Part 111 (1/2)
”By such a change thy _darkness_ is ht_”--_Cowper_, Vol i, p 88
OBS 2--In this rule, the ter_ refer rather to the order of the sense and construction, than to the _ of the words; for the words in fact admit of various positions The proper subject of the verb is the nominative _to_ it, or _before_ it, by Rule 2d; and the other nominative, however placed, is understood to be that which coeneral, however, the proper subject _precedes_ the verb, and the other word _follows_ it, agreeably to the literal sense of the rule But when the proper subject is placed after the verb, as in certain instances specified in the second observation under Rule 2d, the explanatory nominative is commonly introduced still later; as, ”But be _thou_ an _example_ of the believers”--_1 Tis_, viii, 13 ”And so would I, were _I Parhter! is _it thou_?”--_Ossian_
But in the following example, on the contrary, there is a transposition of the entire lines, and the verb agrees with the two nominatives in the latter:
”To thee _were_ solemn _toys_ or empty _show_, The _robes_ of pleasure and the _veils_ of wo”--_Dr Johnson_
OBS 3--In interrogative sentences, the terms are usually transposed,[359]
or both are placed after the verb; as, ”A_ then?”--_Ib_, ver 37 ”_What_ is _truth_?”--_Ib_, ver 38 ”_Who_ art _thou_?”--_Ib_, i, 19 ”Art _thou Elias_?”--_Ib_, i, 21 ”Tell me, Alciphron, is not _distance_ a _line_ turned endwise to the eye?”--_Berkley's Dialogues_, p 161
”Whence, and _what_ art _thou_, execrable shape?”--_Milton_
”Art _thou_ that traitor _angel_? art _thou he_?”--_Idem_
OBS 4--In a declarative sentence also, there may be a rhetorical or poetical transposition of one or both of the terms: as, ”And I _thy victis a _prey_ thou shalt be made”--_Pope's Homer_, ”I was eyes to the blind, and _feet_ was _I_ to the lame”--_Job_, xxix, 15 ”Far other _scene_ is _Thrasy sentence, the latter term is palpably misplaced: ”It does not clearly appear at first _what the antecedent is_ to _they_”--_Blair's Rhet_, p 218 Say rather: ”It does not clearly appear at first, _what is the antecedent_ to [the pronoun] _they_” In exaant ellipsis of the verb to which the pronoun is nouish wring the brow, A el thou_”--_Scott's Marmion_
”The forum's champion, and the people's chief, Her new-born _Nun, alas! too brief”--_Byron_
”For this commission'd, I forsook the sky-- Nay, cease to kneel--thy _fellow-servant I_”--_Parnell_
OBS 5--In some peculiar constructions, both words naturally come _before_ the verb; as, ”I know not _who she_ is”--”_Who_ did you say _it_ was?”--”I know not how to tell thee _who I_ a_ is”--_1 Sam_, xvii, 56 ”Man would not be the creature _which he_ now is”--_Blair_ ”I could not guess _who it_ should be”--_Addison_ And they are sometimes placed in this manner by _hyberbaton_ [sic--KTH], or transposition; as, ”Yet _he it_ is”--_Young_
”No contemptible _orator he_ was”--_Dr Blair_ ”_He it_ is to whoive a sop”--_John_, xiii, 26 ”And a very noble _personage Cato_ is”--_Blair's Rhet_, p 457 ”_Clouds they_ are without water”--_Jude_, 12
”Of wor_ looked, But monstrous, with a thousand snaky heads”--_Pollok_, B i, l 183
OBS 6--As infinitives and participles have no nominatives of their own, such of them as are not transitive in their nature, may take _different_ cases after them; and, in order to determine what _case_ it is that follows the word denotes the sa, and apply the principle of the rule accordingly This word being often remote, and sometimes understood, the _sense_ is the only clew to the construction Exa an _outcast_ frorees with _who_, and not with _thought_ ”_I_ cannot help being so passionate an _adrees with _I_ ”To recommend _what_ the soberer part of mankind look upon to be a _trifle_”--_Steele_ Here _trifle_ agrees with _what_ as relative, the objective governed by _upon_ ”_It_ would be a romantic _madness_, for a _man_ to be a _lord_ in his closet”--_Id_ Here _ with _it_; and _lord_, in the objective, agreeing with _man_ ”To _affect_ to be a _lord_ in one's closet, would be a romantic _madness_” In this sentence also, _lord_ is in the objective, after _to be_; and _madness_, in the nominative, after _would be_
”'My dear _Tibullus!_' If that will not do, Let _me_ be _Horace_, and be _Ovid you_”--_Pope_, B ii, Ep ii, 143
OBS 7--An active-intransitive or a neuter participle in _ing_, when governed by a preposition, is often followed by a noun or a pronoun the case of which depends not on the preposition, but on the case which goes before Example: ”The _Jeere in a particular _ a credulous _people_”--_Addison's Evidences_, p 28 Here _people_ is in the noans ridiculed the _Jews_ for _being_ a credulous _people_” Here _people_ is in the objective case, because the preceding noun _Jews_ is so In both instances the preposition _for_ governs the participle _being_, and nothing else ”The atrocious cri _man_, I shall neither attempt to palliate _or_ deny”--PITT: _Bullions's E Gram_, p 82; _S S
Greene's_, 174 Sanborn has this text, with ”_nor_” for ”_or_”--_analytical Gram_, p 190 This example has been erroneously cited, as one in which the case of the noun after the participle is _not determined_ by its relation to any other word Sanborn absurdly supposes it to be ”in the _noely tells us, ”it may correctly be called the _objective indefinite_”--like _ me_”--_Bullions's E
Gralish_ It should be, ”He was not sure _of it as being me_;” or, ”He was not sure _that it was I”_ But, in the text above, there is an evident transposition The syntactical order is this: ”_I_ shall neither deny _nor_ atte _man_” The words _man_ and _I_ refer to the sa to the rule which I have given above
OBS 8--S S Greene, in his late Grammar, i_, ”the _predicate-noines that it necessarily remains a nominative even when the possessive case precedes the participle If he were right in this, there would be an iularly absurd is his doctrine about ”_abridged predicates_,” that in general the _abridging_ shows an _increase_ of syllables, and often a conversion of good English into bad For exaed in the nominative_, when, with the participle of the copula, _it_ becomes _a verbal noun_, limited by the possessive case of the subject; as, 'That he was a foreigner prevented his election,'='_His_ being a _foreigner_ prevented his election'”--_Greene's analysis_, p 169 Here the nuner_ is very improperly called ”a verbal noun,” and an exahtly calls an ”_anomalous expression_,” and one wherein that author supposes _foreigner_ and _his_ to be necessarily in the saed forner_,” = ”I knew _his being_, or _of his being a foreigner_” ”The fact _that he was a foreigner_, = _of his being a foreigner_, was undeniable” ”_When he was first called a foreigner_, = _on his being first called a foreigner_, his anger was excited”--_Ib_, p
171 All these changes _enlarge_, rather than abridge, the expression; and, at the salish, to say the least of it
OBS 9--In some examples, the adverb _there_ precedes the participle, and we evidently have nothing by which to deteres were twelve in nu_ twelve pri the Gothic nations?”--_Webster's Essays_, p
263 Say rather: ”Was this _because there were_ twelve pri the Gothic nations?” ”Howof _there ever being_ such a y_, p 185 Say rather,--”_who know not that there ever was_ such a man in the world!”
OBS 10--In some other examples, we find a possessive before the participle, and a doubtful case after it; as, ”This our Saviour hiu the promised _Messiah_”--_Addison's Evidences_, p 81 ”But led out froe, as a proper _object_ upon whoht let loose the cruelty of his temper”--_Cowper's Memoir_, p 13 ”[Greek: Tou patros [ontos] onou euthus hypemnaesthae] He had so an ass”--_Collectanea Graeca Minora, Notae_, p 7 This construction, though not uncommon, is anomalous in more respects than one
Whether or not it is worthy to form an exception to the rule of _same cases_, or even to that of _possessives_, the reader e from the observations made on it under the latter I should rather devise some way to avoid it, if any can be found--and I believe there can; as, ”This our Saviour hiest _proof that he was_ the promised Messiah”--”But led out,” &c The story of the mule is, ”_He seemed to recollect on a sudden that his father was an ass_” This is the properof the Greek text above; but the construction is different, the Greek nouns being genitives in apposition
OBS 11--A noun in the nominative case sometimes follows a finite verb, when the equivalent subject that stands before the verb, is not a noun or pronoun, but a phrase or a sentence which supplies the place of a nominative; as, ”That the barons and freeholders derived their authority fros, is wholly a _mistake_”--_Webster's Essays_, p 277 ”To speak of a slave as a arded a _solecism_”--_Stroud's Sketch_, p 65 Here _mistake_ and _solecis subjects had been declinable words
OBS 12--When a noun is put after an abstract infinitive that is not transitive, it appears necessarily to be in the objective case,[360] though not governed by the verb; for if we supply any noun to which such infinitive may be supposed to refer, it must be introduced before the verb by the preposition _for_: as, ”To be an _Englishman_ in London, a _Frenchman_ in Paris, a _Spaniard_ in Madrid, is no easy _, p 89 That is, ”_For a traveller_ to be an _Englishman_ in London,” &c ”It is certainly as easy to be a _scholar_, as a _gamester_”--_Harris's Her amester_” ”To be an eloquent _speaker_, in the proper sense of the _word_, is far fro a common or easy _attainment_”--_Blair's Rhet_, p 337 Here _attainment_ is in the no_, for it follows both; and _speaker_, in the objective after _to be_ ”It is al [for a _man_] to be a poet in despite of fortune, as it is [for _one_ to be a _poet_] in despite of nature”--_Cowley's Preface to his Poems_, p vii