undoubtedly, is altogether right, except that the word "virtue" should have had a capital Vee, because the quality is here personified.
OBS. 17.--Misled by the false notion, that the term interjection is appropriate only to what is "thrown in between the parts of a sentence," and perceiving that this is in fact but rarely the situation of this part of speech, a recent critic, (to whom I should owe some acknowledgements, if he were not wrong in every thing in which he charges me with error,) not only denounces this name as "barbarous," preferring Webster's loose term, "exclamation;" but avers, that, "The words called interjection should never be so used--should always stand alone; as, 'Oh! virtue, how amiable thou art.' 'Oh? Absalom, my son.' G. Brown," continues he, "drags one into the middle of a sentence, where it never belonged; thus, 'This enterprise, alas! will never compensate us for the trouble and expense with which it has been attended.' If G. B. meant the enterprize of studying grammar, in the old theories, his sentiment is very appropriate; but his alas! he should have known enough to have put into the right place:--before the sentence representing the fact that excites the emotion expressed by alas! See on the Chart part 3, of RULE XVII. An exclamation must always precede the phrase or sentence describing the fact that excites the emotion to be expressed by the exclamation; as: Alas! I have alienated my friend! Oh! Glorious hope of bliss secure!"--Oliver B. Peirce's Gram., p. 375. "O Glorious hope of bliss secure!"--Ib., p. 184. "O glorious hope!"--Ib., p. 304.
OBS. 18.--I see no reason to believe, that the class of words which have always, and almost universally, been called interjections, can ever be more conveniently explained under any other name; and, as for the term exclamation, which is preferred also by Cutler, Felton, Spencer, and S. W. Clark, it appears to me much less suitable than the old one, because it is less specific. Any words uttered loudly in the same breath, are an exclamation. This name therefore is too general; it includes other parts of speech than interjections; and it was but a foolish whim in Dr. Webster, to prefer it in his dictionaries. When David "cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!" [442] he uttered two exclamations, but they included all his words. He did not, like my critic above, set off his first word with an interrogation point, or any other point. But, says Peirce, "These words are used in exclaiming, and are what all know them to be, exclamations; as I call them. May I not call them what they are?"--Ibid. Yes, truly. But to exclaim is to cry out, and consequently every outcry is an exclamation; though there are two chances to one, that no interjection at all be used by the bawler. As good an argument, or better, may be framed against every one of this gentleman's professed improvements in grammar; and as for his punctuation and orthography, any reader may be presumed capable of seeing that they are not fit to be proposed as models.
OBS. 19.--I like my position of the word "alas" better than that which Peirce supposes to be its only right place; and, certainly, his rule for the location of words of this sort, as well as his notion that they must stand alone, is as false, as it is new. The obvious misstatement of Lowth, Adam, Gould, Murray, Churchill, Alger, Smith, Guy, Ingersoll, and others, that, "Interjections are words thrown in between the parts of a sentence," I had not only excluded from my grammars, but expressly censured in them. It was not, therefore, to prop any error of the old theorists, that I happened to set one interjection "where" according to this new oracle, "it never belonged." And if any body but he has been practically misled by their mistake, it is not I, but more probably some of the following authors, here cited for his refutation: "I fear, alas! for my life."--Fisk's Gram., p. 89. "I have been occupied, alas! with trifles."--Murray's Gr., Ex. for Parsing, p. 5; Guy's, p. 56. "We eagerly pursue pleasure, but, alas! we often mistake the road."--Smith's New Gram., p. 40, "To-morrow, alas! thou mayest be comfortless!"--Wright's Gram., p. 35. "Time flies, O! how swiftly."--Murray's Gram., i, 226. "My friend, alas! is dead."--J. Flint's Gram., p. 21. "But John, alas! he is very idle."--Merchant's Gram., p. 22. "For pale and wan he was, alas the while!"--SPENSER: Joh. Dict. "But yet, alas! O but yet, alas! our haps be but hard haps."--SYDNEY: ib. "Nay, (what's incredible,) alack! I hardly hear a woman's clack."--SWIFT: ib. "Thus life is spent (oh fie upon't!) In being touch'd, and crying--Don't!"--Cowper, i, 231. "For whom, alas! dost thou prepare The sweets that I was wont to share"--Id., i, 203. "But here, alas! the difference lies."--Id., i. 100. "Their names, alas! in vain reproach an age," &c.--Id., i, 88. "What nature, alas! has denied," &c.--Id., i, 235. "A. Hail Sternhold, then; and Hopkins, hail! B. Amen."--Id., i 25.
"These Fate reserv'd to grace thy reign divine,
Foreseen by me, but ah! withheld from mine!"--Pope, Dun., iii, 215.
IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.
FALSE SYNTAX PROMISCUOUS. [Fist] [The following examples of bad grammar, being similar in their character to others already exhibited, are to be corrected, by the pupil, according to formules previously given.]
LESSON I.--ANY PARTS OF SPEECH.
"Such an one I believe yours will be proved to be."--PEET: Farnum's Gram., p. 1. "Of the distinction between the imperfect and the perfect tenses, it may be observed," &c.--Ainsworth's
