Virtue is the surest road to happiness. 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 nothingeternity is before me, for which I also should prepare.-Hawkesworth. The Lord of all, himself through all diffused, Whose cause is God.-Cowper. 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 myself 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, To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, 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. Thy Hector, wrapp'd in everlasting sleep, Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound; 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 people, Appius alone protesting against the measure. Fathers! Senators of Rome! the arbiters of nations! to you I fly for refuge.-Tr. 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. Hail! mildly pleasing Solitude, All this dread order break-for whom? for thee? 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. RULES OF SYNTAX. WITH EXAMPLES, EXCEPTIONS, OBSERVATIONS, NOTES, AND FALSE SYNTAX. 1. RELATION AND AGREEMENT. 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. Articles relate to the nouns which they limit: as, "At 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, below.] 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. OBS. 1.-Articles often relate to nouns understood; as, "The [river] 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 be fore 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. Except the adjectives all, such, many, what, both, and those which are preceded by the adverbs too, so, as, or how; as, “All the materials were bought at too dear a rate."-" Like many an other poor wretch, I now suffer all the ili consequences of so foolish an indulgence." OBS. 5.-When the adjective is placed after the noun, the article generally retains its place before the noun, and is not repeated before the adjective; as, "A man ignorant of astronomy". "The primrose pale." In Greek, when an adjective is placed after its noun, if the article is prefixed to the noun, it is repeated before the adjective; as, 'H móλis ʼn psyán, The city the great; i. e. The great city. OBS. 6.-Articles, according to their own definition, belong before their nouns; but the definite article and an adjective seem sometimes to be placed after the noun to which they both relate: as, "Section the fourth”-“ Henry the Eighth." Such examples, however, may be supposed elliptical; and, if they are so, the article, in English, can never be placed after its noun, nor can two articles ever properly relate to one noun, in any particular construction of it. OBS. 7.-The definite article is often prefixed to comparatives and su perlatives; and its effect is, as Murray observes, (in the words of Lowth,) "to mark the degree the more strongly, and to define it the more precisely:" as, "The oftener I see him, the more I respect him."-"A con stitution the most fit"-"A claim, the strongest, and the most easily comprehended "The men the most difficult to be replaced." In these instances, the article seems to be used adverbially, and to relate only to the adjective or adverb following it; but after the adjective, the noun may be supplied. OBS. 8.-The article the is applied to nouns of both numbers; as, The man, the men-The good boy, the good boys. OBS. 9.-The article the is generally prefixed to adjectives that are used, by ellipsis, as nouns; as, "The great, the gay, shall they partake The heav'n that thou alone canst make ?"-Cowper. OBS. 10.-The article the is sometimes elegantly used in stead of a possessive pronoun; as, "Men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. -Rom. xi. 4. OBS. 11.-An or a implies one, and belongs to nouns of the singular number only; as, A man, a good boy. OBS. 12.-An or a is sometimes put before an adjective of number, when the noun following is plural; as, "A few days" ""A hundred sheep""There are a great many adjectives."-Dr. Adam. In these cases, the article seems to relate only to the adjective. Some grammarians however call these words of number nouns, and suppose an ellipsis of the preposition of Murray and many others call them adjectives, and suppose a peculiarity of construction in the article. OBS. 13.-An or a has sometimes the import of each or every; as, "He came twice a year." The article in this sense with a preposition understood, is preferable to the mercantile per, so frequently used; as, "Fifty cents [for] a bushel"-rather than " per bushel." OBS. 14.-A, as prefixed to participles in ing, or used in composition, is a preposition; being, probably, the French a, signifying to, at, on, in, or of; as, "They burst out a laughing."-M. Edgeworth. "He is gone a hunting."""She lies a-bed all day.' "He stays out a-nights." "They ride out a-Sundays." Shakspeare often uses the prefix a, and sometimes in a manner peculiar to himself; as, "Tom's a cold"-", a weary." OBS. 15.-An is sometimes a conjunction, signifying, if; as, NOTES TO RULE I. NOTE I. When the indefinite article is required, a should always be used before the sound of a consonant, and an, before that of a vowel; as, "With the talents of an angel, a man may be a fool."-Young. OBS.—An was formerly used before all words beginning with h, and before several other words which are now pronounced in such a manner as to require a thus, we read in the Bible, "An house--an hundred--an onean ewer-an usurer." NOTE II.-When nouns are joined in construction, without a close connexion and common dependence, the article must be repeated. The following sentence is therefore inaccurate : "She never considered the quality, but merit of her visitors."Wm. Penn. The should be inserted before merit. NOTE III.-When adjectives are connected, and the qualities belong to things individually different, though of the same |