How can "so" be the nominative to "shall

impart "?

"be

Preposition repeated.

Alphonsus ordered a great fire to be prepared, into which, after his majesty and the public had joined in prayer for heavenly assistance in this ordeal, both the rivals were thrown into the flames."-D'ISRAELI. Curiosities.

Here the writer should have stopped at the word "thrown."

"To the 365 days in the year he has prefixed to each an epistle dedicatory."-Ibid.

This should have been :

"To each of the 365 days in the year he has prefixed an epistle dedicatory."

"It is to this last new feature in the supposed Game Laws to which we intend to confine our notice."-SYDNEY SMITH. Essays.

"From sheer necessity Congress was driven to lay on a great variety of new taxes on exciseable articles."-ALISON. History of Europe.

"The eating in of usury into the vitals of the state."—Ibid.

These samples speak for themselves.

Improper use of the Pronouns.

"I strike the harp in praise of Bragela, she that I left in the isle of mist."-MACPHERSON. Ossian.

"Let me awake the king of Morven, he that smiles in danger; he that is like the sun of Heaven rising in a storm." -Ibid.

In these phrases the pronouns should be in the

same case-the objective-as the nouns to which they refer.

Here are other instances requiring the objective

case:

“Let me see who do I know among them."-SOUTHEY. The Doctor.

"Between Alaric Watts and I no such event ever occurred to be lamented now."-JERDAN. Autobiography.

"The cherished plan of publication between Sir J. Leicester and I was thus announced.”—Ibid.

In the following the pronouns should be in the nominative case :

"What should we gain by it but that we should speedily become as poor as them."-ALISON. Essay on Macaulay.

"The very scullion who cleans the brasses in the kitchen becomes of more consideration and importance than him."FRANKLIN. Essays.

"Robert is there, the very out-come of him, and indeed of many generations of such as him."-CARLYLE. Heroes and Hero Worship.

"Sir Thomas More in general so writes it, although not many others so late as him."-TRENCH. English Past and Present.

Some writers affect to think that in such phrases "than" and "as" may be regarded as prepositions, and the pronouns as being correctly put in the objective case. This view of the matter, however, is confined to two or three writers; and so long as it is, we are bound to hold it as

erroneous.

It is a curious circumstance that one of the few errors of style in Cobbett's English Gram

mar, arises from the misuse of what he calls "the poor, oppressed little pronoun it," against which misuse he is always cautioning his "dear James." This affords a fresh illustration of the fact, that it is easier to preach than to practise ; a disadvantage to which we are all more or less subject. Cobbett, in Letter xvii., inculcates the cautious use of "it" in these words :

"Never put an 'it' upon paper, without thinking well what you are about. When I see many its in a page, I always tremble for the writer."

And in Letter xxi. he employs this same it as the nominative to a verb, which has its nominative already in the word "logic."

"The logic, though the religious zeal of its pious, sincere, and benevolent author has led him into the very great error of taking his examples of self-evident propositions from amongst those, many of which great numbers of men think not to be self-evident, it is a work wherein profound learning is conveyed in a style the most simple, and in a manner the most pleasing."

Dr. Blair, in a couple of places, employs the words "they are" instead "it is," thus:—

"They are the ardent sentiments of honour, virtue, magnanimity, and public spirit, that only can kindle the fire of genius."-Lectures.

They are the wretched attempts towards an art of this kind, which have so often disgraced oratory."—Ibid.

This use of "they are," instead of "it is," so contrary to grammar and usage, sounds very strange. It looks as if Blair had been aiming

at an innovation, founded on the French expression, "ce sont." But even in this the French do not use the word "ils," which corresponds to our "they." "They," like "ils," would have reference to something in the preceding sentence; and it is this want of reference that makes it read so nonsensical in the passages cited from Blair.

In general Sir A. Alison's sentences, though ill-constructed, afford a sufficient glimpse of his meaning; but when he begins to moralize and draw parallels, the obscurity of his style becomes altogether impenetrable. For instance, at the end of Chapter lxiii. of his "History of Europe," he has a parallel about the Duke of Wellington, in which there is a strange confusion of the pronouns:

"He thus succeeded in at last combating the revolution with its own weapons, and at the same time detaching from them the moral weakness under which it laboured. He met it with its own forces; but he rested their efforts on a nobler principle."

Of a similar character is the following:

"No people ever was more rudely assailed by the sword of conquest than those of this country; none had its chains, to appearance, more firmly riveted round their necks."—Ibid.

Another fault which may be noticed in this place is when a relative pronoun is coupled with the possessive case. Examples:

"Observe the tortures of a mind, even of so great a mind as that of Warburton's."-D'ISRAELI. Quarrels of Authors.

"Nor was the style of his speaking at all like that of other men's."-BROUGHAM. Essay on Windham.

"Those who have explored with strictest scrutiny the secret. of their own bosoms, will be least apt to rush with intolerant violence into that of other men's."-CARLYLE. Miscellanies.

In the following D'Israeli gives us a relative pronoun without an antecedent :

"It is to prevent all this disorder, and to enjoy all the usefulness and the pleasure of this various knowledge, which has produced the invention of notes in literary history.”—Preface to Quarrels of Authors.

This sentence should be:

"It is to prevent all this disorder, and to enjoy all the usefulness and the pleasure of this various knowledge, that notes were invented in literary history."

Whose.

The use of whose, as the possessive of which, though at first nothing more than a poetic license, is now to be met with in our correctest prose writers. The one who has given the most decided sanction to this innovation is Gibbon, in whose great work it is of frequent occurrence. Here is

an example:

"In the centre arose a column of marble, whose height, of one hundred and ten feet, denoted the elevation of the hill that had been cut away."-Decline and Fall.

There can be no doubt that this use of "whose gives terseness and vigour to the language; and it may be said that the consensus eruditorum has