Instead of saying, "Let it [to] be enacted;" or, "It is or shall be enacted;" "Let him [to] be blessed;" or, "He shall be blessed;" "Let us turn to survey," &c.; the verbs, be enacted, be blessed, turn, &c. according to an idiom of our language, or the poet's license, are used in the imperative, agreeing with a nominative of the first or third person.
The phrases, methinks and methought, are anomalies, in which the objective pronoun me, in the first person, is used in place of a nominative, and takes a verb after it in the third person. Him was anciently used in the same manner; as, "him thute, him thought." There was a period when these constructions were not anomalies in our language. Formerly, what we call the objective cases of our pronouns, were employed in the same manner as our present nominatives are. Ago is a contraction of agone, the past part. of to go. Before this participle was contracted to an adverb, the noun years preceding it, was in the nominative case absolute; but now the construction amounts to an anomaly. The expressions, "generally speaking," and "considering their means," under number 4, are idiomatical and anomalous, the subjects to the participles not being specified.
According to the genius of the English language, transitive verbs and prepositions require the objective case of a noun or pronoun after them; and this requisition is all that is meant by government, when we say, that these parts of speech govern the objective case. See pages 52, 57, and 94. The same principle applies to the interjection. Interjections require the objective case of a pronoun of the first person after them; but the nominative of a noun or pronoun of the second or third person; as, "Ah me! Oh thou! O my country!" To say, then, that interjections require particular cases after them, is synonymous with saying, that they govern those cases; and this office of the interjection is in perfect accordance with that which it performs in the Latin and many other languages. In the examples under number 5, the first me is in the objective after "ah," and the second me, after ah understood; thus, "Ah miserable me!" according to NOTE 2, under Rule 5.—Happiness, under number 6, is nom. independent; Rule 5, or in the nom. after O, according to this Note. The principle contained in the note, proves that every noun of the second person is in the nominative case; for, as the pronoun of the second person, in such a situation, is always nominative, which is shown by its form, it logically follows that the noun, under such circumstances, although it has no form to show its case, must necessarily be in the same case as the pronoun. "Good, pleasure, ease, content, that," the antecedent part of "whatever," and which, the relative part, are nom. after art understood; Rule 21, and name is nom. to be understood.
The second line may be rendered thus; Whether thou art good, or whether thou art pleasure, &c. or be thy name that [thing] which [ever thing] it may be: putting be in the imperative, agreeing with name in the third person. Something is nominative after art understood.
EXAMPLES.
- "All were well but the stranger." "I saw nobody but the stranger." "All had returned but he." "None but the brave deserve the fair." "The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone." "This life, at best, is but a dream." "It affords but a scanty measure of enjoyment." "If he but touch the hills, they will smoke." "Man is but a reed, floating on the current of time."
- "Notwithstanding his poverty, he is content."
- "Open your hand wide." "The apples boil soft." "The purest clay is that which burns white." "Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."
- "What though the swelling surge thou see?" &c. "What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread?" &c.
REMARKS.—According to the principle of analysis assumed by many of our most critical philologists, but is always a disjunctive conjunction; and agreeably to the same authorities, to construe it, in any case, as a preposition, would lead to error. See false Syntax under Rule 35. They maintain, that its legitimate and undeviating office is, to join on a member of a sentence which expresses opposition of meaning, and thereby forms an exception to, or takes from the universality of, the proposition contained in the preceding member of the sentence. That it sustains its true character as a conjunction in all the examples under number 1, will be shown by the following resolution of them.—"All were well but the stranger [was not well.">[ "I saw nobody but [I saw] the stranger." "None deserve the fair but the brave [deserve the fair.">[ "They postpone the thing which [they ought to do, and do not] but which [thing] they cannot avoid purposing to do." "This life, at best, [is not a reality,] but it is a dream. It [affords not unbounded fruition] but it affords a scanty measure of enjoyment." "If he touch the hills, but exert no greater power upon them, they will smoke;"—"If he exert no greater power upon the hills, but [be-out this fact] if he touch them, they will smoke." "Man is not a stable being, but he is a reed, floating on the current of time." This method of analyzing sentences, however, if I mistake not, is too much on the plan of our pretended philosophical writers, who, in their rage for ancient constructions and combinations, often overlook the modern associated meaning and application of this word. It appears to me to be more consistent with the modern use of the word, to consider it an adverb in constructions like the following: "If he but (only, merely) touch the hills they will smoke."
Except and near, in examples like the following, are generally construed as prepositions: "All went except him;" "She stands near them." But many contend, that when we employ but instead of except, in such constructions, a nominative should follow: "All went but he [did not go.">[ On this point and many others, custom is variable; but the period will doubtless arrive, when but, worth, and like, will be considered prepositions, and, in constructions like the foregoing, invariably be followed by an objective case. This will not be the case, however, until the practice of supplying an ellipsis after these words is entirely dropped.
Poverty, under number 2, is governed by the preposition notwithstanding, Rule 31. The adjectives wide, soft, white, and deep, under number 3, not only express the quality of nouns, but also qualify verbs: Note 4, under Rule 18.—What, in the phrases "what though" and "what if," is an interrogative in the objective case, and governed by the verb matters understood, or by some other verb; thus, "What matters it—what dost thou fear, though thou see the swelling surge?" "What would you think, if the foot, which is ordained to tread the dust, aspired to be the head?"