er's[439] Murray, 136; Wilcox's, 95; Bucke's, 87; Emmons's, 77; and probably in others. Lennie varies it indefinitely, thus: "RULE. The interjections Oh! and Ah! &c. generally require the objective case of the first personal pronoun, and the nominative of the second; as, Ah me! O thou fool! O ye hypocrites!"—Lennie's Gram., p. 110; Brace's, 88. M'Culloch, after Crombie, thus: "RULE XX. Interjections are joined with the objective case of the pronoun of the first person, and with the nominative of the pronoun of the second; as, Ah me! O ye hypocrites."—Manual of E. Gram., p. 145; and Crombie's Treatise, p. 315; also Fowler's E. Language, p. 563. Hiley makes it a note, thus: "The interjections. O! Oh! Ah! are followed by the objective case of a pronoun of the first person; as, 'Oh me!' 'Ah me!' but by the nominative case of the pronoun in the second person; as, 'O thou who dwellest.' "—Hiley's Gram., p. 82. This is what the same author elsewhere calls "THE GOVERNMENT OF INTERJECTIONS;" though, like some others, he had set it in the "Syntax of PRONOUNS." See Ib., p. 108. Murray, in forming his own little "Abridgment," omitted it altogether. In his other grammars, it is still a mere note, standing where he at first absurdly put it, under his rule for the agreement of pronouns with their antecedents. By many of his sage amenders, it has been placed in the catalogue of principal rules. But, that it is no adequate rule for interjections, is manifest; for, in its usual form, it is limited to three, and none of these can ever, with any propriety, be parsed by it. Murray himself has not used it in any of his forms of parsing. He conceived, (as I hinted before in Chapter 1st,) that, "The syntax of the Interjection is of so very limited a nature, that it does not require a distinct, appropriate rule."—Octavo Gram., i. 224.
OBS. 6.—Against this remark of Murray's, a good argument may be drawn from the ridiculous use which has been made of his own suggestion in the other place. For, though that suggestion never had in it the least shadow of truth, and was never at all applicable either to the three interjections, or to pronouns, or to cases, or to the persons, or to any thing else of which it speaks, it has not only been often copied literally, and called a "RULE" of syntax, but many have, yet more absurdly, made it a general canon which imposes on all interjections a syntax that belongs to none of them. For example: "An interjection must be followed by the objective case of a pronoun in the first person; and by a nominative of the second person; as—Oh me! ah me! oh thou! AH hail, ye happy men!"—Jaudon's Gram., p. 116. This is as much as to say, that every interjection must have a pronoun or two after it! Again: "Interjections must be followed by the objective case of the pronoun in the first person; as, O me! Ah me! and by the nominative case of the second person; as, O thou persecutor! Oh ye hypocrites!"—Merchant's Murray, p. 80; Merchant's School Gram., p. 99. I imagine there is a difference between O and oh,[440] and that this author, as well as Murray, in the first and the last of these examples, has misapplied them both. Again: "Interjections require the objective case of a pronoun of the first person, and the nominative case of the second; as, Ah me! O thou"—Frost's El. of E. Gram., p. 48. This, too, is general, but equivocal; as if one case or both were necessary to each interjection!
OBS. 7.—Of nouns, or of the third person, the three rules last cited say nothing;[441] though it appears from other evidence, that their authors supposed them applicable at least to some nouns
