Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/1015

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ing more important in the whole subject, than this doctrine of mood and tense."--R. Johnson cor. "It is by no means impossible for an error to be avoided or suppressed."--Philol. Museum cor. "These are things of the highest importance to children and youth."--Murray cor. "He ought to have omitted the word many." Or: "He might better have omitted the word many."--Dr. Blair cor. "Which might better have been separated." Or: "Which ought rather to have been separated."--Id. "Figures and metaphors, therefore, should never be used profusely."--Id. and Jam. cor. "Metaphors, or other figures, should never be used in too great abundance."--Murray and Russell cor. "Something like this has been alleged against Tacitus."-- Bolingbroke cor.

  "O thou, whom all mankind in vain withstand,
   Who with the blood of each must one day stain thy hand!"         --Sheffield cor.


LESSON XII.--OF TWO ERRORS.

"Pronouns sometimes precede the terms which they represent."--L. Murray cor. "Most prepositions originally denoted relations of place."--Lowth cor. "WHICH is applied to brute animals, and to things without life."--Bullions cor. "What thing do they describe, or of what do they tell the kind?"--Inf. S. Gram. cor. "Iron cannons, as well as brass, are now universally cast solid."--Jamieson cor. "We have philosophers, more eminent perhaps than those of any other nation."--Dr. Blair cor. "This is a question about words only, and one which common sense easily determines."--Id. "The low pitch of the voice, is that which approaches to a whisper."--Id. "Which, as to the effect, is just the same as to use no such distinctions at all."--Id. "These two systems, therefore, really differ from each other but very little."--Id. "It is needless to give many instances, as examples occur so often."--Id. "There are many occasions on which this is neither requisite nor proper."--Id. "Dramatic poetry divides itself into two forms, comedy and tragedy."--Id. "No man ever rhymed with more exactness than he." [I.e., than Roscommon.]--Editor of Waller cor. "The Doctor did not reap from his poetical labours a profit equal to that of his prose."--Johnson cor. "We will follow that which we find our fathers practised." Or: "We will follow that which we find to have been our fathers' practice."--Sale cor. "And I should deeply regret that I had published them."--Inf. S. Gram. cor. "Figures exhibit ideas with more vividness and power, than could be given them by plain language."--Kirkham cor. "The allegory is finely drawn, though the heads are various."--Spect. cor. "I should not have thought it worthy of this place." Or: "I should not have thought it worthy of being placed here."--Crombie cor. "In this style, Tacitus excels all other writers, ancient or modern."--Kames cor. "No other author, ancient or modern, possesses the art of dialogue so completely as Shakspeare."-- Id. "The names of all the things we see, hear, smell, taste, or feel, are nouns."--Inf. S. Gram. cor. "Of what number are the expressions, 'these boys,' 'these pictures,' &c.?"--Id. "This sentence has faults somewhat like those of the last."--Dr. Blair cor. "Besides perspicuity, he pursues propriety, purity, and precision, in his language; which qualities form one degree, and no inconsiderable one, of beauty."--Id. "Many critical terms have unfortunately been employed in a sense too loose and vague; none with less precision, than the word sublime."--Id. "Hence no word in the language is used with a more vague signification, than the word beauty."--Id. "But still, in speech, he made use of general terms only."--Id. "These give life, body, and colouring, to the facts recited; and enable us to conceive of them as present, and passing before our eyes."--Id. "Which carried an ideal chivalry to a still more extravagant height, than the adventurous spirit of knighthood had ever attained in fact."--Id. "We write much more supinely, and with far less labour, than did the ancients."--Id. "This appears indeed to form the characteristical difference between the ancient poets, orators, and historians, and the modern."--Id. "To violate this rule, as the English too often do, shows great incorrectness."--Id. "It is impossible, by means of any training, to prevent them from appearing stiff and forced."--Id. "And it also gives to the speaker the disagreeable semblance of one who endeavours to compel assent."--Id. "And whenever a light or ludicrous anecdote is proper to be recorded, it is generally better to throw it into a note, than to run the hazard of becoming too familiar."--Id. "It is the great business of this life, to prepare and qualify ourselves for the enjoyment of a better."--L. Murray cor. "From some dictionaries, accordingly, it was omitted; and in others it is stigmatized as a barbarism."--Crombie cor. "You cannot see a thing, or think of one, the name of which is not a noun."--Mack cor. "All the fleet have arrived, and are moored in safety." Or better: "The whole fleet has arrived, and is moored in safety."--L. Murray cor.


LESSON XIII.--OF TWO ERRORS.

"They have severally their distinct and exactly-limited relations to gravity."--Hasler cor. "But where the additional s would give too much of the hissing sound, the omission takes place even in prose."--L. Murray cor. "After o, it [the w] is sometimes not sounded at all; and sometimes it is sounded like a single u."--Lowth cor. "It is situation chiefly, that decides the fortunes and characters of men."--Hume cor.; also Murray. "The vice of covetousness is that [vice] which enters more deeply into the soul than any other."--Murray et al. cor. "Of all vices, covetousness enters the most deeply into the soul."--Iid. "Of all the vices, covetousness is that which enters the most deeply into the soul."--Campbell cor. "The vice of covetousness is a fault which enters more deeply into the soul than any other."--Guardian cor. "WOULD primarily denotes inclination of will; and SHOULD, obligation: but they vary their import, and are often used to express simple events." Or:--"but both of them vary their import," &c. Or:--"but both vary their import, and are used to express simple events."--Lowth, Murray, et al. cor.; also Comly and