[395] In his English Reader, (Part II, Chap. 5th, Sec. 7th,) Murray has this line in its proper form, as it here stands in the words of Thomson; but, in his Grammar, he corrupted it, first in his Exercises, and then still more in his Key. Among his examples of "False Syntax" it stands thus:
"What black despair, what horror, fills his mind!" —Exercises, Rule 2.
So the error is propagated in the name of Learning, and this verse goes from grammar to grammar, as one that must have a "plural" verb. See Ingersoll's Gram., p. 242; Smith's New Gram., p. 127; Fisk's Gram., p. 120; Weld's E. Gram., 2d Ed., p. 189; Imp. Ed., p. 196.
[396] S. W. Clark, by reckoning "as" a "preposition," perverts the construction of sentences like this, and inserts a wrong case after the conjunction. See Clark's Practical Grammar, pp. 92 and 178; also this Syntax, Obs. 6 and Obs. 18, on Conjunctions.
[397] Murray gives us the following text for false grammar, under the head of Strength: "And Elias with Moses appeared to them."—Exercises, 8vo, p. 135. This he corrects thus: "And there appeared to them Elias with Moses."—Key, 8vo, p. 266. He omits the comma after Elias, which some copies of the Bible contain, and others do not. Whether he supposed the verb appeared to be singular or plural, I cannot tell; and he did not extend his quotation to the pronoun they, which immediately follows, and in which alone the incongruity lies.
[398] This order of the persons, is not universally maintained in those languages. The words of Mary to her son, "Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing," seem very properly to give the precedence to her husband; and this is their arrangement in St. Luke's Greek, and in the Latin versions, as well as in others.
[399] The hackneyed example, "I and Cicero are well,"—"Ego et Cicero valemus"—which makes such a figure in the grammars, both Latin and English, and yet is ascribed to Cicero himself, deserves a word of explanation. Cicero the orator, having with him his young son Marcus Cicero at Athens, while his beloved daughter Tullia was with her mother in Italy, thus wrote to his wife, Terentia: "Si tu, et Tullia, lux nostra, valetix; ego, et suavissimus Cicero, valemus."—EPIST. AD FAM. Lib. xiv, Ep. v. That is, "If thou, and Tullia, our joy, are well; I, and the sweet lad Cicero, are likewise well." This literal translation is good English, and not to be amended by inversion; for a father is not expected to give precedence to his child. But, when I was a boy, the text and version of Dr. Adam puzzled me not a little; because I could not conceive how Cicero could ever have said, "I and Cicero are well." The garbled citation is now much oftener read than the original. See it in Crombie's Treatise, p. 243; McCulloch's Gram., p. 158; and others.
[400] Two singulars connected by and, when they form a part of such a disjunction, are still equivalent to a plural; and are to be treated as such, in the syntax of the verb. Hence the following construction appears to be inaccurate: "A single consonant or a mute and a liquid before an accented vowel, is joined to that vowel"—Dr. Bullions, Lat. Gram. p. xi.
[401] Murray the schoolmaster has it, "used to govern."—English Gram., p. 64. He puts the verb in a wrong tense. Dr. Bullions has it, "usually governs."—Lat. Gram., p. 202. This is right.—G. B.
[402] The two verbs to sit and to set are in general quite different in their meaning; but the passive verb to be set sometimes comes pretty near to the sense of the former, which is for the most part neuter. Hence, we not only find the Latin word sedeo, to sit, used in the sense of being set, as, "Ingens coena sedet," "A huge supper is set," Juv., 2, 119; but, in the seven texts above, our translators have used is set, was set, &c., with reference to the personal posture of sitting. This, in the opinion of Dr. Lowth and some others, is erroneous. "Set," says the Doctor, "can be no part of the verb to sit. If it belong to the verb to set, the translation in these passages is wrong. For to set, signifies to place, but without any designation of the posture of the person placed; which is a circumstance of importance, expressed by the original."—Lowth's Gram., p. 53; Churchill's, 265. These gentlemen cite three of these seven examples, and refer to the other four; but they do not tell us how they would amend any of them—except that they prefer sitten to sat, vainly endeavouring to restore an old participle which is certainly obsolete. If any critic dislike my version of the last two texts, because I use the present tense for what in the Greek is the first aorist; let him notice that this has been done in both by our translators, and in one by those of the Vulgate. In the preceding example, too, the same aorist is rendered, "am set," and by Beza, "sedeo;" though Montanus and the Vulgate render it literally by "sedi," as I do by sat. See Key to False Syntax, Rule XVII, Note xii.