And all his sorrow to the moon he told,

And said, 'Surely when thou art hornéd new,

I shall be glad - if all the world be true.'-Chaucer.

The order of the latter is natural; of the former, rhetorical. To say that any organic relation is affected by the transposition, is absurd. Without changing the sense or the metre, we can read:

'And sure,' he said, when thou art hornéd new

I shall be glad - if all the world be true.'

Note II.

Another erroneous and pernicious notion is, that 'it'

is without grammatical connection in such forms as:

It cannot be that thou art gone.-Coleridge.

Is it so small a thing,

To have enjoyed the sun:

To have lived light in the spring;

To have loved, to have thought, to have done?

-Matthew Arnold.

So far from being a superfluous element, 'it' is here an essential the grammatical subject, with which the clause in the one case, and the infinitives in the other, are logically in apposition. The appositives explain what the pronoun vaguely or indefinitely represents.1 A similar construction is seen in ‘I, John, am going'; or ‘I, Alexander, king of Macedonia, make this decree.' Compare with either: 'It, to see the sun, is pleasant'='It is pleasant to see the sun.' Note III. It is customary to treat pleonasms as independent elements. 'He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.'

To die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence about
The pendant world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts

Imagine howling! 'tis too horrible! —Shakespeare.

Note IV. The detached participial clause, since its subject is loosed from its ordinary connection with the verb, is said to be absolute (ab, from; solvere, to loose).

Note V.- The absolute case is different in different languages: in the Greek, Genitive; in the Latin, Ablative; in Anglo-Saxon, Dative.

Hence the following are historically correct:

Him speaking these things, etc.— Wycliffe.

Him destroyed, etc.-Milton.

Him only excepted, etc.-Tillotson.

In spite of history, however, if not of logic, modern English is decidedly in favor of the Nominative.

Note VI.- Nominatives absolute, while they do not grammatically depend on any other word in the sentence, are logically adverbial modifiers. Thus, 'Spring coming, the flowers will bloom' ='When spring comes, the flowers will bloom''The flowers will bloom in spring time.'

EXERCISES.

Resolve the following into principal, subordinate, and independent elements; that is, subject and predicate of the sentence as a whole, the modifiers of each, and parts (where there are such) that are neither principal nor subordinate. Be careful to discriminate, in cases, between grammatical independence and logical depend

ence:

"Tis the mind that makes the body rich.-Shakespeare.

Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile! -Marlowe.

Man is a torch borne in the wind; a dream

But of a shadow.-Chapman.

Great God of men and women, queen of th' ayre,

Mother of laughter, and welspring of blisse,

O grauent that of my love at last I may not misse.-Spenser.

Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame,

Who seek, who hope, who love, who live but thee;

Thine eyes my bride, thy lips my history.-Sidney.

Then I shall be no more;

And Adam, wedded to another Eve,

Shall live with her enjoying; I extinct.-Milton.

Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there,

And made myself a motley to the view,

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear.

Ye toppling crags of ice!

Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down

-Shakespeare.

In mountainous overwhelming, come and crush me.—Byron.

O ye judges! it was not by human counsel, nor by anything less than the immediate care of the immortal gods, that this event has taken place.-Cicero,

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SENTENCE - CLASSIFICATION.

Considered in itself, a science is valuable in proportion as its cultivation is immediately conducive to the mental improvement of the cultivator.-SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON.

S to Structure. A simple sentence is the expression of a single act of thought. There may be several things of which something is asserted, and the subject is then said to be compound; as, 'Hope and fear are the bane of human life.' There may be several things asserted of the subject, and the predicate is then said to be compound; as, 'Charity hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things.' The modifiers may be compound; as, 'A diligent and prudent man will be successful.' Parts which do not modify each other are said to be coördinate,- that is, of equal order or rank; as in the preceding sentence, or in the following: The coach will leave the city in the morning- before sunrise.'

Criterion. The test of a simple sentence is, that it comprises only words and phrases.

If the sentence is of the form, 'When the sun rose, the ship sailed,' it is no longer simple, since it contains. two acts of thought,-two distinct subjects, 'sun' and 'ship,' and two distinct predicates, rose' and 'sailed,' yet so put together as to form a whole. Another peculiarity is, that the first part,' when the sun rose,' indicates the time of sailing, and so modifies 'sailed' as a temporal

adverb. Such a sentence is said to be complex. Hence, a complex' sentence consists of two or more simple sentences, one of which is principal and the others (clauses) subordinate.

The connectives which attach dependent clauses and make complex sentences are:

1. Relative Pronouns,-'who,' 'which,' 'what,' 'that,' and 'as.'

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2. Conjunctive Adverbs, where,' when,' 'while,' 'how,' 'why,' etc.

3. Subordinate Conjunctions,-'that,' 'than,' 'as,' 'if,' 'for,' etc.

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If the sentence is of the form, 'The sun rose, and the ship sailed,' it is neither simple nor complex. It is not simple, because it contains more than one combination of subject and predicate; it is not complex, because the statements composing it are grammatically independent of each other neither modifies the other. Such a sentence is said to be compound. Hence a compound sentence consists of two or more coördinate sentences. The coördinate parts of a compound sentence are called its members. The members themselves may be simple or complex: (1) 'One generation blows bubbles, and another bursts. them.' (2) 'This part of knowledge is growing, and it will continue to grow till the subject is exhausted.'

The connectives which join members, and make compound sentences are:

1. Copulatives,-'and,' 'both'..'and,' 'not only'.. 'but also.'

1 Latin con, with, plectere, to twist to twist together.

2 So called because, while they modify the verb of their own clause as

adverbs, they also connect sentences.

3 Latin con, with, and ponere, to place to place together.