Has Lico learning, humour, thought profound? 438. The first two,' 'the two first.' In speaking of two sets of objects, 'the two first' means the first of each series. In speaking of one set of objects, the first two' denotes the first and second of the series. Hence such errors as the following should be avoided: We are now arrived at the conclusion of the three first chapters.-Richardson's Study of Language. PRONOUNS. 439. Personal. When two sentences are connected by a conjunction, and the verb is the same in both, it is often omitted in the second sentence. From this ellipsis, errors in the case of the personal pronoun frequently arise: Is she as tall as me [as I am].-Shakspere. No mightier than thyself or me [than I am].-Id. She suffers hourly more than me [than I suffer]. Swift. Let you It is not for such as us [as we are] to sit with the 440. The imperative save, and the prepositions between and but, require an accusative case. Hence such errors as the following should be avoided : All debts are cleared between you and I.—Shakspere. Which none but Heaven and you and I shall hear. Id. Which none may hear but she and thou.-Coleridge. There was no stranger with us in the house save we two.-1 Kings iii. 18. 441. The nominative ye is often used inaccurately for the accusative you : O flowers, which I bred up with tender hand The older English writers carefully observed the distinction : Wel I se to Brigges wol ye go, God and Seint Austyn spedé you and gyde! Chaucer. In Shakspere's time it began to be disregarded: It makes dear self on well-bred tongues prevail, 443. Demonstrative. The cases of the demonstrative pronoun he, she, it, are frequently misapplied in the same manner, and for the same reasons, as those of the personal pronouns : When all slept sound save she [her] who bore them both.-Rogers. No one but he [him] should be about the king. No one should sway but he [him].—Id. Shakspere. Let he [him] that looks after them look on his hand. He suffers as them [they] that have no hope. Scott. Maturin. If there is one character more base than another, it is him [he] who, &c.-Sidney Smith. 444. The singular this is sometimes used with a plural noun and adjective when they mark a period of time: This seven years did not Talbot see his son. I have ventured, Shakspere. Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers on a sea of glory.—Id. 445. The personal and demonstrative pronouns, when unemphatic, are mere enclitics, and bear no accent: Gíve-me thy hand (unemphatic).—Id. He that filches from-me my good name, And makes mé poor indeed.-Id. 446. It is not unusual, especially in old English, to find a demonstrative emphatically employed to introduce relative and dependent clauses: L Wot ye not where there stont a litel toun, Which that icleped is Bop-up-and-down?-Chaucer. Envye, which that is sorwe of other mennes prosperité.-Id. While that the armed hand doth fight abroad, When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept. Id. Their zeal is warmer than that it will be allayed by temptation.-Jeremy Taylor. Now that religion hastens to stranger actions upon new principles.-Id. If there be nothing else in the disgrace but that it makes us to walk warily.-Id. Things are preached, not in that they are taught, but in that they are published.—Hooker. So that I know no great difference between these great philosophers.-Bacon. Why do I enter into these great matters, in sort that pretending to know much, I should forget what is seasonable?—Id. In respect that the French king's designs were wholly bent upon Italy.-Id. Save that they sayden a few wordes more.- Chaucer. Who that doth to the outher good or harm, haste the nought to quyten him.-Id. Though that Salamon say, he fond never good woman, it folwith nought therfore that alle women ben wikke.-Id. Sith (since) that I have told you.-Chaucer. After that dame Prudens hadde spoke in this maner, Before that, how that, if that, &c. In all such cases the neuter pronoun that stands in apposition to the subjoined sentence. 447. In old English, the, a shortened form of the demonstrative, is frequently found before the relative. Compare the French le-quel. Without the which this story Were most impertinent.-Shakspere. 448. The ablative of the demonstrative is frequently used with a comparative:* The lower he sank in fortune, the higher he thought himself bound to rise in spirit.-Mahon. In his corruptible there dwelt an incorruptible, all the more impressive and indubitable for the strange lodging it had taken.-Carlyle. 449. Relative and Interrogative. The relative is attracted into the same gender and number as the antecedent, or object which it represents : This petulance ruined Essex, who had to deal with a spirit naturally as proud as his own.-Macaulay. * Mr. Craik (English of Shakespeare) supposes the to be a mere error in transcribing the Ms. contraction of an imaginary word ye, and refers to the German je mehr. Has Mr. Craik overlooked the Anglo-Saxon forms thi betera, thi ma, the mara (Ælfred), and the early English te bettre (Orm.)? |