called by Priestley, "the subject of the affirmation;" (Gram., p. 132;) and Murray, Ingersoll, and others, have blindly copied the blunder. See Murray's Gram., p. 184; Ingersoll's, 244. Again, Ingersoll says, "The infinitive mood, or part of a sentence, is sometimes the subject of a verb, and is, therefore, its NOMINATIVE."--Conversations on English Gram., p. 246. To this erroneous deduction, the phraseology used by Murray and others too plainly gives countenance: "The infinitive mood, or part of a sentence, is sometimes put as the nominative case to the verb."--Murray's Gram., p. 144; Fisk's, 123; Kirkham's, 188; Lennie's, 99; Bullions's, 89; and many more. Now the objective before the infinitive may not improperly be called the subject of this form of the verb, as the nominative is, of the finite; but to call it "the subject of the affirmation," is plainly absurd; because no infinitive, in English, ever expresses an affirmation. And again, if a whole phrase or sentence is made the subject of a finite verb, or of an affirmation, no one word contained in it, can singly claim this title. Nor can the whole, by virtue of this relation, be said to be "in the nominative case;" because, in the nature of things, neither phrases nor sentences are capable of being declined by cases.
OBS. 13.--Any phrase or sentence which is made the subject of a finite verb, must be taken in the sense of one thing, and be spoken of as a whole; so that the verb's agreement with it, in the third person singular, is not an exception to Rule 14th, but a construction in which the verb may be parsed by that rule. For any one thing merely spoken of, is of the third person singular, whatever may be the nature of its parts. Not every phrase or sentence, however, is fit to be made the subject of a verb;--that is, if its own import, and not the mere expression, is the thing whereof we affirm. Thus Dr. Ash's example for this very construction, "a sentence made the subject of a verb," is, I think, a palpable solecism: "The King and Queen appearing in public was the cause of my going."--Ash's Gram., p. 52. What is here before the verb was, is no "sentence;" but a mere phrase, and such a one as we should expect to see used independently, if any regard were had to its own import. The Doctor would tell us what "was the cause of his going:" and here he has two nominatives, which are equivalent to the plural they; q.d., "They appearing in public was the cause." But such a construction is not English. It is an other sample of the false illustration which grammar receives from those who invent the proof-texts which they ought to quote.
OBS. 14.--One of Murray's examples of what he erroneously terms "nominative sentences," i.e., "sentences or clauses constituting the subject of an affirmation," is the following: "A desire to excel others in learning and virtue [,] is commendable."--Gram., 8vo, p. 144. Here the verb is agrees regularly with the noun desire, and with that only; the whole text being merely a simple sentence, and totally irrelevant to the doctrine which it accompanies.[388] But the great "Compiler" supposes the adjuncts of this noun to be parts of the nominative, and imagines the verb to agree with all that precedes it. Yet, soon after, he expends upon the ninth rule of Webster's Philosophical Grammar a whole page of useless criticism, to show that the adjuncts of a noun are not to be taken as parts of the nominative; and that, when objectives are thus subjoined, "the assertion grammatically respects the first nouns only."--Ib., p. 148. I say useless, because the truth of the doctrine is so very plain. Some, however, may imagine an example like the following to be an exception to it; but I do not, because I think the true nominative suppressed:
"By force they could not introduce these gods; For ten to one in former days was odds."--Dryden's Poems, p. 38.
OBS. 15.--Dr. Webster's ninth rule is this: "When the nominative consists of several words, and the last of the names is in the plural number, the verb is commonly in the plural also; as, 'A part of the exports consist of raw silk.' 'The number of oysters increase.' GOLDSMITH. 'Such as the train of our ideas have lodged in our memories.' LOCKE. 'The greater part of philosophers have acknowledged the excellence of this government.' ANACHARSIS."--Philos. Gram., p. 146; Impr. Gram., 100. The last of these examples Murray omits; the second he changes thus: "A number of men and women were present." But all of them his reasoning condemns as ungrammatical. He thinks them wrong, upon the principle, that the verbs, being plural, do not agree with the first nouns only. Webster, on the contrary, judges them all to be right; and, upon this same principle, conceives that his rule must be so too. He did not retract or alter the
