The Grammar of English Grammars

by Goold Brown

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE X.

OBS. 1.—Respecting a pronoun, the main thing is, that the reader perceive clearly for what it stands; and next, that he do not misapprehend its relation of case. For the sake of completeness and uniformity in parsing, it is, I think, expedient to apply the foregoing rule not only to those pronouns which have obvious antecedents expressed, but also to such as are not accompanied by the nouns for which they stand. Even those which are put for persons or things unknown or indefinite, may be said to agree with whatever is meant by them; that is, with such nouns as their own properties indicate. For the reader will naturally understand something by every pronoun, unless it be a mere expletive, and without any antecedent. For example: "It would depend upon who the forty were."—Trial at Steubenville, p. 50. Here who is an indefinite relative, equivalent to what persons; of the third person, plural, masculine; and is in the nominative case after were, by Rule 6th. For the full construction seems to be this: "It would depend upon the persons who the forty were." So which, for which person, or which thing, (if we call it a pronoun rather than an adjective,) may be said to have the properties of the noun person or thing understood; as,

"His notions fitted things so well,
That which was which he could not tell."—Hudibras.

OBS. 2.—The pronoun we is used by the speaker or writer to represent himself and others, and is therefore plural. But it is sometimes used, by a sort of fiction, in stead of the singular, to intimate that the speaker or writer is not alone in his opinions; or, perhaps more frequently, to evade the charge of egotism; for this modest assumption of plurality seems most common with those who have something else to assume: as, "And so lately as 1809, Pope Pius VII, in excommunicating his 'own dear son,' Napoleon, whom he crowned and blessed, says: 'We, unworthy as we are, represent the God of peace.'"—Dr. Brownlee. "The coat fits us as well as if we had been melted and poured into it."—Prentice. Monarchs sometimes prefer we to I, in immediate connexion with a singular noun; as, "We Alexander, Autocrat of all the Russias."—"We the Emperor of China," &c.—Economy of Human Life, p. vi. They also employ the anomalous compound ourself, which is not often used by other people; as, "Witness ourself at Westminster, 28 day of April, in the tenth year of our reign. CHARLES."

"Cæs. What touches us ourself, shall be last serv'd." —Shak., J. C., Act iii, Sc. 1.

"Ourself to hoary Nestor will repair." —Pope, Iliad, B. x, l. 65.

OBS. 3.—The pronoun you, though originally and properly plural, is now generally applied alike to one person or to more. Several observations upon this fashionable substitution of the plural number for the singular, will be found in the fifth and sixth chapters of Etymology. This usage, however it may seem to involve a solecism, is established by that authority against which the mere grammarian has scarcely a right to remonstrate. Alexander Murray, the schoolmaster, observes, "When language was plain and simple, the English always said thou, when speaking to a single person. But when an affected politeness, and a fondness for continental manners and customs began to take place, persons of rank and fashion said you in stead of thou. The innovation gained ground, and custom gave sanction to the change, and stamped it with the authority of law."—English Gram., Third Edition, 1793, p. 107. This respectable grammarian acknowledged both thou and you to be of the second person singular. I do not, however, think it necessary or advisable to do this, or to encumber the conjugations, as some have done, by introducing the latter pronoun, and the corresponding form of the verb, as singular.[381] It is manifestly better to say, that the plural is used for the singular, by the figure Enallagè. For if you has literally become singular by virtue of this substitution, we also is singular for the same reason, as often as it is substituted for I; else the authority of innumerable authors, editors, compilers, and crowned, heads, is insufficient to make it so. And again, if you and the corresponding form of the verb are literally of the second person singular, (as Wells contends, with an array of more than sixty names of English grammarians to prove it,) then, by their own rule of concord, since thou and its verb are still generally retained in the same place by these grammarians, a verb that agrees with one of these nominatives, must also agree with the other; so that you hast and thou have, you seest and thou see, may be, so far as appears from their instructions, as good a concord as can be made of these words!

OBS. 4.—The putting of you for thou has introduced the anomalous compound yourself, which is now very generally used in stead of thyself. In this instance, as in the less frequent adoption of ourself for myself, Fashion so tramples upon the laws of grammar, that it is scarcely possible to frame an intelligible exception in her favour. These pronouns are essentially singular, both in form and meaning; and yet they cannot be used with I or thou, with me or thee, or with any verb that is literally singular; as, "I ourself am." but, on the contrary, they must be connected only with such plural terms as are put for the singular; as, "We ourself are king."—"Undoubtedly you yourself become an innovator."—L. Murray's Gram., p. 364; Campbell's Rhet., 167.

"Try touch, or sight, or smell; try what you will,
You strangely find nought but yourself alone."
—Pollok, C. of T., B. i, l. 162.

OBS. 5.—Such terms of address, as your Majesty, your Highness, your Lordship, your Honour, are sometimes followed by verbs and pronouns of the second person plural, substituted for the singular; and sometimes by words literally singular, and of the third person, with no other figure than a substitution of who for which: as, "Wherein your Lordship, who shines with so much distinction in the noblest assembly in the world, peculiarly excels"—Dedication of Sale's Koran. "We have good cause to give your Highness the first place; who, by a continued series of favours have obliged us, not only while you moved in a lower orb, but since the Lord hath called your Highness to supreme authority."—Massachusetts to Cromwell, in 1654.

OBS. 6.—The general usage of the French is like that of the English, you for thou; but Spanish, Portuguese, or German politeness requires that the third person be substituted for the second. And when they would be very courteous, the Germans use also the plural for the singular, as they for thou. Thus they have a fourfold method of addressing a person: as, they, denoting the highest degree of respect; he, a less degree; you, a degree still less; and thou, none at all, or absolute reproach. Yet, even among them, the last is used as a term of endearment to children, and of veneration to God! Thou, in English, still retains its place firmly, and without dispute, in all addresses to the Supreme Being; but in respect to the first person, an observant clergyman has suggested the following dilemma: "Some men will be pained, if a minister says we in the pulpit; and others will quarrel with him, if he says I."—Abbott's Young Christian, p. 268.

OBS. 7.—Any extensive perversion of the common words of a language from their original and proper use, is doubtless a matter of considerable moment. These changes in the use of the pronouns, being some of them evidently a sort of complimentary fictions, some religious people have made it a matter of conscience to abstain from them, and have published their reasons for so doing. But the moral objections which may lie against such or any other applications of words, do not come within the grammarian's province. Let every one consider for himself the moral bearing of what he utters: not forgetting the text, "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement: for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."—Matt., xii, 36 and 37. What scruples this declaration ought to raise, it is not my business to define. But if such be God's law, what shall be the reckoning of those who make no conscience of uttering continually, or when they will, not idle words only, but expressions the most absurd, insignificant, false, exaggerated, vulgar, indecent, injurious, wicked, sophistical, unprincipled, ungentle, and perhaps blasphemous, or profane?

OBS. 8.—The agreement of pronouns with their antecedents, it is necessary to observe, is liable to be controlled or affected by several of the figures of rhetoric. A noun used figuratively often suggests two different senses, the one literal, and the other tropical; and the agreement of the pronoun must be sometimes with this, and sometimes with that, according to the nature of the trope. If the reader be unacquainted with tropes and figures, he should turn to the explanation of them in Part Fourth of this work; but almost every one knows something about them, and such as must here be named, will perhaps be made sufficiently intelligible by the examples. There seems to be no occasion to introduce under this head more than four; namely, personification, metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche.

OBS. 9.—When a pronoun represents the name of an inanimate object personified, it agrees with its antecedent in the figurative, and not in the literal sense; as, "There were others whose crime it was rather to neglect Reason than to disobey her."—Dr. Johnson. "Penance dreams her life away."—Rogers. "Grim Darkness furls his leaden shroud."—Id. Here if the pronoun were made neuter, the personification would be destroyed; as, "By the progress which England had already made in navigation and commerce, it was now prepared for advancing farther."—Robertson's America, Vol. ii, p. 341. If the pronoun it was here intended to represent England, the feminine she would have been much better; and, if such was not the author's meaning, the sentence has some worse fault than the agreement of a pronoun with its noun in a wrong sense.

OBS. 10.—When the antecedent is applied metaphorically, the pronoun usually agrees with it in its literal, and not in its figurative sense; as, "Pitt was the pillar which upheld the state."—"The monarch of mountains rears his snowy head."—"The stone which the builders rejected."—Matt., xxi, 42. According to this rule, which would be better than whom, in the following text: "I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them an other little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots."—Daniel, vii, 8. In Rom., ix, 33, there is something similar: "Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." Here the stone or rock is a metaphor for Christ, and the pronoun him may be referred to the sixth exception above; but the construction is not agreeable, because it is not regular: it would be more grammatical, to change on him to thereon. In the following example, the noun "wolves," which literally requires which, and not who, is used metaphorically for selfish priests; and, in the relative, the figurative or personal sense is allowed to prevail:

"Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves,
Who all the sacred mysteries of Heaven
To their own vile advantages shall turn."
—Milton, P. L., B. xii, l. 508.

This seems to me somewhat forced and catachrestical. So too, and worse, the following; which makes a star rise and speak:

"So spake our Morning Star then in his rise,
And looking round on every side beheld
A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades."
—Id., P. R., B. i, l. 294.

OBS. 11.—When the antecedent is put by metonymy for a noun of different properties, the pronoun sometimes agrees with it in the figurative, and sometimes in the literal sense; as, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. As they called them, so they went from them: [i. e., When Moses and the prophets called the Israelites, they often refused to hear:] they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burnt incense to graven images. I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them."—Hosea, xi, 1, 2, 3. The mixture and obscurity which are here, ought not to be imitated. The name of a man, put for the nation or tribe of his descendants, may have a pronoun of either number, and a nation may be figuratively represented as feminine; but a mingling of different genders or numbers ought to be avoided: as, "Moab is spoiled, and gone up out of her cities, and his chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter."—Jeremiah, xlviii, 15.

"The wolf, who [say that] from the nightly fold,
Fierce drags the bleating prey, ne'er drunk her milk,
Nor wore her warming fleece."—Thomson's Seasons.

"That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven,
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish or a sparrow fall."—Pope's Essay on Man.

"And heaven behold its image in his breast."—Ib.

"Such fate to suffering worth is given, Who long with wants and woes has striven."—Burns.

OBS. 12.—When the antecedent is put by synecdoche for more or less than it literally signifies, the pronoun agrees with it in the figurative, and not in the literal sense; as,

"A dauntless soul erect, who smiled on death."—Thomson

"But to the generous still improving mind,
That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,
To him the long review of ordered life
Is inward rapture only to be felt."—Id. Seasons.

OBS. 13.—Pronouns usually follow the words which they represent; but this order is sometimes reversed: as, "Whom the cap fits, let him put it on."—"Hark! they whisper; angels say," &c.—Pope. "Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion."—Old Test. And in some cases of apposition, the pronoun naturally comes first; as, "I Tertius"—"Ye lawyers." The pronoun it, likewise, very often precedes the clause or phrase which it represents; as, "Is it not manifest, that the generality of people speak and write very badly?"—Campbell's Rhet., p. 160; Murray's Gram., i, 358. This arrangement is too natural to be called a transposition. The most common form of the real inversion is that of the antecedent and relative in poetry; as,

"Who stops to plunder at this signal hour,
The birds shall tear him, and the dogs devour."
—POPE: Iliad, xv, 400.

OBS. 14.—A pronoun sometimes represents a phrase or a sentence; and in this case the pronoun is always in the third person singular neuter: as, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not."—Gen., xxviii, 10. "Yet men can go on to vilify or disregard Christianity; which is to talk and act as if they had a demonstration of its falsehood."—Butler's Analogy, p. 269. "When it is asked wherein personal identity consists, the answer should be the same as if it were asked, wherein consists similitude or equality."—Ib., p. 270. "Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good."—Prov., xix, 2. In this last example, the pronoun is not really necessary. "That the soul be without knowledge, is not good."—Jenks's Prayers, p. 144. Sometimes an infinitive verb is taken as an antecedent; as, "He will not be able to think, without which it is impertinent to read; nor to act, without which it is impertinent to think."—Bolingbroke, on History, p. 103.

OBS. 15.—When a pronoun follows two words, having a neuter verb between them, and both referring to the same thing, it may represent either of them, but not often with the same meaning: as, 1. "I am the man, who command." Here, who command belongs to the subject I, and the meaning is, "I who command, am the man." (The latter expression places the relative nearer to its antecedent, and is therefore preferable.) 2. "I am the man who commands." Here, who commands belongs to the predicate man, and the meaning is, "I am the commander." Again: "I perceive thou art a pupil, who possessest good talents."—Cooper's Pl. and Pract. Gram., p. 136. Here the construction corresponds not to the perception, which is, of the pupil's talents. Say, therefore, "I perceive thou art a pupil possessing (or, who possesses) good talents."

OBS. 16.—After the expletive it, which may be employed to introduce a noun or a pronoun of any person, number, or gender, the above-mentioned distinction is generally disregarded; and the relative is most commonly made to agree with the latter word, especially if this word be of the first or the second person: as, "It is no more I that do it."—Rom., vii, 20. "For it is not ye that speak."—Matt., x, 20. The propriety of this construction is questionable. In the following examples, the relative agrees with the it, and not with the subsequent nouns: "It is the combined excellencies of all the denominations that gives to her her winning beauty and her powerful charms."—Bible Society's Report, 1838, p. 89. "It is purity and neatness of expression which is chiefly to be studied."—Blair's Rhet., p. 271. "It is not the difficulty of the language, but on the contrary the simplicity and facility of it, that occasions this neglect."—Lowth's Gram., p. vi. "It is a wise head and a good heart that constitutes a great man."—Child's Instructor, p. 22.

OBS. 17.—The pronoun it very frequently refers to something mentioned subsequently in the sentence; as, "It is useless to complain of what is irremediable." This pronoun is a necessary expletive at the commencement of any sentence in which the verb is followed by a phrase or a clause which, by transposition, might be made the subject of the verb; as, "It is impossible to please every one."—W. Allen's Gram. "It was requisite that the papers should be sent."—Ib. The following example is censured by the Rev. Matt. Harrison: "It is really curious, the course which balls will sometimes take."—Abernethy's Lectures. "This awkward expression," says the critic, "might have been avoided by saying, 'The course which balls will sometimes take is really curious.'"—Harrison, on the English Language, p. 147. If the construction is objectionable, it may, in this instance, be altered thus: "It is really curious, to observe the course which balls will sometimes take!" So, it appears, we may avoid a pleonasm by an addition. But he finds a worse example: saying, "Again, in an article from the 'New Monthly,' No. 103, we meet with the same form of expression, but with an aggravated aspect:—'It is incredible, the number of apothecaries' shops, presenting themselves.' It would be quite as easy to say, 'The number of apothecaries' shops, presenting themselves, is incredible.' "—Ib., p. 147. This, too, may take an infinitive, "to tell," or "to behold;" for there is no more extravagance in doubting one's eyes, than in declaring one's own statement "incredible." But I am not sure that the original form is not allowable. In the following line, we seem to have something like it:

"It curled not Tweed alone, that breeze."—Sir W. Scott.

OBS. 18.—Relative and interrogative pronouns are placed at or near the beginning of their own clauses; and the learner must observe that, through all their cases, they almost invariably retain this situation in the sentence, and are found before their verbs even when the order of the construction would reverse this arrangement: as, "He who preserves me, to whom I owe my being, whose I am, and whom I serve, is eternal."—Murray, p. 159. "He whom you seek."—Lowth.

"The good must merit God's peculiar care;
But who, but God, can tell us who they are?"—Pope.

OBS. 19.—A relative pronoun, being the representative of some antecedent word or phrase, derives from this relation its person, number, and gender, but not its case. By taking an other relation of case, it helps to form an other clause; and, by retaining the essential meaning of its antecedent, serves to connect this clause to that in which the antecedent is found. No relative, therefore, can ever be used in an independent simple sentence, or be made the subject of a subjunctive verb, or be put in apposition with any noun or pronoun; but, like other connectives, this pronoun belongs at the head of a clause in a compound sentence, and excludes conjunctions, except when two such clauses are to be joined together, as in the following example: "I should be glad, at least, of an easy companion, who may tell me his thoughts, and to whom I may communicate mine."—Goldsmith's Essays, p. 196.

OBS. 20.—The two special rules commonly given by the grammarians, for the construction of relatives, are not only unnecessary,[382] but faulty. I shall notice them only to show my reasons for discarding them. With whom they originated, it is difficult to say. Paul's Accidence has them, and if Dean Colet, the supposed writer, did not take them from some earlier author, they must have been first taught by him, about the year 1510; and it is certain that they have been copied into almost every grammar published since. The first one is faulty, because, "When there cometh no nominative case between the relative and the verb, the relative shall [not always] be the nominative case to the verb;" as may be seen by the following examples: "Many are the works of human industry, which to begin and finish are [say is] hardly granted to the same man."—Dr. Johnson's Adv. to Dict. "They aim at his removal; which there is reason to fear they will effect."—"Which to avoid, I cut them off."—Shak., Hen. IV. The second rule is faulty, because, "When there cometh a nominative case between the relative and the verb, the relative shall [not always] be such case as the verb will have after it;" as may be seen by the following examples: "The author has not advanced any instances, which he does not think are pertinent."—Murray's Gram., i, 192. "Which we have reason to think was the case with the Greek and Latin."—Ib., 112. "Is this your son, who ye say was born blind?"—John, ix, 19. The case of the relative cannot be accurately determined by any rules of mere location. It may be nominative to a verb afar off, or it may be objective with a verb immediately following; as, "Which I do not find that there ever was."—Knight, on the Greek Alphabet, p. 31. "And our chief reason for believing which is that our ancestors did so before us."—Philological Museum, i, 641. Both these particular rules are useless, because the general rules for the cases, as given in chapter third above, are applicable to relatives, sufficient to all the purpose, and not liable to any exceptions.

OBS. 21.—In syntactical parsing, each word, in general, is to be resolved by some one rule; but the parsing of a pronoun commonly requires two; one for its agreement with the noun or nouns for which it stands, and an other for its case. The rule of agreement will be one of the four which are embraced in this present chapter; and the rule for the case will be one of the seven which compose chapter third. So that the whole syntax of pronouns requires the application of eleven different rules, while that of nouns or verbs is embraced in six or seven, and that of any other part of speech, in one only. In respect to their cases, relatives and interrogatives admit of every construction common to nouns, or to the personal pronouns, except apposition. This is proved by the following examples:

1. Nominatives by Rule 2d: "I who write;—Thou who writest;—He who writes;—The animal which runs."—Dr. Adam. "He that spareth his rod, hateth his son."—Solomon. "He who does any thing which he knows is wrong, ventures on dangerous ground."—"What will become of us without religion?"—Blair. "Here I determined to wait the hand of death; which, I hope, when at last it comes, will fall lightly upon me."—Dr. Johnson. "What is sudden and unaccountable, serves to confound."—Crabb. "They only are wise, who are wise to salvation."—Goodwin.

2. Nominatives by Rule 6th: (i.e., words parsed as nominatives after the verbs, though mostly transposed:) "Who art thou?"—Bible. "What were we?"—Ib. "Do not tell them who I am."—"Let him be who he may, he is not the honest fellow that he seemed."—"The general conduct of mankind is neither what it was designed, nor what it ought to be."

3. Nominatives absolute by Rule 8th: "There are certain bounds to imprudence, which being transgressed, there remains no place for repentance in the natural course of things."—Bp. Butler. "Which being so, it need not be any wonder, why I should."—Walker's Particles, Pref., p. xiv. "He offered an apology, which not being admitted, he became submissive."—Murray's Key, p. 202. This construction of the relative is a Latinism, and very seldom used by the best English writers.

4. Possessives by Rule 4th: "The chief man of the island, whose name was Publius."—Acts. "Despair, a cruel tyrant, from whose prisons none can escape."—Dr. Johnson. "To contemplate on Him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light."—Steele.

5. Objectives by Rule 5th: "Those whom she persuaded."—Dr. Johnson. "The cloak that I left at Troas."—St. Paul. "By the things which he suffered."—Id. "A man whom there is reason to suspect."—"What are we to do?"—Burke. "Love refuses nothing that love sends."—Gurnall. "The first thing, says he, is, to choose some maxim or point of morality; to inculcate which, is to be the design of his work."—Blair's Rhet., p. 421. "Whomsoever you please to appoint."—Lowth. "Whatsover [sic—KTH] he doeth, shall prosper."—Bible. "What we are afraid to do before men, we should be afraid to think before God."—Sibs. "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?"—Gen., xviii, 32. "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am going to do?"—"Call imperfection what thou fanciest such."—Pope.

6. Objectives by Rule 6th: (i.e., pronouns parsed as objectives after neuter verbs, though they stand before them:) "He is not the man that I took him to be."—"Whom did you suppose me to be?"—"If the lad ever become what you wish him to be."

7. Objectives by Rule 7th: "To whom shall we go?"—Bible. "The laws by which the world is governed, are general."—Bp. Butler. "Whom he looks upon as his defender."—Addison. "That secret heaviness of heart which unthinking men are subject to."—Id. "I cannot but think the loss of such talents as the man of whom I am speaking was master of, a more melancholy instance."—Steele. "Grammar is the solid foundation upon which all other science rests."—Buchanan's Eng. Synt., p. xx.

OBS. 22.—In familiar language, the relative of the objective case is frequently understood; as, "The man [whom] I trust."—Cowper. "Here is the letter [which] I received." So in the following sentences: "This is the man they hate. These are the goods they bought. Are these the Gods they worship? Is this the woman you saw?"—Ash's Gram., p. 96. This ellipsis seems allowable only in the familiar style. In grave writing, or deliberate discourse, it is much better to express this relative. The omission of it is often attended with some obscurity; as, "The next error [that] I shall mention [,] is a capital one."—Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 157. "It is little [that] we know of the divine perfections."—Scougal, p. 94. "The faith [which] we give to memory, may be thought, on a superficial view, to be resolvable into consciousness, as well as that [which] we give to the immediate impressions of sense."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 53. "We speak that [which] we do know, and testify that [which] we have seen."—John, iii, 11. The omission of a relative in the nominative case, is almost always inelegant; as, "This is the worst thing [that] could happen."—"There were several things [which] brought it upon me."—Pilgrim's Progress, p. 162. The latter ellipsis may occur after but or than, and it is also sometimes allowed in poetry; as, [There is] "No person of reflection but [who] must be sensible, that an incident makes a stronger impression on an eye-witness, than when heard at second hand."—Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 257.

"In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis man."—Pope, on Man.

"Abuse on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread."—Id., to Arbuthnot.

"There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools."—Id., to Augustus.

OBS. 23.—The antecedent is sometimes suppressed, especially in poetry; as, "Who will, may be a judge."—Churchill. "How shall I curse [him or them] whom God hath not cursed?"—Numbers, xxiii, 8. "There are, indeed, [some persons] who seem disposed to extend her authority much farther."—Campbell's Philosophy of Rhet., p. 187.

[He] "Who lives to nature, rarely can be poor;
[He] Who lives to fancy, never can be rich."—Young.

"Serious should be an author's final views;
[They] Who write for pure amusement, ne'er amuse."—Id.

OBS. 24.—Which, as well as who, was formerly applied to persons; as, "Our Father which art in heaven."—Bible. "Pray for them which despitefully use you."—Luke, vi, 28. And, as to the former example here cited, some British critics, still preferring the archaism, have accused "The Americans" of "poor criticism," in that they "have changed which into who, as being more consonant to the rules of Grammar." Falsely imagining, that which and who, with the same antecedent, can be of different genders, they allege, that, "The use of the neuter pronoun carried with it a certain vagueness and sublimity, not inappropriate in reminding us that our worship is addressed to a Being, infinite, and superior to all distinctions applicable to material objects."—Men and Manners in America: quoted and endorsed by the REV. MATT. HARRISON, in his treatise on the English Language, p. 191. This is all fancy; and, in my opinion, absurd. It is just like the religious prejudice which could discern "a singular propriety" in "the double superlative most highest."—Lowth's Gram., p. 28. But which may still be applied to a young child, if sex and intelligence be disregarded; as, "The child which died." Or even to adults, when they are spoken of without regard to a distinct personality or identity; as, "Which of you will go?"—"Crabb knoweth not which is which, himself or his parodist."—Leigh Hunt.

OBS. 25.—A proper name taken merely as a name, or an appellative taken in any sense not strictly personal, must be represented by which, and not by who; as, "Herod—which is but an other name for cruelty."—"In every prescription of duty, God proposeth himself as a rewarder; which he is only to those that please him."—Dr. J. Owen. Which would perhaps be more proper than whom, in the following passage: "They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the Lord commanded them."—Psalms, cvi, 34. Dr. Blair has preferred it in the following instance: "My lion and my pillar are sufficiently interpreted by the mention of Achilles and the minister, which I join to them."—Lectures, p. 151. He meant, "whose names I connect with theirs;" and not, that he joined the person of Achilles to a lion, or that of a minister to a pillar.

OBS. 26.—When two or more relative clauses pertain to the same antecedent, if they are connected by a conjunction, the same relative ought to be employed in each, agreeably to the doctrine of the seventh note below; but if no conjunction is expressed or understood between them, the pronouns ought rather to be different; as, "There are many things that you can speak of, which cannot be seen."—R W. Green's Gram., p. 11. This distinction is noticed in the fifth chapter of Etymology, Obs. 29th, on the Classes of Pronouns. Dr. Priestley says, "Whatever relative be used, in a series of clauses, relating to the same antecedent, the same ought to be used in them all. 'It is remarkable, that Holland, against which the war was undertaken, and that, in the very beginning, was reduced to the brink of destruction, lost nothing.'—Universal History, Vol. 25, p. 117. It ought to have been, and which in the very beginning."—Priestley's Gram., p. 102. L. Murray, (as I have shown in the Introduction, Ch. x, ¶ 22,) assumes all this, without references; adding as a salvo the word "generally," which merely impairs the certainty of the rule:—"the same relative ought generally to be used in them all."—Octavo Gram., p. 155. And, of who and that, Cobbett says: "Either may do; but both never ought to be relatives of the same antecedent in the same sentence."—Gram., ¶ 202. The inaccuracy of these rules is as great as that of the phraseology which is corrected under them. In the following sentence, the first relative only is restrictive, and consequently the other may be different: "These were the officers that were called Homotimoi, and who signalized themselves afterwards so gloriously upon all occasions."—Rollin's Hist., ii, 62. See also in Rev., x, 6th, a similar example without the conjunction.

OBS. 27.—In conversation, the possessive pronoun your is sometimes used in a droll way, being shortened into your in pronunciation, and nothing more being meant by it, than might be expressed by the article an or a: as, "Rich honesty dwells, like your miser, sir, in a poor house; as, your pearl in your foul oyster."—Shakspeare.