The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

I. When, with a participle, it is used to express a cause, or a concomitant fact; as, "I say, this being so, the law being broken, justice takes place."—Law and Grace, p. 27. "Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea." &c.—Luke, iii, 1. "I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren."—Gen., xxiv, 27.

    ————-"While shame, thou looking on,
    Shame to be overcome or overreach'd,
    Would utmost vigor raise."—Milton, P. L., B. ix, 1, 312.

II. When, by direct address, it is put in the second person, and set off from the verb, by a comma or an exclamation point; as, "At length, Seged, reflect and be wise."—Dr. Johnson. "It may be, drunkard, swearer, liar, thief, thou dost not think of this."—Law and Grace, p. 27.

"This said, he form'd thee, Adam! thee, O man! Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breath'd The breath of life."—Milton's Paradise Lost, B. vii, l. 524.

III. When, by pleonasm, it is introduced abruptly for the sake of emphasis, and is not made the subject or the object of any verb; as, "He that hath, to him shall be given."—Mark, iv, 25. "He that is holy, let him be holy still."—Rev., xxii, 11. "Gad, a troop shall overcome him."—Gen., xlix, 19. "The north and the south, thou hast created them."—Psalms, lxxxix, 12. "And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them."—1 Tim., vi, 2. "And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare."—Levit., xiii, 45. "They who serve me with adoration,—I am in them, and they [are] in me."—R. W. EMERSON: Liberator, No. 996.

    ————————————-"What may this mean,
    That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
    Revisitst thus the glimpses of the moon,
    Making night hideous; and, we fools of nature,[371]
    So horribly to shake our disposition
    With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?"—Shak. Hamlet.

IV. When, by mere exclamation, it is used without address, and without other words expressed or implied to give it construction; as, "And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth." Exodus, xxxiv, 6. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"—Rom., xi, 33. "I should not like to see her limping back, Poor beast!"—Southey.

   "Oh! deep enchanting prelude to repose,
    The dawn of bliss, the twilight of our woes!"—Campbell.

OBS. 2.—The nominative put absolute with a participle, is often equivalent to a dependent clause commencing with when, while, if, since, or because. Thus, "I being a child," may be equal to, "When I was a child," or, "Because I was a child." Here, in lieu of the nominative, the Greeks used the genitive case, and the Latins, the ablative. Thus, the phrase, "[Greek: Kai hysteræsantos oinou]," "And the wine failing," is rendered by Montanus, "Et deficiente vino;" but by Beza, "Et cum defecisset vinum;" and in our Bible, "And when they wanted wine."—John, ii, 3. After a noun or a pronoun thus put absolute, the participle being is frequently understood, especially if an adjective or a like case come after the participle; as,

   "They left their bones beneath unfriendly skies,
    His worthless absolution [being] all the prize."
        —Cowper, Vol. i, p. 84.

    "Alike in ignorance, his reason [———] such,
    Whether he thinks too little or too much."—Pope, on Man.

OBS. 3.—The case which is put absolute in addresses or invocations, is what in the Latin and Greek grammars is called the Vocative. Richard Johnson says, "The only use of the Vocative Case, is, to call upon a Person, or a thing put Personally, which we speak to, to give notice to what we direct our Speech; and this is therefore, properly speaking, the only Case absolute or independent which we may make use of without respect to any other Word."—Gram. Commentaries, p. 131. This remark, however, applies not justly to our language; for, with us, the vocative case, is unknown, or not distinguished from the nominative. In English, all nouns of the second person are either put absolute in the nominative, according to Rule 8th, or in apposition with their own pronouns placed before them, according to Rule 3d: as, "This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders."—Acts, iv, 11. "How much rather ought you receivers to be considered as abandoned and execrable!"—Clarkson's Essay, p. 114.

   "Peace! minion, peace! it boots not me to hear
    The selfish counsel of you hangers-on."
        —Brown's Inst., p. 189.

    "Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear;
    Fays, Faries, Genii, Elves, and Dæmons, hear!"
        —Pope, R. L., ii, 74.

OBS. 4.—The case of nouns used in exclamations, or in mottoes and abbreviated sayings, often depends, or may be conceived to depend, on something understood; and, when their construction can be satisfactorily explained on the principle of ellipsis, they are not put absolute, unless the ellipsis be that of the participle. The following examples may perhaps be resolved in this manner, though the expressions will lose much of their vivacity: "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!"—Shak. "And he said unto his father, My head! my head!"—2 Kings, iv, 19. "And Samson said, With the jaw-bone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass, have I slain a thousand men."—Judges, xv, 16. "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."—Matt., v, 38. "Peace, be still."—Mark, iv, 39. "One God, world without end. Amen."—Com. Prayer.

"My fan, let others say, who laugh at toil; Fan! hood! glove! scarf! is her laconic style."—Young.

OBS. 5.—"Such Expressions as, Hand to Hand, Face to Face, Foot to Foot, are of the nature of Adverbs, and are of elliptical Construction: For the Meaning is, Hand OPPOSED to Hand, &c."—W. Ward's Gram., p. 100. This learned and ingenious author seems to suppose the former noun to be here put absolute with a participle understood; and this is probably the best way of explaining the construction both of that word and of the preposition that follows it. So Samson's phrase, "heaps upon heaps," may mean, "heaps being piled upon heaps;" and Scott's, "man to man, and steel to steel," may be interpreted, "man being opposed to man, and steel being opposed to steel:"

   "Now, man to man, and steel to steel,
    A chieftain's vengeance thou shalt feel."—Lady of the Lake.

OBS. 6.—Cobbett, after his own hasty and dogmatical manner, rejects the whole theory of nominatives absolute, and teaches his "soldiers, sailors, apprentices, and ploughboys," that, "The supposition, that there can be a noun, or pronoun, which has reference to no verb, and no preposition, is certainly a mistake."—Cobbett's E. Gram., ¶ 201. To sustain his position, he lays violent hands upon the plain truth, and even trips himself up in the act. Thus: "For want of a little thought, as to the matter immediately before us, some grammarians have found out 'an absolute case,' as they call it; and Mr. Lindley Murray gives an instance of it in these words: 'Shame being lost, all virtue is lost.' The full meaning of this sentence is this: 'It being, or the state of things being such, that shame is lost, all virtue is lost.'"—Cobbett's E. Gram., ¶ 191. Again: "There must, you will bear in mind, always be a verb expressed or understood. One would think, that this was not the case in [some instances: as,] 'Sir, I beg you to give me a bit of bread.' The sentence which follows the Sir, is complete; but the Sir appears to stand wholly without connexion. However, the full meaning is this: 'I beg you, who are a Sir, to give me a bit of bread.' Now, if you take time to reflect a little on this matter, you will never be puzzled for a moment by those detached words, to suit which grammarians have invented vocative cases and cases absolute, and a great many other appellations, with which they puzzle themselves, and confuse and bewilder and torment those who read their books."—Ib., Let. xix, ¶¶ 225 and 226. All this is just like Cobbett. But, let his admirers reflect on the matter as long as they please, the two independent nominatives it and state, in the text, "It being, or the state of things being such," will forever stand a glaring confutation both of his doctrine and of his censure: "the case absolute" is there still! He has, in fact, only converted the single example into a double one!

OBS. 7.—The Irish philologer, J. W. Wright, is even more confident than Cobbett, in denouncing "the case absolute;" and more severe in his reprehension of "Grammarians in general, and Lowth and Murray in particular," for entertaining the idea of such a case. "Surprise must cease," says he, "on an acquaintance with the fact, that persons who imbibe such fantastical doctrine should be destitute of sterling information on the subject of English grammar.—The English language is a stranger to this case. We speak thus, with confidence, conscious of the justness of our opinion:—an opinion, not precipitately formed, but one which is the result of mature and deliberate inquiry. 'Shame being lost, all virtue is lost:' The meaning of this is,—'When shame is being lost, all virtue is lost.' Here, the words is being lost form the true present tense of the passive voice; in which voice, all verbs, thus expressed, are unsuspectedly situated: thus, agreeing with the noun shame, as the nominative of the first member of the sentence."—Wright's Philosophical Gram., p. 192. With all his deliberation, this gentleman has committed one oversight here, which, as it goes to contradict his scheme of the passive verb, some of his sixty venerable commenders ought to have pointed out to him. My old friend, the "Professor of Elocution in Columbia College," who finds by this work of "superior excellence," that "the nature of the verb, the most difficult part of grammar, has been, at length, satisfactorily explained," ought by no means, after his "very attentive examination" of the book, to have left this service to me. In the clause, "all virtue is lost," the passive verb "is lost" has the form which Murray gave it—the form which, till within a year or two, all men supposed to be the only right one; but, according to this new philosophy of the language, all men have been as much in error in this matter, as in their notion of the nominative absolute. If Wright's theory of the verb is correct, the only just form of the foregoing expression is, "all virtue is being lost." If this central position is untenable, his management of the nominative absolute falls of course. To me, the inserting of the word being into all our passive verbs, seems the most monstrous absurdity ever broached in the name of grammar. The threescore certifiers to the accuracy of that theory, have, I trow, only recorded themselves as so many ignoramuses; for there are more than threescore myriads of better judgements against them.

"Him having ended his discourse, the assembly dispersed."—Brown's Inst., p. 190.

[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the pronoun him, whose case depends on no other word, is in the objective case. But, according to Rule 8th, "A noun or a pronoun is put absolute in the nominative, when its case depends on no other word." Therefore, him should be he; thus, "He having ended his discourse, the assembly dispersed."]

"Me being young, they deceived me."—Inst. E. Gram., p. 190. "Them refusing to comply, I withdrew."—Ib. "Thee being present, he would not tell what he knew."—Ib. "The child is lost; and me, whither shall I go?"—Ib. "Oh! happy us, surrounded with so many blessings."—Murray's Key, p. 187; Merchant's, 197; Smith's New Gram., 96; Farnum's, 63. "'Thee, too! Brutus, my son!' cried Cæsar, overcome."—Brown's Inst., p. 190. "Thee! Maria! and so late! and who is thy companion?"—New-York Mirror, Vol. x, p. 353. "How swiftly our time passes away! and ah! us, how little concerned to improve it!"—Comly's Gram., Key, p. 192.

   "There all thy gifts and graces we display,
    Thee, only thee, directing all our way."

The syntax of the English Adjective is fully embraced in the following brief rule, together with the exceptions, observations, and notes, which are, in due order, subjoined.

Adjectives relate to nouns or pronouns: as, "Miserable comforters are ye all"—Job, xvi, 2. "No worldly enjoyments are adequate to the high desires and powers of an