Cowley's Ode to the New Year.
"But these fantastic errors of our dream,
Lead us to solid wrong;
We pray God, our friend's torments to prolong,
And wish uncharitably for them,
To be as long a dying as Methusalem."
Cowley.
If the foregoing opinion of the origin of a in such phrases, should not be deemed satisfactory, we may perhaps ascribe its origin to a mere custom of forming expletive sounds in the transition from one word to another.[104]
The following phrases, three shillings a piece, a day, a head, a bushel, it is said are elliptical forms of speech; some preposition being implied, as, for or by. This assertion can proceed only from an imperfect view of the subject. Unless grammarians can prove that some preposition was formerly used, which is now omitted, they cannot prove that any is implied, nor should they have recourse to implication to find a rule to parse the phrases. The truth is, no such preposition can be found, nor is there need of any. A, in this form of speech, carries the full meaning of the Latin per, and the substitution of the latter, for want, as it is said, of an English word, in the phrases, per day, per head, per pound, is a burlesque upon the English to this day. We see continually a wretched jargon of Latin and English in every merchant's book, even to the exclusion of a pure English phrase, more concise, more correct, and more elegant. It is to be wished that a might be restored to its true dignity, as it is used by some of the purest English writers.
"He had read almost constantly, twelve or fourteen hours a day;" that is, one day.—— Bolingbroke on History, letter 4.
"To the sixteen scholars twenty pounds a piece."——Cowley.
This is pure elegant English, and the common people have the honor of preserving it, unadulterated by foreign words.
VERB.
The most difficult branch of this subject is the verb. Next to the noun, this is the most important part of speech, and as it includes all the terms by which we express action and existence, in their numberless varieties, it must, in all languages, be very comprehensive.