The Grammar of English Grammars Part 147

UNDER NOTE IV.--OF NEEDLESS PREPOSITIONS.

"And the apostles and elders came together to consider of this matter."--_Barclay's Works_, i, 481. "And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter."--_Acts_, xv, 6. "Adjectives in our Language have neither Case, Gender, nor Number; the only Variation they have is by Comparison."--_Buchanan's Gram._, p. 27. "'It is to you, that I am indebted for this privilege;' that is, 'to you am I indebted;' or, 'It is to you to whom I am indebted.'"--_Sanborn's Gram._, p. 232. "_Books_ is a noun, of the third person, plural number, of neuter gender,"-- _Ingersoll's Gram._, p. 15. "_Brother's_ is a common substantive, of the masculine gender, the third person, the singular number, and in the possessive case."--_Murray's Gram._, i, 229. "_Virtue's_ is a common substantive, of the third person, the singular number, and in the possessive case."--_Ib._, i, 228. "When the authorities on one side greatly preponderate, it is in vain to oppose the prevailing usage."--_Campbell's Rhet._, p. 173; _Murray's Gram._, i, 367. "A captain of a troop of banditti, had a mind to be plundering of Rome."--_Collier's Antoninus_, p.

51. "And, notwithstanding of its Verbal power, we have added the _to_ and other signs of exertion."--_Booth's Introd._, p. 28. "Some of these situations are termed CASES, and are expressed by additions to the Noun instead of by separate words."--_Ib._, p. 33. "Is it such a fast that I have chosen, that a man should afflict his soul for a day, and to bow down his head like a bulrush?"--_Bacon's Wisdom_, p. 65. "And this first emotion comes at last to be awakened by the accidental, instead of, by the necessary antecedent."--_Wayland's Moral Science_, p. 17. "At about the same time, the subjugation of the Moors was completed."--_Balbi's Geog._, p. 269. "G.o.d divided between the light and between the darkness."-- _Burder's Hist._, i, 1. "Notwithstanding of this, we are not against outward significations of honour."--_Barclay's Works_, i, 242. "Whether these words and practices of Job's friends, be for to be our rule."--_Ib._, i, 243. "Such verb cannot admit of an objective case after it."--_Lowth's Gram._, "For which G.o.d is now visibly punis.h.i.+ng of these Nations."--_Right of Tythes_, "In this respect, Ta.s.so yields to no poet, except to Homer."--_Blair's Rhet._, "Notwithstanding of the numerous panegyrics on the ancient English liberty."--HUME: _Priestley's Gram._, "Their efforts seemed to antic.i.p.ate on the spirit, which became so general afterwards."--_Id., ib._, p. 167.

UNDER NOTE V.--THE PLACING OF THE WORDS.

"But how short are my expressions of its excellency!"--_Baxter_. "There is a remarkable union in his style, of harmony with ease."--_Blair's Rhet._, "It disposes in the most artificial manner, of the light and shade, for viewing every thing to the best advantage."--"Aristotle too holds an eminent rank among didactic writers for his brevity."--"In an introduction, correctness should be carefully studied in the expression."--"Precision is to be studied, above all things in laying down a method."--"Which shall make the impression on the mind of something that is one, whole and entire."--"At the same time, there are some defects which must be acknowledged in the Odyssey."--"Beauties, however, there are, in the concluding books, of the tragic kind."--"These forms of conversation by degrees multiplied and grew troublesome."--_Spectator_, No. 119. "When she has made her own choice, for form's sake, she sends a conge-d'-elire to her friends."--"Let us endeavour to establish to ourselves an interest in him who holds the reins of the whole creation in his hand."--"Let us endeavour to establish to ourselves an interest in him, who, in his hand, holds the reins of the whole creation."--_Kames, El. of Crit._, ii, 53. "The most frequent measure next to this in English poetry is that of eight syllables."--_Blair's Gram._, "To introduce as great a variety as possible of cadences."--_Jamieson's Rhet._, "He addressed several exhortations to them suitable to their circ.u.mstances."--_Murray's Key_, ii, "Habits must be acquired of temperance and self-denial."--"In reducing the rules prescribed to practice."--_Murray's Gram._, "But these parts must be so closely bound together as to make the impression upon the mind, of one object, not of many."--_Blair's Rhet._, "Errors are sometimes committed by the most distinguished writer, with respect to the use of _shall_ and _will_"--_Butler's Pract. Gram._,

CHAPTER XI--INTERJECTIONS.

Interjections, being seldom any thing more than natural sounds or short words uttered independently, can hardly be said to have any _syntax_; but since some rule is necessary to show the learner how to dispose of them in parsing, a brief axiom for that purpose, is here added, which completes our series of rules: and, after several remarks on this canon, and on the common treatment of Interjections, this chapter is made to embrace _Exercises_ upon all the other parts of speech, that the chapters in the Key may correspond to those of the Grammar.

RULE XXIV.--INTERJECTIONS.

Interjections have no dependent construction; they are put absolute, either alone, or with other words: as, "_O!_ let not thy heart despise me."--_Dr.

Johnson_. "_O_ cruel _thou_!"--_Pope, Odys._, B. xii, l. 333. "Ah wretched _we_, poets of earth!"--_Cowley_,

"_Ah Dennis! Gildon ah!_ what ill-starr'd rage Divides a friends.h.i.+p long confirm'd by age?"

_Pope, Dunciad_, B. iii,

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XXIV.

OBS. 1.--To this rule, there are properly _no exceptions_. Though interjections are sometimes uttered in close connexion with other words, yet, being mere signs of pa.s.sion or of feeling, they seem not to have any strict grammatical relation, or dependence according to the sense. Being dest.i.tute alike of relation, agreement, and government, they must be used independently, if used at all. Yet an emotion signified in this manner, not being causeless, may be accompanied by some object, expressed either by a nominative absolute, or by an adjective after _for_: as, "_Alas!_ poor _Yorick!_"--_Shak_. Here the grief denoted by _alas_, is certainly _for Yorick_; as much so, as if the expression were, "Alas _for_ poor Yorick!"

But, in either case, _alas_, I think, has no dependent construction; neither has _Yorick_, in the former, unless we suppose an ellipsis of some governing word.

OBS. 2.--The interjection _O_ is common to many languages, and is frequently uttered, in token of earnestness, before nouns or p.r.o.nouns put absolute by direct address; as, "Arise, _O Lord; O G.o.d_, lift up thine hand."--_Psalms_, x, 12. "_O ye_ of little faith!"--_Matt._, vi, 30. The Latin and Greek grammarians, therefore, made this interjection the _sign_ of the _vocative case_; which case is the same as the nominative put absolute by address in English. But this particle is no positive index of the vocative; because an independent address may be made without that sign, and the _O_ may be used where there is no address: as, "_O_ scandalous want! _O_ shameful omission!"--"Pray, _Sir_, don't be uneasy."--_Burgh's Speaker_, p. 86.

OBS. 3.--Some grammarians ascribe to two or three of our interjections the power of governing sometimes the nominative case, and sometimes the objective. First, NIXON; in an exercise ent.i.tled, "NOMINATIVE GOVERNED BY AN INTERJECTION," thus: "The interjections O! Oh! and Ah! _require_ after them the nominative case of a _substantive_ in the _second_ person; as, 'O thou _persecutor!_'--'O Alexander! thou hast slain thy friend.' _O_ is an interjection, _governing_ the nominative case _Alexander_."--_English Pa.r.s.er_, Again, under the t.i.tle, "OBJECTIVE CASE GOVERNED BY AN INTERJECTION," he says: "The interjections O! Oh! and Ah! _require_ after them the objective case of a _substantive_ in the _first_ or _third_ person; as, 'Oh _me!_' 'Oh the _humiliations_!' _Oh_ is an interjection, _governing_ the objective case _humiliations_."--These two rules are in fact contradictory, while each of them absurdly suggests that _O, oh_, and _ah_, are used only with nouns. So J. M. PUTNAM: "Interjections sometimes _govern_ an objective case; as, _Ah me! O_ the tender _ties! O_ the soft _enmity! O me_ miserable! _O_ wretched _prince! O_ cruel _reverse_ of fortune! When an address is made, the interjection does not perform the office of government."--_Putnam's Gram._, So KIRKHAM; who, under a rule quite different from these, extends the doctrine of government to _all_ interjections: "According to the genius of the English language, transitive verbs and prepositions _require_ the objective case of a noun or p.r.o.noun after them; and this requisition is all that is meant by _government_, when we say that these parts of speech _govern the objective_ case. THE SAME PRINCIPLE APPLIES TO THE INTERJECTION. 'Interjections _require_ the objective case of a p.r.o.noun of the first person after them; but the nominative of a noun or p.r.o.noun of the second or third person; as, Ah _me_!

Oh _thou_! O my _country!_' To say, then, that interjections _require_ particular cases after them, is synonymous with saying, that they _govern_ those cases; and this office of the interjection is in _perfect accordance_ with that which it performs in the Latin, and many other languages."--_Kirkham's Gram._, According to this, every interjection has as much need of an object after it, as has a transitive verb or a preposition! The rule has, certainly, _no_ "accordance" with what occurs in Latin, or in any other language; it is wholly a fabrication, though found, in some shape or other, in well-nigh all English grammars.

OBS. 4.--L. MURRAY'S doctrine on this point is thus expressed: "The interjections _O! Oh!_ and _Ah! require_ the objective case of a p.r.o.noun in the first person after them, as, 'O me! oh me! Ah me!' But the nominative case in the second person: as, 'O thou persecutor!' 'Oh ye hypocrites!' 'O thou, who dwellest,' &c."--_Octavo Gram._, INGERSOLL copies this most faulty note literally, adding these words to its abrupt end,--i. e., to its inexplicable "&c." used by Murray; "because the first person _is governed by a preposition_ understood: as, 'Ah _for_ me!' or, '_O what will become of_ me!' &c., and the second person is in the _nominative independent_, there being a direct address."--_Conversations on E. Gram._, So we see that this grammarian and Kirkham, both modifiers of Murray, understand their master's false verb "_require_" very differently. LENNIE too, in renouncing a part of Murray's double or threefold error, "_Oh! happy us!_" for, "_O_ happy _we!_" teaches thus: "Interjections sometimes _require_ the objective case after them, but they never _govern_ it. In the first edition of this grammar," says he, "I followed Mr. Murray and others, in leaving _we_, in the exercises to be turned into _us_; but that it should be _we_, and not _us_, is obvious; because it is the nominative to _are_ understood; thus, _Oh_ happy _are we_, or, _Oh we are_ happy, (being) surrounded with so many blessings."--_Lennie's Gram., Fifth Edition, Twelfth_, Here is an other solution of the construction of this p.r.o.noun of the first person, contradictory alike to Ingersoll's, to Kirkham's, and to Murray's; while _all are wrong_, and this among the rest. The word should indeed be _we_, and not _us_; because we have both a.n.a.logy and good authority for the former case, and nothing but the false conceit of sundry grammatists for the latter. But it is a _nominative absolute_, like any other nominative which we use in the same exclamatory manner. For the first person may just as well be put in the nominative absolute, by exclamation, as any other; as, "Behold _I_ and the _children_ whom G.o.d hath given me!"--_Heb._, "Ecce _ego_ et _pueri_ quos mihi dedit Deus!"--_Beza_. "O brave _we!_"--_Dr.

Johnson, often_. So Horace: "O _ego_ laevus," &c.--_Ep. ad Pi._, 301.

"Ah! luckless _I!_ who purge in spring my spleen-- Else sure the first of bards had Horace been."

--_Francis's Hor._, ii, 209.

OBS. 5.--Whether Murray's remark above, on "_O! Oh!_ and _Ah!_" was originally designed for a _rule of government_ or not, it is hardly worth any one's while to inquire. It is too lame and inaccurate every way, to deserve any notice, but that which should serve to explode it forever. Yet no few, who have since made English grammars, have copied the text literally; as they have, for the public benefit, stolen a thousand other errors from the same quarter. The reader will find it, with little or no change, in Smith's New Grammar, p. 96 and 134; Alger's, 56; Allen's, 117; Russell's, 92; Blair's, 100, Guy's, 89; Abel Flint's, 59; A Teacher's, 43, Picket's, 210; Cooper's[439] Murray, 136; Wilc.o.x's, 95; Bucke's, 87; Emmons's, 77; and probably in others. Lennie varies it _indefinitely_, thus: "RULE. The interjections _Oh!_ and _Ah!_ &c. _generally_ require the objective case of the first personal p.r.o.noun, _and_ the nominative of the second; as, Ah _me!_ O _thou_ fool! O _ye_ hypocrites!"--_Lennie's Gram._, p. 110; _Brace's_, 88. M'Culloch, after Crombie, thus: "RULE XX.

Interjections are joined with the objective case of the p.r.o.noun of the first person, and with the nominative of the p.r.o.noun of the second; as, Ah me! O ye hypocrites."--_Manual of E. Gram._, p. 145; and _Crombie's Treatise_, p. 315; also _Fowler's E. Language_, p. 563. Hiley makes it a note, thus: "The interjections. O! Oh! Ah! _are followed by_ the objective case of a p.r.o.noun of the first person; as, _'Oh me!' 'Ah me!'_ but by the nominative case of the p.r.o.noun in the second person; as, '_O thou_ who dwellest.' "--_Hiley's Gram._, p. 82. This is what the same author elsewhere calls "THE GOVERNMENT OF INTERJECTIONS;" though, like some others, he had set it in the "Syntax of p.r.o.nOUNS." See _Ib._, p. 108.

Murray, in forming his own little "Abridgment," omitted it altogether. In his other grammars, it is still a mere note, standing where he at first absurdly put it, under his rule for the agreement of p.r.o.nouns with their antecedents. By many of his sage amenders, it has been placed in the catalogue of princ.i.p.al rules. But, that it is no adequate rule for interjections, is manifest; for, in its usual form, it is limited to _three_, and none of these can ever, with any propriety, be pa.r.s.ed by it.

Murray himself has not used it in any of his forms of parsing. He conceived, (as I hinted before in Chapter 1st,) that, "The syntax of the Interjection is of _so very limited a nature_, that it _does not require_ a distinct, appropriate rule."--_Octavo Gram._, i. 224.

OBS. 6.--Against this remark of Murray's, a good argument may be drawn from the ridiculous use which has been made of his own suggestion in the other place. For, though that suggestion never had in it the least shadow of truth, and was never at all applicable either to the three interjections, or to p.r.o.nouns, or to cases, or to the persons, or to any thing else of which it speaks, it has not only been often copied literally, and called a "RULE" of syntax, but many have, yet more absurdly, made it a _general canon_ which imposes on all interjections a syntax that belongs to none of them. For example: "_An interjection must be followed_ by the objective case of a p.r.o.noun in the first person; _and_ by a nominative of the second person; as--_Oh me! ah me! oh thou! AH hail, ye_ happy men!"--_Jaudon's Gram._, p. 116. This is as much as to say, that every interjection must have a p.r.o.noun or two after it! Again: "_Interjections must be followed_ by the objective case of the p.r.o.noun in the first person; as, O _me!_ Ah _me!_ and by the nominative case of the second person; as, O _thou_ persecutor!

Oh _ye_ hypocrites!"--_Merchant's Murray_, p. 80; _Merchant's School Gram._, p. 99. I imagine there is a difference between O and _oh_,[440] and that this author, as well as Murray, in the first and the last of these examples, has misapplied them both. Again: "_Interjections require_ the objective case of a p.r.o.noun of the first person, and the nominative case of the second; as, _Ah me! O thou_"--_Frost's El. of E. Gram._, p. 48. This, too, is general, but equivocal; as if one case or both were necessary to each interjection!

OBS. 7.--Of _nouns_, or of the _third person_, the three rules last cited say nothing;[441] though it appears from other evidence, that their authors supposed them applicable at least to _some nouns_ 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 p.r.o.noun is in the nominative case _independent_;" which, by the by, is far from being universally true, either of the noun or of the p.r.o.noun. Russell imagines, "The words _depending_ upon interjections, have so near a resemblance to those in a direct address, that they may very properly be cla.s.sed under the same general head," and be pa.r.s.ed 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 pa.r.s.es 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 pa.r.s.es 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 pa.r.s.ed 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 p.r.o.nouns also, there remains to him nothing but the objective of the p.r.o.noun 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 p.r.o.nouns 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 p.r.o.nouns of the third person: as, "Interjections require the objective case of a p.r.o.noun of the first person after them, but the nominative of a noun or p.r.o.noun 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 saepe Bilem, saepe joc.u.m vestri movere 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 pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.sage is, in several respects, wrong; yet the leading idea is true. The author ent.i.tles 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 understand to be absolute, because the phrase _resembles an interjection!_ But the noun "_world_" which is also absolute, and which still more resembles an interjection, he will have to be so for a different reason--because it is in what he chooses to call the _vocative case_. But, according to custom, he should rather have put his interjection absolute _with_ the noun, and written it, "_O world_," and not, "_Oh, world_." What he meant to do with "_Oh me!_ and _Ah me!_" is doubtful. If any phrases come fairly under his rule, these are the very ones; and yet he seems to introduce them as exceptions! Of these, it can hardly be said, that they "_frequently_ occur." Lowth notices only the latter, which he supposes elliptical. The former I do not remember to have met with more than three or four times; except in grammars, which in this case are hardly to be called authorities: "_Oh! me_, how fared it with me then?"--_Job Scott_. "_Oh me!_ all the horse have got over the river, what shall we do?"--WALTON: _Joh. Dict._

"But when he was first seen, _oh me!_ What shrieking and what misery!"--_Wordsworth's Works_, p. 114.

OBS. 10.--When a declinable word not in the nominative absolute, follows an interjection, as part of an imperfect exclamation, its construction (if the phrase be good English) depends on something understood; as, "Ah _me!_"--that is, "Ah! _pity_ me;" or, "Ah! _it grieves_ me;" or, as some will have it, (because the expression in Latin is "_Hei mihi!_") "Ah _for_ me!"--_Ingersoll_. "Ah! _wo is to_ me."--_Lowth_. "Ah! _sorrow is to_ me."--_Coar_. So of "_oh me!_" for, in these expressions, if not generally, _oh_ and _ah_ are exactly equivalent the one to the other. As for "_O me_"

it is now seldom met with, though Shakspeare has it a few times. From these examples, O. B. Peirce erroneously imagines the "independent case" of the p.r.o.noun _I_ to be _me_, and accordingly pa.r.s.es the word without supposing an ellipsis; but in the plural he makes that case to be _we_, and not _us_.

So, having found an example of "Ah _Him!_" which, according to one half of our grammarians, is bad English, he conceives the independent case of _he_ to be _him_; but in the plural, and in both numbers of the words _thou_ and _she_, he makes it the nominative, or the same in form as the nominative.

So builds he "the temple of Grammatical consistency!"--P. 7. Nixon and Cooper must of course approve of "_Ah him!_" because they a.s.sume that the interjection _ah_ "_requires_" or "_governs_" the objective case of the third person. Others must condemn the expression, because they teach that _ah_ requires the nominative case of this person. Thus Greenleaf sets down for false syntax, "O! happy _them_, surrounded with so many blessings!"--_Gram. Simplified_, p. 47. Here, undoubtedly, the word should be _they_; and, by a.n.a.logy, (if indeed the instances are a.n.a.logous,) it would seem more proper to say, "Ah _he!_" the nominative being our only case absolute. But if any will insist that "_Ah him!_" is good English, they must suppose that _him_ is governed by something understood; as, "Ah!

I _lament_ him;" or, "Ah! _I mourn for_ him." And possibly, on this principle, the example referred to may be most correct as it stands, with the p.r.o.noun in the objective case: "_Ah Him!_ the first great martyr in this great cause."--D. WEBSTER: _Peirce's Gram._, p. 199.

OBS. 11.--If we turn to the Latin syntax, to determine by a.n.a.logy what case is used, or ought to be used, after our English interjections, in stead of finding a "perfect accordance" between that syntax and the rule for which such accordance has been claimed, we see at once an utter repugnance, and that the pretence of their agreement is only a sample of Kirkham's unconscionable pedantry. The rule, in all its modifications, is based on the principle, that the choice of _cases_ depends on the distinction of _persons_--a principle plainly contrary to the usage of the Latin cla.s.sics, and altogether untrue. In Latin, some interjections are construed with the nominative, the accusative, or the vocative; some, only with the dative; some, only with the vocative. But, in English, these four cases are all included in two, the nominative and the objective; and, the case independent or absolute being necessarily the nominative, it follows that the objective, if it occur after an interjection, must be the object of something which is capable of governing it. If any disputant, by supposing ellipses, will make objectives of what I call nominatives absolute, so be it; but I insist that interjections, in fact, never "require" or "govern"

one case more than an other. So Peirce, and Kirkham, and Ingersoll, with pointed self-contradiction, may continue to make "the independent case,"

whether vocative or merely exclamatory, the subject of a verb, expressed or understood; but I will content myself with endeavouring to establish a syntax not liable to this sort of objection. In doing this, it is proper to look at all the facts which go to show what is right, or wrong. "_Lo, the poor Indian!_" is in Latin, "_Ecce pauper Indus!_" or, "_Ecce pauperem Indum!_" This use of either the nominative or the accusative after _ecce_, if it proves any thing concerning the case of the word _Indian_, proves it doubtful. Some, it seems, p.r.o.nounce it an objective. Some, like Murray, say nothing about it. Following the a.n.a.logy of our own language, I refer it to the nominative absolute, because there is nothing to determine it to be otherwise. In the examples. "_Heu me miserum!_ Ah _wretch_ that I am!"--(_Grant's Latin Gram._, p. 263.) and "_Miser ego h.o.m.o!_ O wretched _man_ that I am!"--(_Rom._, vii, 24,) if the word _that_ is a relative p.r.o.noun, as I incline to think it is, the case of the nouns _wretch_ and _man_ does not depend on any other words, either expressed or implied. They are therefore nominatives absolute, according to Rule 8th, though the Latin words may be most properly explained on the principle of ellipsis.

OBS. 12.--Of some impenetrable blockhead, Horace, telling how himself was vexed, says: "_O te_, Bollane, cerebri Felicem! aiebam tacitus."--_Lib._ i, _Sat._ ix, 11. Literally: "_O thee_, Bolla.n.u.s, happy of brain! said I to myself." That is, "O! _I envy_ thee," &c. This shows that _O_ does not "require the nominative case of the second person" after it, at least, in Latin. Neither does _oh_ or _ah_: for, if a governing word be suggested, the objective may be proper; as, "Whom did he injure? Ah! _thee_, my boy?"--or even the possessive; as, "Whose sobs do I hear? Oh! _thine_, my child?" Kirkham tells us truly, (Gram., p. 126,) that the exclamation "_O my_" is frequently heard in conversation. These last resemble Lucan's use of the genitive, with an ellipsis of the governing noun: "_O miserae sortis!_" i.e., "_O_ [men] _of miserable lot!_" In short, all the Latin cases as well as all the English, may possibly occur after one or other of the interjections. I have instanced all but the ablative, and the following is literally an example of that, though the word _quanto_ is construed adverbially: "Ah, _quanto_ satius est!"--_Ter. And._, ii, 1. "Ah, _how much_ better it is!" I have also shown, by good authorities, that the nominative of the first person, both in English and in Latin, may be properly used after those interjections which have been supposed to require or govern the objective. But how far is a.n.a.logy alone a justification? Is "_O thee_" good English, because "_O te_" is good Latin? No: nor is it bad for the reason which our grammarians a.s.sign, but because our best writers never use it, and because _O_ is more properly the sign of the vocative.

The literal version above should therefore be changed; as, "O Bolla.n.u.s, _thou_ happy numskull! said I to myself."

OBS. 13--Allen Fisk, "author of Adam's Latin Grammar Simplified," and of "Murray's English Grammar Simplified," sets down for "_False Syntax_" not only that hackneyed example, "Oh! happy we," &c., but, "O! You, who love iniquity," and, "Ah! you, who hate the light."--_Fisk's E. Gram._, p. 144.

But, to imagine that either _you_ or _we_ is wrong here, is certainly no sing of a great linguist; and his punctuation is very inconsistent both with his own rule of syntax and with common practice. An interjection set off by a comma or an exclamation point, is of course put absolute _singly_, or by itself. If it is to be read as being put absolute with something else, the separation is improper. One might just as well divide a preposition from its object, as an interjection from the case which it is supposed to govern. Yet we find here not only such a division as Murray sometimes improperly adopted, but in one instance a total separation, with a capital following; as, "O! You, who love iniquity," for, "O you who love iniquity!" or "O ye," &c. If a point be here set between the two p.r.o.nouns, the speaker accuses all his hearers of loving iniquity; if this point be removed, he addresses only such as do love it. But an interjection and a p.r.o.noun, each put absolute singly, one after the other, seem to me not to const.i.tute a very natural exclamation. The last example above should therefore be, "Ah! you hate the light." The first should be written, "_O_ happy we!"

OBS. 14.--In other grammars, too, there are many instances of some of the errors here pointed out. R. C. Smith knows no difference between _O_ and _oh_; takes "_Oh!_ happy _us_" to be accurate English; sees no impropriety in separating interjections from the p.r.o.nouns which he supposes them to "govern;" writes the same examples variously, even on the same page; inserts or omits commas or exclamation points at random; yet makes the latter the means by which interjections are to be known! See his _New Gram._, pp. 40, 96 and 134. Kirkham, who lays claim to "a new system of punctuation," and also stoutly a.s.serts the governing power of interjections, writes, and rewrites, and finally stereotypes, in one part of his book. "Ah me! _Oh_ thou! O my country!" and in an other, "Ah! me; _Oh!_ thou; O! virtue." See Obs. 3d and Obs. 8th above. From such hands, any thing "_new_" should be received with caution: this last specimen of his scholars.h.i.+p has more errors than words.

OBS. 15.--Some few of our interjections seem to admit of a connexion with other words by means of a preposition or the conjunction _that_ as, "O _to_ forget her!"--_Young_. "O _for_ that warning voice!"--_Milton_. "O _that_ they were wise!"--_Deut._, x.x.xii, 29. "O _that_ my people had hearkened unto me!"--_Ps._, lx.x.xi, 13, "Alas _for_ Sicily!"--_Cowper_. "O _for_ a world in principle as chaste As this is gross and selfis.h.!.+"--_Id._ "Hurrah _for_ Jackson!"--_Newspaper_. "A bawd, sir, fy _upon_ him!"--SHAK.: _Joh.

Dict._ "And fy _on_ fortune, mine avowed foe!"--SPENCER: _ib._ This connexion, however, even if we pa.r.s.e all the words just as they stand, does not give to the interjection itself any dependent construction. It appears indeed to refute Jamieson's a.s.sertion, that, "The interjection is _totally unconnected_ with every other word in a sentence;" but I did not quote this pa.s.sage, with any averment of its accuracy; and, certainly, many nouns which are put absolute themselves, have in like manner a connexion with words that are not put absolute: as, "O _Lord_ G.o.d of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O _G.o.d_ of Jacob. Selah."--_Ps._, lx.x.xiv, 8. But if any will suppose, that in the foregoing examples something else than the interjection must be the antecedent term to the preposition or the conjunction, they may consider the expressions elliptical: though it must be confessed, that much of their vivacity will be lost, when the supposed ellipses are supplied: as, "O! _I desire_ to forget her."--"O! _how I long_ for that warning voice!"--"O! _how I wish_ that they were wise!"--"Alas! I _wail_ for Sicily."--"Hurrah! _I shout_ for Jackson."--"Fy! _cry out_ upon him." Lindley Murray has one example of this kind, and if his punctuation of it is not bad in all his editions, there must be an ellipsis in the expression: "O! _for_ better times."--_Octavo Gram._, ii, 6; _Duodecimo Exercises_, p. 10. He also writes it thus: "O. _for_ better times."--_Octavo Gram._, i, 120; _Ingersoll's Gram._, p. 47. According to common usage, it should be, "O for better times!"

OBS. 16.--The interjection may be placed at the _beginning_ or the _end_ of a simple sentence, and sometimes _between_ its less intimate parts; but this part of speech is seldom, if ever, allowed to interrupt the connexion of any words which are closely united in sense. Murray's definition of an interjection, as I have elsewhere shown, is faulty, and directly contradicted by his example: "O virtue! how amiable thou art!"--_Octavo Gram._, i, 28 and 128; ii. 2. This was a favourite sentence with Murray, and he appears to have written it uniformly in this fas.h.i.+on; which, 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 cla.s.s 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.