of the verb and nominative: few will hesitate in deciding which is most agreeable to the ear. "None more than he will grieve, for an hour at least, when I am dead." Here the verb and the nominative are too widely separated for perspicuity; and the natural arrangement would have been "none will grieve more than he will." How easily and pleasantly on the other hand does the following sentence read off,-" All this regard to trifles was not frivolity—it was a trait of character, it belonged to the artist; without it he would not have had the habit of mind which made him what he was." In this the verb constantly follows close upon the nominative, and the effect is most pleasing the sentence never lags, but is thoroughly idiomatic English.

Sometimes, for greater emphasis, where the style is highly rhetorical, it is allowed to place an accusative in the first part of the sentence. "Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire, your land strangers devour it in your presence."* Here, as for is understood before your land, as may be seen by another passage. "Make us gods which shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him."t

A whole sentence may occasionally be the nominative to a verb. In this case we shall usually find the infinitive mode of a verb; which, as has already been noticed, is the abstract idea of an action, taking the part of a substantive, as, "to say that a man lyeth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward toward man." "The more he knows the more he is desirous of knowing, and yet the farther he advances in knowledge the better he understands how little he can attain, and the more deeply he feels that God alone can satisfy the infinite desires of an immortal soul. To understand this is the height and perfection of philosophy."§

*Isaiah.

+ Exodus.

Bacon.

Southey.

RULE II.

Concord of the Substantive with its Adjective.

Here, as the English adjective is indeclinable, the agreement is an understood rather than an expressed one. How the English language came to stand alone in this particular, is not easy to say; for the Anglo-Saxon adjective is declined very amply. The only resemblance in this particular that I am aware of is to be found in the German, where, if the adjective be separated from its substantive, it becomes indeclinable.

RULE III.

Concord of the Relative with its Antecedent.

The usual concord of the relative in gender, number, and person with its antecedent, is very easily observed in English; for it is subject to no change of number or person, but merely of gender and case: but this last is not necessarily the same as that of the antecedent: thus in the phrase, the man, whom you saw, said:-the man is the nominative of said; you is the nominative of saw, and whom is the accusative governed by the verb transitive The relative in this phrase supplies a whole limb of a sentence, for without its aid we must say, you saw a certain man, and that man said. Reverse the sentence, and let the man be the nominative to saw, as,—the man who saw you said;-you becomes the accusative, and the relative is in the nominative case, for the verb transitive no longer exercises its influence on it, but on another word, i. e. you.

saw.

The rule is one that may be termed universal, for wherever a relative exists capable of being declined, it must hold good; but the mistakes, so frequently made in the cases of the relative, show that it is one of some difficulty to the mere English scholar. This difficulty may probably be avoided by analyzing the sentence so far as to see which word is governed by the verb transitive, for it has already been seen that though the substantive does

not alter its termination in the accusative case, it is nevertheless as properly in that case as the neuter noun in the Greek or Latin, which has its nominative and accusative alike. If the government of the verb transitive fall upon a substantive, then the relative escapes from its influence, and, if no other circumstance interfere, will be in the nominative. Or it may be received in another way; for if the relative clearly be the agent, then it must be the nominative to the verb. The following sentence will show it in all its cases, "We may well believe that they whom faith has sanctified, and who upon their departure join the spirits of the just made perfect,' may at once be removed from all concern with this world of probation, except so far as might add to their own happiness, and be made conducive to the good of others, in the ways of Providence. But by parity of reason it may be concluded that the sordid and the sensual, they whose affections have been set upon worldly things, and who are of the earth earthy, will be as unable to rise above the earth as they would be incapable of any pure and spiritual enjoyment."* Here, faith is the nominative or agent, and sanctifies certain persons; these in their turn join the spirits of the just, and thus are the agents or nominative to the verb join.

When the relative does duty for two antecedents of different genders, one of which is neuter, then the indeclinable word that is substituted for who or which; as, the CART and the MAN that you met on the road:-for the English do not willingly attribute gender to inanimate things; and by this compromise we may avoid involving the cart and the man in the same category, for that is equally applicable to all genders, as,

"THE CHILD may rue that was unborn,
The hunting of that day."t

"I asked him whether it were the custom in his country to say THE THING that was not?"

* Southey. + Ballad of Chevy Chase.

Swift.

"In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,
Wrapt in a paper which contained the name

That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine,
Hath not in Nature's mystery more science

Than I have in that ring

"A man is an ill husband of his honor that entereth into any action the failing wherein may disgrace him more than the carrying of it through can honor him."t

ARRANGEMENT OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH.

1. Article.

The proper place of the article in English, as in Greek, is immediately before the adjective, if there be one, if not, before the noun; but, as in the Greek, it is often prefixed to a whole phrase, which, taken together, forms the nominative to a verb, as, "The speaking to the people was well timed." It does not, however, like the Greek, transform the participle into an active agent, or an individual; but makes the participle present into a neuter substantive, as, THE WINNING is easier than THE PRESERVING a conquest.

2. Substantive.

The common Latin rule, that when two substantives of different signification come together, the last will be in the genitive case, is reversed in English; for the substantive in the genitive case stands first, as, "I have to-night wooed Margaret, the lady Hero's gentlewoman, by the name of Hero; she leans me out of her mistress's chamber window," &c.

"In all debates where virtues bear a part,

Not one but nods and talks of Jonson's art,

Of Shakspeare's nature, and of Cowley's wit,

How Beaumont's judgment checked what Fletcher writ."§

This arrangement of the genitive case is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, where we find commonly such phrases as Loder gelearan, God's belief, or the belief in God; Loder pillan, God's will, &c.; and it is still to be found also in the German, as, Ich will Pharaons herz erhärten-I will harden Pharaoh's heart, though in that language, as in the Anglo-Saxon, the Latin arrangement of the second noun in the genitive case is also used. In English, where the repetition of sibilants becomes unpleasant to the ear, the preposition of is substituted, and we say, the will of God instead of God's will. In the construction of a sentence these two modes of expression form a pleasing variety, and the writer will do well to avail himself of both. The following passage owes half its beauty and pathos to the skilful use of the genitive case. "We went once more to the bed, and there by his master's face, sate the poor dog. He had crept softly up from his usual resting-place, and when he saw us draw aside the curtain, he looked at us so wistfully, that -No, I cannot go on!-There is a religion in a good man's death that we cannot babble to all the world."*

Sometimes the genitive is used alone, the second substantive being understood, as I have been staying at your friend's-i. e., at your friend's house. That is Charles's hat, but I thought it had been Henry's-i. e., Henry's hat.

According to the Latin rule, also, two or more substantives relating to the same thing will be in the same case; but the English has this peculiarity, that the genitive termination is only appended to the last of them, as the Archbishop of Canterbury's opinion- King William and Queen Mary's reign. It would seem that in these cases the whole phrase is considered as amalgamated into a single word, in the fashion of some German compounds, and then the termination peculiar to the case is added at the end of it, as it would be to any other word.

3. Adjective.

The usual place of the adjective in English is after the

* Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.