A GRAMMATICAL EPISTLE
To Miss SALLY SYNTAX.
Madam,
Amongst the numeral propositions towards a matrimonial union with your amiable person, I hope you’ll not decline the interjection of my preliminary pretences. I should not wish to be a mere noun adjective to you in all cases, but I positively declare, that comparatively speaking, I should be superlatively happy to agree with you in the subjunctive mood. I trust you’ll not opiniate me singular, for desiring to have the plural in my family; I shall fabricate no verbal oration, to prove how I long to have our affections in common of two: but I presume, that in case of a conjunction copulative, you’ll use no indicative solicitation to be in the imperative mood, as I am determined to be in the potential active, while you are in the future passive, or in the supine: for it is the optative of my soul to become your relative, by the antecedent of regular conjugation, as this alone can constitute a lawful concord with the feminine gender, and afford us a participle of substantive happiness. Every article possessive or genitive shall become a dative translation to you; nothing shall be accusative against your government; and your sweet nominative without a pronoun or even adverb shall be my vocative, till death the great ablative of all living, by the gradual declention of our corporeal nature, puts a final termination to the present tense, and time, thro’ an infinite progression of ages, may render us preterperfect in the future tense; in the interim, my principal part of speech in its primitive or derivative extension is, to the end, that you may put the most charitable construction on this simple proposition, and that your definitive resolution may be consonant to the wishes of your very indeclinable lover
MICHAEL DE MARIBUS.