fortune in every stage of life," is entirely unexceptionable. Yet the only difference between this and the phrase above criticized, ariseth hence, that there is something ambiguous in the first appearance of the one, which is not to be found in the other. And, indeed, when the simple and primitive verb has both an active signification and a neuter, (as is the case with the verb split,) such an ambiguous appearance of the compound in the passive, is an invariable consequence. I shall observe further, in order to prevent mistakes on this subject, that there are also in our language compound neuter, as well as compound active verbs. Such are, to go up, to come down, to fall out. These properly have no passive voice; and though some of them admit a passive form, it is without a passive signification. Thus he is gone up, and he has gone up, are nearly of the same import. Now the only distinction in English between the active compound and the neuter compound is this; the preposition in the former, or more properly the compound verb itself, hath a regimen, in the latter it hath none. Indeed these last may be further compounded, by the addition of a preposition with a noun, in which case they also become active or transitive verbs; as in these instances, "He went up to her;"" She fell out with them." Consequently, in giving a passive voice to these there is no solecism. We may say, "She was gone up to by him, "They were fallen out with by her." But it must be owned, that the passive form, in this kind of decomposite verbs, ought always to be avoided as inelegant, if not obscure. By bringing three prepositions thus together, one inevitably creates a certain confusion of thought; and it is not till after some painful attention, that the reader discovers two of the prepositions to belong to the preceding verb, and the third to the succeeding noun. The principal scope of the foregoing observations on the passage quoted from Dr. Lowth, is to point out the only characteristical distinction between verbs neuter and verbs active, which obtains in our language. To these I shall subjoin a few things, which may serve for ascertaining another distinction in regard to verbs. When a verb is used impersonally, it ought, undoubtedly, to be in the singular number, whether the neuter pronoun be expressed or understood; and when no nominative in the sentence can regularly be construed with the verb, it ought to be considered as impersonal. For this reason analogy, as well as usage, favour this mode of expression, "The conditions of the agreement were as follows," and not as follow. A few late writers have inconsiderately adopted this last form through a mistake of the construction. For the same reason we ought to say, "I shall consider his censures so far only as concerns my friend's conduct:" and not 66 so far as concern." It is manifest that the word conditions in the first case, and censures in the second, cannot serve as nominatives. If we give either sentence another turn, and instead of as, say such as, the verb is no longer impersonal. The pronoun such is the nominative, whose number is determined by its antecedent. Thus we must say, "They were such as follow,"- "such of his censures only as concern my friend." In this I entirely concur with a late anonymous remarker on the language. I shall only add on this subject, that the use of impersonal verbs was much more frequent with us formerly than it is now. Thus it pleaseth me, it grieveth me, it repenteth me, were a sort of impersonals, for which we should now say, I please, I grieve, I repent. Methinks and methought at present, as meseemeth and meseemed anciently, are, as Johnson justly supposes, remains of the same practice3. It would not be easy to conjecture what hath misled some writers so far as to make them adopt the uncouth term methoughts, in contempt alike of usage and of analogy, and even without any colourable pretext that I can think of, for thoughts is no part of the verb at all. I shall now consider another suspected idiom in English, which is the indefinite use sometimes made of the pronoun it, when applied in the several ways following; first, to persons as well as to things; secondly, to the first person and the second, as well as to the third; and thirdly, to a plural as well as to a singular. Concerning the second application and the third, Dr. Johnson says in his Dictionary," This mode of speech, though used by good authors, and supported by the il ya of the French, has yet an appearance of barbarism." Dr. Lowth doubts only of the third application. "The phrase," says he," which occurs in the following examples, though pretty common, and authorized by custom, yet seems to be somewhat defective in the same way." He had been specifying inaccuracies arising from disagreement in number. The examples alluded to are, 'Tis these that early taint the female soul*. Who was't came by? 'Tis two or three, my Lord, that bring you word, Against the first application, to persons as well as to things, neither of these critics seems to have any objection; and it must be owned that they express themselves rather sceptically than dogmatically about the other two. Yet, in my judgment, if 3 The similar use of impersonal verbs, and the il me semble of the French, render this hypothesis still more probable. 5 Prior. • Shakspeare. 4 Pope. one be censurable, they are all censurable, and if one be proper, they are all proper. The distinction of genders, especially with us, is as essential as the distinction of persons or that of numbers. I say, especially with us, because, though the circumstances be few wherein the gender can be marked, yet, in those few, our language, perhaps more than any other tongue, follows the dictates of pure nature. The masculine pronoun he it applies always to males, or at least to persons (God and angels, for example) who in respect of dignity are conceived as males: the feminine she to females; and unless where the style is figurative, the neuter it to things either not susceptible of sex, or in which the sex is unknown. Besides, if we have recourse to the Latin syntax, the genuine source of most of our grammatical scruples, we shall find there an equal repugnancy to all the applications above rehearsed". But, to clear up this matter as much as possible, I shall recur to some remarks of the last-mentioned critic, concerning the significations and the uses of the neuter it. "The pro noun it," he tells us, "is sometimes employed to express, first, the subject of any inquiry or discourse; secondly, the state or condition of any thing or person; thirdly, the thing, whatever it be, that is the cause of any effect or event, or any person considered merely as a cause, without regard to proper personality." In illustration of the third use, he quotes these words, You heard her say herself, it was not Ï- The observations of this author concerning the neuter pronoun, are, as far as they go, unexceptionable. He ought to have added to the word personality, in the third use, the words gender or number. The example which he hath given shows that there is no more regard to gender than to personality; and that there ought to be no more regard to number than to either of the former, may be evinced from the considerations following. When a personal pronoun must be used indefinitely, as in asking a question whereof the subject is unknown, there is a necessity of using one person for all the persons, one gender for all the genders, and one number for both numbers. Now in English, custom hath consigned to this indefinite use, the third person, the neuter gender, and the singular number. Accordingly, in asking a question, nobody censures this use of the pronoun, as in the interrogation, Who is it? Yet by the answer it may be found to be I or he, one or many. But 7 In Latin id fuit ille would be as gross a solecism, as id fuit ego or id fuit vos. 8 Shakspeare. P whatever be the answer, if the question be proper, it is proper to begin the answer by expressing the subject of inquiry in the same indefinite manner wherein it was expressed in the question. The words it is are consequently pertinent here, whatever be the words which ought to follow, whether I or he, we or they9. Nay, this way of beginning the answer by the same indefinite expression of the subject that was used in the question, is the only method authorized in the language for connecting these two together, and showing that what is asserted is an answer to the question asked. And if there be nothing faulty in the expression, when it is an answer to a question actually proposed, there can be no fault in it, where no question is proposed. For every answer, that is not a bare assent or denial, ought, independently of the question, to contain a proposition grammatically enunciated, and every affirmation or negation ought to be so enunciated as that it might be an answer to a question. Thus by a very simple sorites it can be proved, that if the pronoun it may be used indefinitely in one case, it may in every case. Nor is it possible to conceive even the shadow of a reason, why one number may not as well serve indefinitely for both numbers, as one person for all the persons, and one gender for all the genders. That which hath made more writers scrupulous about the first of these applications than about the other two, is, I imagine, the appearance not of the pronoun, but of the substantive verb in the singular adjoined to some term in the plural. In order to avoid this supposed incongruity, the translators of the Bible have in one place stumbled on a very uncouth expression. "Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me1." In the other applications they have not hesitated to use the indefinite pronoun it, as in this expression: "It is I, be not afraid." Yet the phrase they are they in the first quotation, adopted to prevent the incongruous adjunction of the verb in the singular, and the subsequent noun or pronoun in the plural, is, I suspect, no better English than the phrase I am I would have been in the second, by which they might have prevented the adjunction not less incongruous of the third person of the verb to the first personal pronoun. If there be any difference in respect of congruity, the former is the less incongruous of the two. The latter never occurs but in such passages as those above quoted; whereas nothing is commoner than to use the substantive verb as a copula to two nouns differing in number; in which case it generally agrees with the first. "His meat was locusts and wild honey 3," is a sentence • In this observation I find I have the concurrence of Dr. Priestley. 3 Matt. iii. 4. which, I believe, nobody ever suspected to be ungrammatical. Now as every noun may be represented by a pronoun, what is grammatical in those must, by a parity of reason, be grammatical in these also. Had the question been put, "What was his meat?" the answer had undoubtedly been proper, "It was locusts and wild honey." And this is another argument which in my apprehension is decisive. But "this comes," as Dr. Lowth expresseth himself in a similar case, "of forcing the English under the rules of a foreign language, with which it has little concern1." A convenient mode of speech which custom hath established and for which there is pretty frequent occasion, ought not to be hastily given up, especially when the language doth not furnish us with another equally simple and easy to supply its place. I should not have entered so minutely into the defence of a practice sufficiently authorized by use, but in order, if possible, to satisfy those critics who, though both ingenious and acute, are apt to be rather more scrupulous on the article of language than the nature of the subject will admit. In every tongue there are real anomalies which have obtained the sanction of custom; for this at most hath been reckoned only dubious. There are particularly some in our own, which have never, as far as I know, been excepted against any writer, and which, nevertheless, it is much more difficult to reconcile to the syntactic order than that which I have been now defending. An example of this is the use of the indefinite article, which is naturally singular, before adjectives expressive of number, and joined with substantives in the plural. Such are the phrases following, a few persons, a great many men, a hundred or a thousaud ships. There is another point on which, as both the practice of writers and the judgment of critics seem to be divided, it may not be improper to make a few remarks. It is the way of using the infinitive after a verb in the preterite. Some will have it that the verb governed ought to be in the past as well as the verb governing; and others that the infinitive ought to be in what is called the present, but what is in fact indefinite in regard to time. I do not think that on either side the different The English hath little or no affinity in structure either to the Latin or to the Greek. It much more resembles the modern European languages, especially the French. Accordingly we find in it an idiom very similar to that which hath been considered above, I do not mean the il y a, because the a is part of an active verb, and the words that follow in the sentence are its regimen; consequently no agreement in person and number is required. But the idiom to which I allude is the il est, as used in the following sentence, "Il est des animaux qui semblent reduits au toucher; il en est qui semblent participer a nôtre intelligence." Contemplation de la Nature, par Bonnet. I am too zealous an advocate for English independency to look on this argument as conclusive. But I think it more than a sufficient counterpoise to all that can be pleaded on the other side from the syntax of the learned languages. |