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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 farther 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 "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.

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I shall only add on this subject that the use of impersonal verbs was much more frequent with us formerly than it is

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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 practice.* 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 per-
sons as well as to things; second, 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 y a of the French, has yet an appearance of barba-
rism."
Dr. Lowth doubts only of the third application.
"The phrase," says he, "which occurs in the following ex-
amples, 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."+
"'Tis they that give the great Atrides' spoils;
'Tis they that still renew Ulysses' toils."‡

"Who was't came by?

'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word,
Macduff is fled to England."§

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 skepti-
cally than dogmatically about the other two. Yet, in my
judgment, if one be censurable, they all are censurable; and
if one be proper, they all are proper. The distinction of gen-
ders, 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
*The similar use of impersonal verbs, and the il me semble of the French,
render this hypothesis still more probable.
+ Prior
§ Shakspeare.

+ Pope.

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 pronoun it," he tells us, "is sometimes employed to express, first, the subject of any inquiry or discourse; secondly, the state or condition of anything 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 I—
'Twas I that kill'd her."†

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, 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 they. 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 * In Latin, id fuit ille would be as gross a solecism as id fuit ego, or id fuit vos. + Shakspeare. In this observation I find I have the concurrence of Dr. Priestley.

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 me.' 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," is a sentence 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 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 concern." A conve

Matt., xiv., 27.

Matt., iii., 4.

* John, v., 39. 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, bo

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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 by 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 thousand ships.

There is another point on which, as both the practice of writers and the judgment of critics seemed 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 preterit. 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 cases have been distinguished with sufficient accuracy. A very little attention will, I hope, enable us to unravel the difficulty entirely.

Let us begin with the simplest case, the infinitive after the present of the indicative. When the infinitive is expressive of what is conceived to be either future in regard to the verb in the present, or contemporary, the infinitive ought to be in the present. Thus, “I intend to write to my father to-morrow"-" He seems to be a man of letters." In the first example, the verb to write expresses what is future in respect of the verb intend. In the second, the verb to be expresses what is equally present with the verb seems. About the pro

cause the a is part of an active verb, and the words that follow in the sen-
tence 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 Na-
ture, par Bounet. 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.

When the infinitive is expresive of what is supposeds.

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