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Has Lico learning, humour, thought profound?

Neither. Why write, then? He wants twenty pound.-Young.

522. "The first two," "the two first." In speaking of two sets of objects, "the two first" means the first of each series. In speaking of one set of objects, "the first two" denotes the first and second of the series. Hence such errors

as the following should be avoided :

We are now arrived at the conclusion of the three first chapters.— Richardson.

PRONOUNS.

523. Pronouns should be of the same gender, number, and person as the nouns they represent.

Sometimes, however, it represents a masculine or feminine noun, when the sex is unknown. This is especially the case when speaking of children or animals :

The real friend of the child is not the person who gives it what it cries for, but the person who, considering its health, resists its importunities.-Opie.

In the phrase "Who is it?" the neuter pronoun is used for the same reason.

524. Personal. When two sentences are connected by a conjunction, and the verb is the same in both, it is often omitted in the second sentence. From this ellipsis, errors in the case of the personal pronoun frequently arise:

Is she as tall as me [as I am].-Shakspere.

She suffers hourly more than me [than I suffer].- Swift.

The nations not so blessed as thee [as thou art].-Thomson.

Let you and I endeavour to improve the enclosure of the Carr [let me].-Southey.

It is not for such as us [as we are] to sit with the rulers of the land.Scott.

525. The nouns governed by the prepositions between and but, are not in the nominative case. Hence such errors as the following should be avoided:

All debts are cleared between you and 1.—Shakspere.
Which none but Heaven and you and I shall hear.—Id.

Which none may hear but she and thou.-Coleridge.

The construction of the last two sentences may, perhaps, be defended, by considering but as a conjunction.

526. The nominative ye is often used inaccurately for the accusative you. See § 230.

O flowers, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names,

Who now shall rear ye?-Milton.

The older English writers carefully observed the distinction :

Wel I se to Brigges wol ye go,

God and Seint Austyn spedé you and gyde !—Chaucer.

I know you not whence ye are.-English Bible.

In Shakspere's time it began to be disregarded:

I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard.-Shakspere.

Compare the use of thee as a nominative by the Society of Friends.

527. A pronoun is sometimes converted into a noun, and is then indeclinable :

And hang more praise upon deceased I,

Than niggard Truth would willingly impart.-Shakspere.

It makes dear self on well-bred tongues prevail,
And I the little hero of each tale.-Young.

528. Demonstrative. The cases of the demonstrative pronoun he, she, it, are frequently misapplied in the same manner, and for the same reasons, as those of the personal pronouns :

No one but he [him] should be about the king. -Shakspere.
No one should sway but he [him]. -Id.

Let he [him] that looks after them look on his hand.-Scott.

He suffers as them [they] that have no hope.-Maturin.

If there is one character more base than another, it is him [he] who, &c.-Sidney Smith.

There were a thousand in the French army who could have done as well as him [he].-Napier.

529. The personal and demonstrative pronouns, when unemphatic, are mere enclitics, and bear no accent:

Give-me thy hand (unemphatic).—Shakspere.

Give me the daggers (emphatic).—Id.

He that filches from-me my good name,

Robs-me of that which naught enriches him,

And makes mé poor indeed.-Id.

530. The singular this is sometimes used with a plural noun and adjective when they mark a period of time :

In darknesse and horrible and strong prisoun
This seven year hath seten Palamon.-Chaucer.

This seven years did not Talbot see his son.-Shakspere.
I have ventured,

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,

This many summers on a sea of glory.-Id.

531. It is not unusual, especially in old English, to find a demonstrative emphatically employed to introduce relative and dependent clauses:

Wot ye not where there stont a litel toun,

Which that icleped is Bop-up-and-down?-Chaucer.

Envye, which that is sorwe of other mennes prosperité.—Id.

While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,

Th' advised head defends itself at home.-Shakspere.

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept.-Id.

Their zeal is warmer than that it will be allayed by temptation.Jeremy Taylor.

Now that religion hastens to stranger actions upon new principles. -Id.

If there be nothing else in the disgrace but that it makes us to walk warily.-Id.

Things are preached, not in that they are taught, but in that they are published.-Hooker.

So that I know no great difference between these great philosophers. --Bacon.

Why, do I enter into these great matters, in sort that pretending to know much, I should forget what is seasonable?—Id.

In respect that the French king's designs were wholly bent upon Italy.-Id.

Save that they sayden a few wordes more.-Chaucer.

Who that doth to the outher good or harm, haste the nought to quyten him.-Id.

Though that Salamon say, he fond never good woman, it folwith nought therfore that alle women ben wikké.-Id.

Sith (since) that I have told you.-Id.

After that dame Prudens hadde spoke in this maner, Melibé answered.-Id.

Before that, how that, if that, &c. In all such cases the neuter pronoun that stands in apposition to the subjoined sentence.

532. In old English, the, a shortened form of the demonstrative, is frequently found before the relative. Compare the French le-quel. Without the which this story

Were most impertinent.-Shakspere.

The which I keep to this day in my storehouse of insects by the name of a young grashopper.-Mouffet.

The whom God chese.-Chaucer.

The arms the which that Cupid bare (1559).

This usage is recognised by Ben Jonson, who writes: "Pronouns have not the articles a and the going before, which the relative, self and same only excepted."

533. The ablative of the demonstrative is frequently used with a comparative: *

* Mr. Craik (English of Shakspere) supposes the to be a mere error in transcribing the MS. contraction of an imaginary word ye, and refers to

The lower he sank in fortune, the higher he thought himself bound to rise in spirit.—Stanhope.

In his corruptible there dwelt an incorruptible, all the more impressive and indubitable for the strange lodging it had taken.— Carlyle.

The more that a man con, the more worth he is.-Rob. Glouc.

534. Relative and Interrogative. The relative is attracted into the same gender and number as the antecedent, or object which it represents :

This petulance ruined Essex, who had to deal with a spirit naturally as proud as his own.-Macaulay.

Who is masculine and singular, because Essex is masculine and singular.

535. A relative pronoun connects the relative clause with the antecedent, and thus partakes of the nature of a conjunction. It represents a conjunction and a noun. For this reason it is usually placed first in the relative sentence.

But when the relative is a dependent or partitive genitive, the word upon which it is dependent often stands first:

And certainly that must needs have been very glorious, the decays of which are so admirable.-South.

We have taken about three hundred of them, many of which are poor silly creatures.-Cromwell.

536. As the representative of a noun, a relative may be : (a) The subject of a verb:

I see the golden helmet that shines far off like flame.—Macaulay.

(b) The object of a verb:

Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleased with nothing, if not blessed with all?-Pope.

the German je mehr. Has Mr. Craik overlooked the Anglo-Saxon forms thi betera, thi ma, the mara (Ælfred), and the Early English te bettre (Orm.)?

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