[65] It is almost unnecessary to state that the sentence quoted in the text is really a beautiful couplet of Withers's poetry transposed. It was advisable to do this, for the sake of guarding against the effect of the rhyme. To have written,
What care I how fair she is
If she be not fair to me?
would have made the grammar seem worse than it really was, by disappointing the reader of a rhyme. On the other hand, to have written,
What care I how fair she were,
If she were not kind as fair?
would have made the grammar seem better than it really was, by supplying one.
[66] In the first edition of the present work I inaccurately stated that neither should take a plural and either a singular verb; adding that "in predicating something concerning neither you nor I, a negative assertion is made concerning both. In predicating something concerning either you or I, a positive assertion is made concerning one of two." This Mr. Connon (p. 129) has truly stated to be at variance with the principles laid down by me elsewhere.
[67] Latin Prose Composition, p. 123.
[68] Quoted from Guest's English Rhythms.