complain, For, from the imperial dome, to where the swain All feel th' assaults of Fortune's fickle gale; Beattie. 20. The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, 21. Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Dic, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! The honey-bee, that wanders all day long The field, the woodland, and the garden o'er, 22. And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Ere evening to be trodden like the grass, Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when the fiery mass Of living valor, rolling on the foe, And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. 23. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state; Byron. From brutes what men, from men what spirits know ; The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.-Pope. 25. O treacherous conscience! while she seems to sleep And give us up to license, unrecall'd, Unmark'd;-see, from behind her secret stand,* And her dread diary with horror fills. *Sco Obs. 3, page 112. The pulpit (when the satirist has, at last, Of its legitimate, peculiar powers) Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand, Support, and ornament of virtue's cause. There stands the messenger of truth; there, stands His office, sacred; his credentials, clear. By him the violated law speaks out Its thunders; and, by him, in strains as sweet 28. 29. Shakspeare. Nature never did betray O, Adam, one Almighty is, from whom 7* CHAPTER II.--RELATION AND AGREEMENT. In this chapter and the next, the Rules of Syntax are again exhibited, in their former order, 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, somewhat similar to that of parsing, and perhaps more useful. OBS.-Relation and Agreement are taken together that the rules may stand in the order of the parts of speech. The latter is moreover naturally allied to the former. Seven of the ten parts of speech are, with a few exceptions, incapable of any agreement; of these, the relation and use must be explained in parsing; and all necessary agreement between any of the rest, is confined to words that relate to each other. RULE I.-ARTICLES. Articles relate to the nouns which they limit: as, "At a little distance from the ruins of the abbey, stands an aged elm." 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. 7th, next page.] EXCEPTION SECOND. The indefinite article is sometimes used to give a collective meaning to an adjective of number; as, "Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis."-Rev. "There are a thousand things which crowd into my memory."-Spectator, No. 468. [See Obs. 12th, next page.] OBSERVATIONS ON RULE I. OBS. 1.-Articles often relate to nouns understood; as, "The [river] Thames,"" Pliny the younger", [man], "The honourable [body], the Legislature," "The animal [world] and the vegetable world," "Neither to the right [hand] nor to the left" [hand].-Bible. "He was a good man, and a just" [man].—Ib. "The pride of swains Palemon was, the generous [man], and the rich" [man].-Thomson. OBS. 2.-It is not always necessary to repeat the article before several nouns in the same construction: the same article serves sometimes to limit the signification of more than one noun; but we doubt the propriety of ever construing two articles as relating to one and the same noun. OBS. 3.-The article precedes its noun, and is never, by itself, placed after it; as, "Passion is the drunkenness of the mind."-Southey. OBS. 4.-When an adjective precedes the noun, the article is placed before the adjective, that its power may extend over that also; as, "The private path, the secret acts of men, If noble, far the noblest of their lives."-Young. |