Government is that power which one part of speech has over another, in directing its mood, tense, or case.
Government is also that power, of which, if the Chartists have their way, we shall soon see very little in this country.
Hurrah!
No taxes!
No army!
No navy!
No parsons!
No lawyers!
No Commons!
No Lords!
No anything!
No nothing!
To produce the agreement and right disposition of words in a sentence, the following rules (and observations?) should be carefully studied.
RULE I.
A verb must agree with its nominative case in number and person: as, “I perceive.” “Thou hast been to Brixton.” “Apes chatter.” “Frenchmen gabble.”
Certain liberties are sometimes taken with this rule: as, “I own I likes good beer.” “You’m a fine fellow, aint yer?” “He’ve been to the Squire’s.” Such modes of speaking are adopted by those who neither know nor care anything about grammatical correctness: but there are other persons who care a great deal about it, but unfortunately do not know what it consists in. Such folks are very fond of saying, “How it rain!” “It fit you very well.” “He say he think it very unbecoming,” “I were gone before you was come,” and so forth, in which forms of speech they perceive a peculiar elegance.
The infinitive mood, or part of a sentence, is sometimes used as the nominative case to the verb: as “to be good is to be happy:” which is as grammatical an assertion as “Toby Good is Toby Happy;” and rather surpasses it in respect of sense. “That two pippins are a pair, is a proposition which no man in his senses will deny.”
“To be a connoisseur in boots,
To hate all rational pursuits,
To make your money fly, as though
Gold would as fast as mushrooms grow;
To haunt the Opera, save whene’er
There’s anything worth hearing there;
To smirk, to smile, to bow, to dance,
To talk of what they eat in France,
To languish, simper, sue, and sigh,
And stuff her head with flattery;
Are means to gain that worthless part
A fashionable lady’s heart.”
Here are examples enough, in all conscience, of infinitive moods serving as nominative cases.