The Grammar of English Grammars - Goold Brown (spiritual books to read TXT) 📗
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[501] Murray has here a marginal note, as follows: "Movement and measure are thus distinguished. Movement expresses the progressive order of sounds, whether from strong to weak, from long to short, or vice versa. Measure signifies the proportion of time, both in sounds and pauses."—Octavo Gram., p. 259. This distinction is neither usual nor accurate; though Humphrey adopts it, with slight variations. Without some species of measure,—Iambic, Trochaic, Anapestic, Dactylic, or some other,—there can be no regular movement, no "progressive order of sounds." Measure is therefore too essential to movement to be in contrast with it. And the movement "from strong to weak, from long to short," is but one and the same, a trochaic movement; its reverse, the movement, "vice versa," from weak to strong, or from short to long, is, of course, that of iambic measure. But Murray's doctrine is, that strong and long, weak and short, may be separated; that strong may be short, and weak be long; so that the movement from weak to strong may be from long to short, and vice versa: as if a trochaic movement might arise from iambic measure, and an iambic movement from trochaic feet! This absurdity comes of attempting to regulate the movement of verse by accent, and not by quantity, while it is admitted that quantity, and not accent, forms the measure, which "signifies the proportion of time." The idea that pauses belong to measure, is an other radical error of the foregoing note. There are more pauses in poetry than in prose, but none of them are properly "parts" of either. Humphrey says truly, "Feet are the constituent parts of verse."—English Prosody, p. 8. But L. Murray says, "Feet and pauses are the constituent parts of verse."—Octavo Gram., p. 252. Here Sheridan gave bias. Intending to treat of verse, and "the pauses peculiarly belonging to it," the "Cæsural" pause and the "Final," the rhetorician had improperly said, "The constituent parts of verse are, feet, and pauses."—Sheridan's Rhetorical Gram., p. 64.
[502] "But as many Ways as Quantities may be varied by Composition and Transposition, so many different Feet have the Greek Poets contriv'd, and that under distinct Names, from two to six Syllables, to the Number of 124. But it is the Opinion of some Learned Men in this Way, that Poetic Numbers may be sufficiently explain'd by those of two or three Syllables, into which the rest are to be resolv'd."—Brightland's Grammar, 7th Ed., p. 161.
[503] "THE BELLS OF ST. PETERSBURGH." "Those ev'ning bells, those ev'ning bells,
How many a tale their music tells!"—Moore's Melodies, p. 263.
This couplet, like all the rest of the piece from which it is taken, is iambic verse, and to be divided into feet thus:—
"Those ev' | -ning bells, | those ev' | -ning bells,
How man | -y a tale | their mu | -sic tells!"
[504] Lord Kames, too, speaking of "English Heroic verse," says: "Every line consists of ten syllables, five short and five long; from which [rule] there are but two exceptions, both of them rare."—Elements of Criticism, Vol. ii, p. 89.
[505] "The Latin is a far more stately tongue than our own. It is essentially spondaic; the English is as essentially dactylic. The long syllable is the spirit of the Roman (and Greek) verse; the short syllable is the essence of ours."—Poe's Notes upon English Verse; Pioneer, Vol. i, p. 110. "We must search for spondaic words, which, in English, are rare indeed."—Ib., p. 111.
[506] "There is a rule, in Latin prosody, that a vowel before two consonants is long. We moderns have not only no such rule, but profess inability to comprehend its rationale."—Poe's Notes: Pioneer, p. 112.
[507] The opponents of capital punishment will hardly take this for a fair version of the sixth commandment.—G. B.
[508] These versicles, except the two which are Italicized, are not iambic. The others are partly trochaic; and, according to many of our prosodists, wholly so; but it is questionable whether they are not as properly amphimacric, or Cretic.
[509] See exercises in Punctuation, on page 786, of this work.—G. B.
[510] The Seventieth Psalm is the same as the last five verses of the Fortieth, except a few unimportant differences of words or points.
[511] It is obvious, that these two lines may easily be reduced to an agreeable stanza, by simply dividing each after the fourth foot—G. B.
[512] In Sanborn's Analytical Grammar, on page 279th, this couplet is ascribed to "Pope;" but I have sought in vain for this quotation, or any example of similar verse, in the works of that poet. The lines, one or both of them, appear, without reference, in L. Murray's Grammar, Second Edition, 1796, p. 176, and in subsequent editions; in W. Allen's, p. 225; Bullions's, 178; N. Butler's, 192; Chandler's New, 196; Clark's, 201; Churchill's, 187; Cooper's Practical, 185; Davis's, 137; Farnum's, 106; Felton's, 142; Frazee's, 184; Frost's, 164; S. S. Greene's, 250; Hallock's, 244; Hart's, 187; Hiley's, 127; Humphrey's Prosody, 17; Parker and Fox's Gram., Part iii, p. 60; Weld's, 211; Ditto Abridged, 138; Wells's, 200; Fowler's, 658; and doubtless in many other such books.
[513] "Owen succeeded his father Griffin in the principality of North Wales, A. D. 1120. This battle was fought near forty years afterwards. North Wales is called, in the fourth line, 'Gwyneth;' and 'Lochlin,' in the fourteenth, is Denmark."—Gray. Some say "Lochlin," in the Annals of Ulster, means Norway.—G. B.
[514] "The red dragon is the device of Cadwallader, which all his descendants bore on their banners."—Gray.
[515] This passage, or some part of it, is given as a trochaic example, in many different systems of prosody. Everett ascribes it entire to "John Chalkhill;" and Nutting, more than twenty years before, had attached the name of "Chalkhill" to a part of it. But the six lines "of three syllables," Dr. Johnson, in his Grammar, credits to "Walton's Angler;" and Bicknell, too, ascribes the same to "Walton." The readings also have become various. Johnson, Bicknell, Burn, Churchill, and Nutting, have "Here" for "Where" in the fifth line above; and Bicknell and Burn have "Stop" in the eighth line, where the rest read "Stops." Nutting has, for the ninth line, "Others' joys," and not, "Other joys," as have the rest.—G. B.
[516] OBS.—Of this, and of every other example which requires no amendment, let the learner simply say, after reading the passage, "This sentence is correct as it stands."—G. BROWN.
[517] OBSERVATION.—In the Bible, the word LORD, whenever it stands for the Hebrew name JEHOVAH, not only commences with a full capital, but has small or half capitals for the other letters; and I have thought proper to print both words in that manner here. In correcting the last example, I follow Dr. Scott's Bible, except in the word "God," which he writes with a small g. Several other copies have "first" and "last" with small initials, which I think not so correct; and some distinguish the word "hosts" with a capital, which seems to be needless. The sentence here has eleven capitals: in the Latin Vulgate, it has but six, and one of them is for the last word, "Deus," God.—G. B.
[518] OBS.—This construction I dislike. Without hyphens, it is improper; and with them it is not to be commended. See Syntax, Obs 24th on Rule IV.—G. B.
[519] On the page here referred to, the author of the Gazetteer has written "Charles city," &c. Analogy requires that the words be compounded, because they constitute three names which are applied to counties, and not to cities.
[520] OBS.—The following words, as names of towns, come under Rule 6th, and are commonly found correctly compounded in the books of Scotch geography and statistics; "Strathaven, Stonehaven, Strathdon, Glenluce, Greenlaw, Coldstream, Lochwinnoch, Lochcarron, Loehmaber, Prestonpans, Prestonkirk, Peterhead, Queensferry, Newmills," and many more like them.
[521] Section OBS.—This name, in both the Vulgate and the Septuagint, is Pharao Nechao, with two capitals and no hyphen. Walker gives the two words separately in his Key, and spells the latter Necho, and not Nechoh. See the same orthography in Jer., xlvi, 2. In our common Bibles, many such names are needlessly, if not improperly, compounded; sometimes with one capital, and sometimes with two. The proper manner of writing Scripture names, is too little regarded even by good men and biblical critics.
[522] "[Marcus] Terentius Varro, vir Romanorum eruditissimus."—QUINTILIAN. Lib. x, Cap. 1, p. 577.
[523] NOTE.—By this amendment, we remove a multitude of errors, but the passage is still very faulty. What Murray here calls "phrases," are properly sentences; and, in his second clause, he deserts the terms of the first to bring in "my," "our," and also "&c.," which seem to be out of place there.—G. BROWN.
[524] An other is a phrase of two words, which ought to be written separately. The transferring of the n to the latter word, is a gross vulgarism. Separate the words, and it will be avoided.
[525] Mys-ter-y, according to Scott and Cobb; mys-te-ry, according to Walker and Worcester.
[526] Kirkham borrowed this doctrine of "Tonics, Subtonics, and Atonies," from Rush: and dressed it up in his own worse bombast. See Obs. 13 and 14, on the Powers of the Letters.—GB.
[527] There is, in most English dictionaries, a contracted form of this phrase, written prithee, or I prithee; but Dr. Johnson censures it as "a familiar corruption, which some writers have injudiciously used;" and, as the abbreviation amounted to nothing but the slurring of one vowel sound into an other, it has now, I think, very deservedly become obsolete.—G. BROWN.
[528] This is the doctrine of Murray, and his hundred copyists; but it is by no means generally true. It is true of adverbs, only when they are connected by conjunctions; and seldom applies to two words, unless the conjunction which may be said to connect them, be suppressed and understood.—G. BROWN.
[529] Example: "Imperfect articulation comes not so much from bad organs, as from the abuse of good ones."—Porter's Analysis. Here ones represents organs, and prevents unpleasant repetition.—G. BROWN.
[530] From the force of habit, or to prevent the possibility of a false pronunciation, these ocular contractions are still sometimes carefully made in printing poetry; but they are not very important, and some modern authors, or their printers, disregard them altogether. In correcting short poetical examples, I shall in general take no particular pains to distinguish them from prose. All needful contractions however will be preserved, and sometimes also a capital letter, to show where the author commenced a line.
[531] The word "imperfect" is not really necessary here; for the declaration is true of any phrase, as this name is commonly applied.—G. BROWN.
[532] A part of speech is a sort of words, and not one word only. We cannot say, that every pronoun, or every verb, is a part of speech, because the parts of speech are only ten. But every pronoun, verb, or other word, is a word; and, if we will refer to this genus, there is no difficulty in defining all the parts of speech in the singular, with an or a: as, "A pronoun is a word put for a noun." Murray and others say, "An Adverb is a part of speech," &c., "A Conjunction is a part of speech," &c., which is the same as to say, "One adverb is a sort of words," &c. This is a palpable absurdity.—G. BROWN.
[533] The propriety of this conjunction, "nor," is somewhat questionable: the reading in both the Vulgate and the Septuagint is—"they, and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters."
[534] All our lexicographers, and all accurate authors, spell this word with an o; but the gentleman who has furnished us with the last set of new terms for the science of grammar, writes it with an e, and applies it to the verb and the participle. With him, every verb or participle is an "asserter;" except when he forgets his creed, as he did in writing the preceding example about certain "verbs." As he changes the names of all the parts of speech, and denounces the entire technology of grammar, perhaps his innovation would have been sufficiently broad, had he for THE VERB, the most important class of all, adopted some
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