of the second person. The supposition however was quite needless, because each of their grammars contains an other Rule, that, "When an address is made, the noun or pronoun is in the nominative case independent;" which, by the by, is far from being universally true, either of the noun or of the pronoun. Russell imagines, "The words depending upon interjections, have so near a resemblance to those in a direct address, that they may very properly be classed under the same general head," and be parsed as being, "in the nominative case independent." See his "Abridgment of Murray's Grammar," p. 91. He does not perceive that depending and independent are words that contradict each other. Into the same inconsistency, do nearly all those gentlemen fall, who ascribe to interjections a control over cases. Even Kirkham, who so earnestly contends that what any words require after them they must necessarily govern, forgets his whole argument, or justly disbelieves it, whenever he parses any noun that is uttered with an interjection. In short, he applies his principle to nothing but the word me in the phrases, "Ah me!" "Oh me!" and "Me miserable!" and even these he parses falsely. The second person used in the vocative, or the nominative put absolute by direct address, whether an interjection be used or not, he rightly explains as being "in the nominative case independent;" as, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!"—Kirkham's Gram., p. 130. "O maid of Inistore!"—Ib., p. 131. But he is wrong in saying that, "Whenever a noun is of the second person, it is in the nominative case independent;" (Ib., p. 130;) and still more so, in supposing that, "The principle contained in the note" [which tells what interjections require,] "proves that every noun of the second person is in the nominative case."—Ib., p. 164. A falsehood proves nothing but the ignorance or the wickedness of him who utters it. He is wrong too, as well as many others, in supposing that this nominative independent is not a nominative absolute; for, "The vocative is [generally, if not always,] absolute."—W. Allen's Gram., p. 142. But that nouns of the second person are not always absolute or independent, nor always in the nominative case, or the vocative, appears, I think, by the following example: "This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders."—Acts, iv, II. See Obs. 3d on Rule 8th.
OBS. 8.—The third person, when uttered in exclamation, with an interjection before it, is parsed by Kirkham, not as being governed by the interjection, either in the nominative case, according to his own argument and own rule above cited, or in the objective, according to Nixon's notion of the construction; nor yet as being put absolute in the nominative, as I believe it generally, if not always is; but as being "the nominative to a verb understood; as, 'Lo,' there is 'the poor Indian!' '0, the pain' there is! 'the bliss' there is 'IN dying!'"—Kirkham's Gram., p. 129. Pope's text is, "Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!" and, in all that is here changed, the grammarian has perverted it, if not in all that he has added. It is an other principle of Kirkham's Grammar, though a false one, that, "Nouns have but two persons, the second and [the] third."—P. 37. So that, these two being disposed of agreeably to his own methods above, which appear to include the second and third persons of pronouns also, there remains to him nothing but the objective of the pronoun of the first person to which he can suppose his other rule to apply; and I have shown that there is no truth in it, even in regard to this. Yet, with the strongest professions of adhering to the principles, and even to "the language" of Lindley Murray, this gentleman, by copying somebody else in preference to "that eminent philologist," has made himself one of those by whom Murray's erroneous remark on O, oh, and ah, with pronouns of the first and second persons, is not only stretched into a rule for all interjections, but made to include nouns of the second person, and both nouns and pronouns of the third person: as, "Interjections require the objective case of a pronoun of the first person after them, but the nominative of a noun or pronoun of the second or third person; as, 'Ah! me; Oh! thou; O! virtue!'"—Kirkham's Gram., 2d Ed., p. 134; Stereotype Ed., p. 177. See the same rule, with examples and punctuation different, in his Stereotype Edition, p. 164; Comly's Gram., 116; Greenleaf's, 36; and Fisk's, 144. All these authors, except Comly, who comes much nearest to the thing, profess to present to us "Murray's Grammar Simplified;" and this is a sample of their work of simplification!--an ignorant piling of errors on errors!
"O imitatores servum pecus! ut mihi'sæpe
Bilem, sæpe jocum vestri movêre tumultus!"—Horace.
OBS. 9.—Since so many of our grammarians conceive that interjections require or govern cases, it may be proper to cite some who teach otherwise. "Interjections, in English, have no government."—Lowth's Gram., p. 111. "Interjections have no government, or admit of no construction."—Coar's Gram., p. 189. "Interjections have no connexion with other word's."—Fuller's Gram., p. 71. "The interjection, in a grammatical sense, is totally unconnected with every other word in a sentence. Its arrangement, of course, is altogether arbitrary, and cannot admit of any theory."—Jamieson's Rhet., p. 83. "Interjections cannot properly have either concord or government. They are only mere sounds excited by passion, and have no just connexion with any other part of a sentence. Whatever case, therefore, is joined with them, must depend on some other word understood, except the vocative, which is always placed absolutely."—Adam's Latin Gram., p. 196; Gould's, 193. If this is true of the Latin language, a slight variation will make it as true of ours. "Interjections, and phrases resembling them, are taken absolutely; as, Oh, world, thy slippery turns! But the phrases Oh me! and Ah me! frequently occur."—W. Allen's Gram., p. 188. This passage is, in several respects, wrong; yet the leading idea is true. The author entitles it, "SYNTAX OF INTERJECTIONS," yet absurdly includes in it I know not what phrases! In the phrase, "thy slippery turns!" no word is absolute, or "taken absolutely" but this noun "turns;" and this, without the least hint of its case, the learned author will have us to
