"To meditate amongst decay, and stand
A ruin amidst ruins."--Id.

NOTES TO RULE XVII

NOTE I.-Prepositions must be chosen and employed agree. ably to the usage and idiom of the language, so as rightly to express the relations intended.

NOTE II.-An ellipsis or omission of prepositions is inelegant, except in those phrases in which long and general use has sanctioned it. In the following sentence, of is needed.

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I will not flatter you,

That all I see in you is worthy love.".

Shak.

FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE XVII.--PREPOSITIONS.

Examples under Note 1.-Choice of Prepositions.

Her sobriety is no derogation to her understanding.

[FORMULE.-Not proper, because the relation between derogation and understand ing is not correctly expressed by the preposition to. But, according to Note 1st un. der Rule 17th, "Prepositions must be chosen and employed agreeably to the usage and idiom of the language, so as rightly to express the relations intended." This relation would be better expressed by from; thus, Her sobriety is no derogation from her understanding.]

She finds a difficulty of fixing her mind.

This affair did not fall into his cognizance.
He was accused for betraying his trust.
There was no water, and he died for thirst.
I have no occasion of his services.
You may safely confide on him.

I entertain no prejudice to him.
You may rely in what I tell you.

Virtue and vice differ widely with each other.
This remark is founded in truth.

After many toils, we arrived to our journey's end.
I will tell you a story very different to that.
Their conduct is agreeable with their profession.
Excessive pleasures pass from satiety in disgust.
I turned into disgust from the spectacle.

They are gone in the meadow.

Let this be divided between the three.

The shells were broken in pieces.

The deception has passed among every one.

They never quarrel among each other.
Amidst every difficulty, he persevered.

Let us go above stairs.

I was at London, when this happened.

We were detained to home, and disappointed in our walk.
This originated from mistake.

The Bridewell is situated to the west of the City-Hall, and it has no communication to the other buildings.

I am disappointed of the work; it is very inferior from what
I expected.

Under Note 2.-Omission of Prepositions.
Be worthy me, as I am worthy you.-Dryden.
They cannot but he unworthy the care of others.
Thou shalt have no portion on this side the river.
Sestos and Abydos were exactly opposite each other.
Ovid was banished Rome by his patron Augustus.

RULE XVIII.-INTERJECTIONS.

Interjections have no dependent construction: as, "O! let not thy heart despise me."-Johnson.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XVIII.

OBS. 1.-To this rule there are properly no exceptions. Though interjections are sometimes uttered in close connexion with other words, yet, being mere signs of passion and feeling, they cannot have any strict grammatical relation, or dependence according to the sense. Being destitute alike of relation, agreement, and government, they must be used independently, if used at all.

OBS. 2.-The interjection O is common to many languages, and is frequently prefixed to nouns or pronouns put absolute by direct address; as, Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand."-Psalms, x, 12. "O ye of little faith!"-Mat., vi, 30. The Latin and Greek grammarians, therefore, made this interjection the sign of the vocative case; which is the same as the nominative put absolute by address in English.

OBS. 3.- Interjections in English have no government."-Lowth. When a word not in the nominative absolute, follows an interjection, as part of an imperfect exclamation, its construction depends on something understood; as," Ah me!"—that is, "Ah! pity me."-"Alas for them!"-that is, "Alas! sigh for them."-" O for that warning voice!"—that is, "O! how I long for that warning voice!"-"O! that they were wise !"—that is, "O! how I wish that they were wise!" Such expressions, however, lose much of their vivacity, when the ellipsis is supplied.

OBS. 4.-Interjections may be placed before or after a simple sentence, and sometimes between its parts; but they are seldom allowed to interrupt the connexion of words closely united in sense. Murray's definition of an interjection is faulty, and directly contradicted by his example: "O virtue! how amiable thou art!"

CHAPTER III.-GOVERNMENT.

Government has respect only to nouns, pronouns, verbs, participles, and prepositions; the other five parts of speech neither govern nor are governed. The governing words, may be either nouns, pronouns, verbs, participles,

or prepositions; the words governed are either nouns, pronouns, verbs, or participles. In parsing, the learner must remember that the rules of government are not to be applied to the governing words, but to those which are governed; and which, for the sake of brevity, are often technically named after the particular form or modification assumed; as, possessives, objectives, same cases, infinitives, gerundives. Taken in this way, none of the following rules can have any exceptions.

OBS.-The Arrangement of words, (which is treated of in the observations on the rules of construction,) is an important part of syntax, in which not only the beauty but the propriety of language is intimately concerned, and to which particular attention should therefore be paid in composition. But it is to be remembered, that the mere collocation of words in a sentence never affects the method of parsing them; on the contrary, the same words, however placed, are always to be parsed in precisely the same way, so long as they express precisely the same meaning. In order to show that we have parsed any part of an inverted or difficult sen tence rightly, we are at liberty to declare the meaning by any arrangement which will make the construction more obvious, provided we retain both the sense and all the words unaltered; but to drop or alter any word, is to pervert the text and to make a mockery of parsing. Grammar rightly learned, enables one to understand both the sense and the construction of whatsoever is rightly written; and he who reads what he does not understand, reads to little purpose. With great indignity to the muses, several pretenders to grammar have foolishly taught, that, "in parsing poetry, in order to come at the meaning of the author, the learner will find it necessary to transpose his language."-Kirkham's Gr., p. 166. See also Merchant, Wilcox, Hull, and others, to the same effect. "To what purpose can he transpose a sentence, who does not first see what it means, and how to explain or parse it as it stands?

RULE XIX.-POSSESSIVES.

A noun or a pronoun in the Possessive case, is governed by the name of the thing possessed; as, "Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine; "Touch'd by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine."

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XIX.

OBS. 1.-Every possessive is governed by some noun expressed or und stood, except such as (without the possessive sign) are put in apposit with others so governed; and for every possessive termination there must be a separate governing word. The possessive sign may and must be omitted in certain cases; but it is never omitted by ellipsis, as Murray errone .ously teaches. The four lines of Note 2d below, are sufficient to show, in every instance, when it must be used, and when omitted; but Murray, after as many octavo pages on the point, still leaves it undetermined. If a person knows what he means to say, let him express it according to the note, and he shall not err.

OBS. 2.-The possessive case generally comes immediately before the gov erning noun; as, "All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace."-Pope. "Lady! be thine [i. e. thy walk] the Christian's walk."-Ch. Observer. But to this general principle there are some exceptions: as,

1. When an adjective intervenes; as, "Flora's earliest smells."-Milton. "Of Will's last night's lecture."-Spectator.

2. When the possession is affirmed or denied; as, "The book is mine, and not John's." But here the governing noun may be supplied in its proper place; and, in some such sentences, it must be, else a pronoun will be the only governing word: as, "Ye are Christ's [disciples], and Christ is God's" [son]-St. Paul.

3. When the case occurs without the sign; as, "In her brother Absalom's house."-Bible. "David and Jonathan's friendship." "_"Adam and Eve's morning hymn."-Dr. Ash. "Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, is the Lord's thy God."-Deut., x, 14.

OBS. 3.-Where the governing noun cannot be easily mistaken, it is often omitted by ellipsis; as, " At the alderman's" [house] "A book of my brother's" [books]" A subject of the emperor's" [subjects]. This is the true explanation of all Murray's "double genitives" for the first noun, being partitive, naturally suggests a plurality of the same kind.

OBS. 4.-When two or more nouns of the possessive form are in any way connected, they usually refer to things individually different, but of the same name; and, when such is the meaning, the governing noun is understood wherever the sign is added without it: as,

"From Stiles's pocket into Nokes's" [pocket].-S. Butler.

"Add Nature's, Custom's, Reason's, Passion's strife."-Pope. OBS. 5.-The possessive sign is sometimes annexed to that part of a compound name, which is, of itself, in the objective case; as, "The captain-ofthe-guard's house."- Bible. "The Bard-of-Lomond's lay is done."-Hogg. "Of the Children-of-Israel's half thou shalt take one portion."-Num., xxxi, 30. Such compounds ought always to be written with hyphens, and parsed together as possessives governed in the usual way. The words cannot be explained separately.

OBS. 6.-In the following phrase, the possessive sign is awkwardly added to a distinct adjective: "In Henry the Eighth's time."-Walker's Key, Introd. p. 11. Better, "In the time of Henry the Eighth." But, in the following line, the adjective elegantly takes the sign; because there is an ellipsis of both nouns:

"The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay."—Goldsmith.

OBS. 7.-To avoid a concurrence of hissing sounds, the s is sometimes omitted, and the apostrophe alone retained to mark the possessive singular; as, "For conscience sake."-Bible. "Moses' minister."—Ibid. "Felix' room.'" -Ibid. "Achilles' wrath."-Pope. But the elision should be sparingly indulged. It is in general less agreeable than the regular form; as, Hicks' for Hicks's,-Barnes' for Barnes's.

OBS. 8.-Whatever word or term gives rise to the direct relation of prop crty, and is rightly made to govern the possessive case, must be a noun must be the name of some substance, quality, state, or action. When therefore other parts of speech assume this relation, they become nouns; as, "Against the day of my burying."—John, xii, 7. "Of my whereabout.”Shak. "The very head and front of my offending."-Id.

OBS 9.--Some grammarians say, that a participle may govern the possessive case before it, and yet retain the government and adjuncts of a participle; as, "We also properly say, 'This will be the effect of the pupil's com posing frequently.'"-Murray's Gram. "What can be the reason of the committee's having delayed this business?"-Murray's Key. This construction is faulty, because it confounds the properties of different parts of speech, and produces a hybridous class between the participle and the noun;" but this," says Lowth, "is inconsistent; let it be either the one or the other, and abide by its proper construction.' It is also unnecessary, because the same idea may be otherwise expressed more elegantly; as, "This will be the effect, if the pupil compose frequently."-"Why have the committee delayed this business?"

NOTES TO RULE XIX.

NOTE I.—In the use of the possessive case, its appropriate

form should be observed: thus, write men's, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs, and not, mens', her's, it's, our's, your's, their's.

NOTE II.-When nouns of the possessive case, are connected by conjunctions, or put in apposition, the sign of possession must always be annexed to such, and such only, as immediately precede the governing noun, expressed or understood; as, John and Eliza's teacher is a man of more learning than James's or Andrew's.". "For David my servant's sake."Bible. "Lost in love's and friendship's smile."-Scott.

NOTE III.-The relation of property may also be expressed by the preposition of and the objective: as, "The will of man;" for, "man's will." Of these forms, we should adopt that which will render the sentence the most perspicuous and agreeable; and, by the use of both, avoid an unpleasant repetition of either.

NOTE IV. A noun governing the possessive plural, should not be made plural, unless the sense requires it. Thus: say, "We have changed our mind," if only one purpose or opinion is meant.

OBS.-A noun taken figuratively may be singular, when the literal meaning would require the plural: such expressions as, "their face,"—" their neck," "their hand,""" their head,"" their heart,"-"our mouth,""our life,"—are frequent in the Scriptures, and are not improper.

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The

NOTE V. The possessive case should not be prefixed te a participle that is not taken in all respects as a noun. following phrase is therefore wrong : Adopted by the Goths in their pronouncing the Greek.”—Walker's Key, p. 17. Expunge their.

FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE XIX.-POSSESSIVES.

Examples under Note 1.-The Possessive Form.

Thy ancestors virtue is not thine.

[FORMULE.-Not proper, because the noun ancestors, which is intended for the possessive plural, has not the appropriate form of that case. But, according to Note 1st under Rule 19th, "In the use of the possessive case, its appropriate form should be observed." An apostrophe is required after ancestors; thus, Thy ancestors' virtue is not thine."]

Mans chief good is an upright mind.

I will not destroy the city for ten sake.
Moses rod was turned into a serpent.
They are wolves in sheeps clothing.

The tree is known by it's fruit.

The privilege is not their's, any more than it is your's.

Yet he was gentle as soft summer airs,

Had grace for others sins, but none for theirs'.