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thing in the manner of an interjection, as, See! Behold! and Hail! which last is from a Saxon verb, and is a wish of health to the person so addressed. Lo! is probably an abbreviation of look! as, lo'ye is to be found in old writers, and Hark! is from Hearken. The rest are but inarticulate expressions of impatience or doubt, which have puzzled orthographers to spell-as, pish! or pshaw! or bah! or um! or hum! or hm, and are not worth farther notice.

THIS

SYNTAX.

HIS word, derived from the Greek ovvTats, which signifies an orderly arrangement together, sufficiently explains the object of all those rules of grammar, which are classed under this head. It is here that the peculiarities of a language or in other words, its idioms are to be found; and the modifications which every nation is wont to make of the universal rules, constitute what is called the genius of the language. It is the fault of English writers very generally that they do not sufficiently attend to this; and the consequence is that it is rare to find a racy idiomatic style. The sounding march

of the Latin periods charms the ear of the scholar, and he tries to assimilate his own language to that which he has long studied and admired: but the want of distinctive terminations to many of the cases of nouns, renders this a vain attempt; and if we would write perspicuously, and at the same time with a force which shall impress itself on the memory, we must use the tools which our rude forefathers left us; we must write, as we speak,―our mother tongue.

THE THREE Concords.

RULE I.

Concord of the Verb with its Nominative.

The peculiarity of the English on this point, consists in its uniform arrangement of the nominative before the verb; for as the accusative of the substantive has no especial termination, it would be impossible to make a sentence perspicuous if any other arrangement were adopted. The arrangement therefore made use of by some modern writers by which the nominative is displaced, is bad, and in proof of this, we may observe that it is never so used in common speech. Peter was more confident than was JOHN, will never be a mode of expression

adopted in conversation, nor has it ever been so by the great masters of our language. Take for example, Southey, in that most idiomatic of all his writings, "The Doctor,"_" To those who are acquainted with the history of Grandgousier's royal family, I need not explain what that purpose was."-Now this sentence would have been despoiled of its genuine English-ness had it been written "what was that purpose."Therefore, although an ear accustomed to the roundness of the Latin period, may shrink from a small word at the end of a sentence, if the writer would be English in his style, (and if he be not it is not a good style,) he must be content to follow his wise forefathers in this, as well as in trial by jury, and many other things which we have not yet found it easy to amend.

It is difficult always to believe that an arrangement of language which we are daily hearing, is the true and elegant one; and yet if in manner and in dress simplicity and ease are synonymous with elegance, why should we wonder that the same should be the case with language? I will choose two sentences from a popular writer to exemplify both the

* Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.

66

faulty and the idiomatic arrangement 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

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*Isaiah.

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.” *

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." +

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

* Exodus.

+ Bacon. + Southey.

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