LESSON XXII.-RULE XVIII. At that hour, O how vain was all sublunary happiness! Alas, said I, man was made in vain! how is he given away to misery and mortality !-Addison. O stretch thy reign, fair Peace, from shore to shore, Whose votaries feast on raptures ever new! To sing thy glories with devotion due !—Beattie. Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets!-Milton. LESSON XXIII.-RULE XIX. Charles's resignation filled all Europe with astonishment. Stately are his steps of age! lovely the remnant of his years! A crown of glory are his hoary locks! Joy rose in Carthon's face: he lifted his heavy eyes. Eliza's sensibility is such, that her brother's misfortunes will greatly afflict her. A dutiful son will hear his father's instructions. What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's chain? I smile on death, if heaven-ward hope remain.-Campbell. Hymns of eternal praise.—Merrick. LESSON XXIV.-RULE XX. Do not insult a poor man: his misery entitles him to pity. When our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves that we leave them. While riotous indulgence enervates both the body and the mind, purity and virtue heighten all the powers of human fruition. What avails the show of external liberty, to one who has lost the government of himself? Princes have but their titles for their glories, An outward honour for an inward toil; And, for unfelt imaginations, They often feel a world of restless cares.-Shak. No flocks that range the valley, free, Taught by that power that pities me, LESSON XXV.-RULE XXI. The memory of mischief is no desirable fame. Solid merit is a cure for ambition. Meekness and modesty are true and lasting ornaments. Universal benevolence and patriotic zeal appear to have been the motives of all his actions. Soon after his father's demise, he was crowned emperor. We, who never were his favourites, did not expect these attentions; and we could scarcely believe it was he. Junius Brutus, the son of Marcus Brutus, and Collatinus, the husband of Lucretia, were chosen first consuls in Rome. The son, bred in sloth, becomes a spendthrift, a profligate, and goes out of the world a beggar.-Swift. I am, as thou art, a reptile of the earth: my life is a moment, and eternity-in which days, and years, and ages, are nothing -eternity is before me, for which I also should prepare.Hawkesworth. The Lord of all, himself through all diffused, LESSON XXVI.-RULE XXII. Titles of honour conferred upon those who have no personal merit, are like the royal stamp set upon base metal. In the varieties of life, we are inured to habits both of the active and the suffering virtues.-Blair. By disappointments and trials, the violence of our passions is tamed.-Blair. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.— Deut., xxxiii, 26. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. LESSON XXVII.-RULE XXIII. Leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to my self the miseries of confinement.-Sterne. Our ambassadors are instructed to negotiate a peace; and there is reason to think they will succeed. I shall henceforth do good and avoid evil, without respect to the opinions of men; and resolve to solicit only the approbation of that Being, whom alone we are sure to please by endeavouring to please him.-Johnson. Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, The generous purpose in the glowing breast.-Thomson. LESSON XXVIII.-RULE XXIV. You need not go. I heard my father bid the boy bring your trunk, and saw him go for it. I dare say it will be safe. Let him who desires to see others happy, make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed.-Blair. None but the virtuous dare hope in bad circumstances. Shall neither hear thee cry, nor see thee weep.-Pope. Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice LESSON XXIX.-RULE XXV. This proposition being admitted, I now state my argument. There being much obscurity in the case, he refuses to decide upon it. They being absent, we cannot come to a determination. The senate consented to the creation of tribunes of the ple, Appius alone protesting against the measure. peo Fathers! Senators of Rome! the arbiters of nations! to you I fly for refuge.-Tr. of Sallust. Remember, Almet, that the world in which thou art placed, is but the road to an other.-Hawkesworth. Return, my son, to thy labour: thy food shall again be tasteful, and thy rest shall be sweet.-Johnson. Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous when thou showst thee in a child, O wretched we! why were we hurried down LESSON XXX.-RULE XXV. What misery doth the vicious man secretly endure! Adversity! how blunt are all the arrows of thy quiver, in comparison with those of guilt.-Blair. Remember the uncertainty of life, and restrain thy hand from evil. He that was yesterday a king, behold him dead, and the beggar is better than he.—Bible. The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play ?—Pope. Companion of the wise and good. All this dread order break-for whom? for thee? My Absalom! the voice of nature cried, Oh! that for thee thy father could have died! That slew my Absalom!-my son!-my son!-Campbell. LESSON XXXI.-RULE XXVI. Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.-Prov., xi, 21. Let him that hastens to be rich, take heed lest he suddenly become poor. If the king were present, Cleon, there would be no need of my answering to what thou hast just proposed.-Goldsmith. He seems to have made an injudicious choice, though he is esteemed a sensible man. Inspiring thought, of rapture yet to be! The tears of love were hopeless but for thee! If that faint murmur be the last farewell, If fate unite the faithful but to part, Why is their mem'ry sacred to the heart?-Campbell. 13 CHAPTER II.--RELATION AND AGREEMENT. In this chapter and the next, the Rules of Syntax are again exhibited, in their former order, with Examples, Exceptions, Observations, Notes, and False Syntax. The Notes are all of them, in form and character, subordinate rules of syntax, designed for the detection of errors. The correction of the False Syntax placed under the rules and notes, will form an oral exercise, somewhat similar to that of parsing, and perhaps more useful. OBS.-Relation and Agreement are taken together that the rules may stand in the order of the parts of speech. The latter is moreover naturally allied to the former. Seven of the ten parts of speech are, with a few exceptions, incapable of any agreement; of these, the relation and use must be explained in parsing; and all necessary agreement between any of the rest, is confined to words that relate to each other. RULE I-ARTICLES. "At Articles relate to the nouns which they limit: as, a little distance from the ruins of the abbey, stands an aged elm." EXCEPTION FIRST. The definite article, used intensively, may relate to an adjective or adverb of the comparative or the superlative degree; as, "A land which was the mightiest."-Byron. "The farther they proceeded, the greater appeared their alacrity."-Dr. Johnson. "He chooses it the rather."-Cowper. [See Obs. 7th, next page.] EXCEPTION SECOND. The indefinite article is sometimes used to give a collective meaning to an adjective of number; as, "Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis.”—Rev. "There are a thousand things which crowd into my memory."-Spectator, No. 468. [See Obs. 12th, next page.] OBSERVATIONS ON RULE I. "The [river] OBS. 1.-Articles often relate to nouns understood; as, Thames," "Pliny the younger" [man],-"The honourable [body], the Legislature," "The animal [world] and the vegetable world,"" Neither to the right [hand] nor to the left" [hand].-Bible. "He was a good man, and a just" [man]-Ib. "The pride of swains Palemon was, the generous [man], and the rich" [man].-Thomson. OBS. 2.-It is not always necessary to repeat the article before several nouns in the same construction: the same article serves sometimes to limit the signification of more than one noun; but we doubt the propriety of ever construing two articles as relating to one and the same noun. OBS. 3.-The article precedes its noun, and is never, by itself, placed after it; as, "Passion is the drunkenness of the mind."-Southey. OBS. 4.-When an adjective precedes the noun, the article is placed before the adjective, that its power may extend over that also; as, "The private path, the secret acts of men, If noble, far the noblest of their lives."-Young. |