"The three Villiers and Romilly stuck to us for some time longer, but the patience of all the founders of the Society was at last exhausted, except me 1 and Roebuck.” 2

"The remarkable beauty of the animal so attracted Coningsby's attention that it prevented him catching even a glimpse of the rider." 3

VII. Sometimes a word has no grammatical connection with the rest of the sentence.

"The property which every man has in his own labor, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable." 4

"This was the most metaphorical speech which Thomas of Gilsland was ever known to utter, the rather, perhaps (as will sometimes happen), that it did not entirely express his own sentiments, being somewhat a lover of good cheer and splendid accommodation." 5

Wrong

VIII. Mistakes are often made from neglect of the principle that the time of the action recorded tenses. in a subordinate part of the sentence is not absolute, but relative to the time of the principal clause; and that, therefore, the tense of a dependent verb is determined by its relation to the verb on which it depends.

"I expected to have found him," "I meant to have written," should be, "I expected to find him," "I meant to write; " for the finding must be posterior to the expectation, the writing to the intention to write.

Instances of errors under this rule are:

"To have prevented their depreciation, the proper course, it is affirmed, would have been to have made a valuation of all the confiscated property.” ❝

1 Is there a fault of arrangement here?

2 Mill: Autobiography, p. 128.

3 Disraeli: Coningsby, book iii. chap. i. See also p. 101.

4 Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, book i. part ii. chap. x.

5 Scott: The Talisman, chap. vii.

6 Mill: Political Economy, book iii. chap. xiii. sect. iii.

"The Prince was apprehensive that Waverley, if set at liberty, might have resumed his purpose of returning to England.” 1

"Antithesis, therefore, may on many occasions be employed to advantage, in order to strengthen the impression which we intend that any object should make.” 2

"If a change of administration is produced by the first movements of the House of Commons, as I think it probably will,3 and I refuse to take office, - or if, having been present at first, I went

away, - the attack upon me would be just the same." 4

"And the persons who, at one period of their life,5 might take chief pleasure in such narrations, at another may be brought into a temper of high tone and acute sensibility.'

A general proposition, however, into which the notion of time does not enter, should usually be in the present tense, whatever the tense of the verb on which it depends. The following is, therefore, wrong: —

"It is confidently reported that two young gentlemen . . . have made a discovery that there was no God."7

Will and

shall.

IX. A person who has not been trained to make the proper distinctions between will and shall, would and should, never can be sure of using them correctly; but he will make few mistakes if he fixes firmly in his mind that I shall, you will, he will, are the forms of the future, and that I will, you shall, he shall, imply the exercise of volition.

The remark attributed to a foreigner, "I will be drowned; nobody shall help me," is a good example (whether real or invented) of the misuse of the italicized words.

"We will be smothered together”

the reported cry of an affec

tionate wife at a recent fire in a Western city-is ungrammatical,

1 Scott: Waverley, vol. ii. chap. xxix.

2 Blair: Rhetoric, lect. xvii.

8 See p. 36.

4 Earl Spencer, in a letter to Lord Holland: Life of Lord Althorp, p. 536. 5 Query as to "their life."

6 Ruskin: Modern Painters, vol. iv. part v. chap. xix. See also p. 102. 7 Swift: An Argument against Abolishing Christianity.

unless it be supposed that the speaker wished to be smothered with her husband.

In the following sentences, the auxiliaries are correctly distinguished:

“I shall supply you with money now, and I will furnish you with a reasonable sum from time to time, on your application to me by letter." 1

"If, indeed, the persecuted sects in Russia were driven into rebellion, a large share of the responsibility would be ours, and we should be guilty of an unjust and immoral act." 2

The following are instances of incorrect usage:

"But I think we will beat them all." 3

"I would not have wanted help, if the place had not been destroyed." 4

"I would be false, if I did not say," &c.5

"I think we will have a thunder shower."

"Often a young man does not go to college, because he is afraid that he will be raised above his business."

"As long as they continue to shun such a life, so long will we continue to have corruption and misery."

"Let the educated men consent to hold office, and we will find that in a few years there will be a great change in politics.”

“If we look at learning and civilization in a large way, we will find that they have always kept abreast, or nearly so."

The following admirable statement and illustration of the true distinction between these auxiliaries is from Sir E. W. Head's little work on "Shall and Will":

=

"Will in the first person expresses (a) a resolution or (b) a promise. (a) 'I will not go' It is my resolution not to go. (b) 'I will give it you'

=

I promise to give it you.

Will in the second person foretells: "If you come at twelve o'clock, you will find me at home."

1 George Eliot: Middlemarch, book vii. chap. lxviii.

2 The Duke of Argyll, in The Contemporary Review.

8 George Ticknor: Life; Letter to Lyell, vol. ii. chap. xi. (1843.)

4 A recent novel of Irish life.

5 A recent English novel.

So too: "If he comes, he will," etc.

Will in the second person, in questions, anticipates (a) a wish, or (b) an intention.

(a) (b) ' Will you go to-morrow?' Is it your wish or intention to go to-morrow?

Will in the third person foretells, generally implying an intention at the same time, when the nominative is a rational creature.

'He will come to-morrow,' signifies (a) what is to take place, and (b) that it is the intention of the person mentioned to come.1

‘I think it will snow to-day,' intimates what is, probably, to take place.

Will must never be used in questions with nominative cases of the first person:

• Will we come to-morrow?' Is it our intention or desire to come to-morrow? which is an absurd question.

Would is subject to the same rules as will.

Would followed by that is frequently used (the nominative being expressed or understood) to express a wish:

'Would that he had died before this disgrace befell him ' wish that he had died before this disgrace befell him.

=

Would have, followed by an infinitive, signifies a desire to do or nake:

'I would have you think of these things' hink of these things.

Would is often used to express a custom : 'He would often talk about these things'

talk of these things.

I wish to make you

It was his custom to

Shall in the first person foretells, simply expressing what is to take place:

'I shall go to-morrow.' Obs. No intention or desire is expressed by shall.

Shall in the first person, in questions, asks permission:

'Shall I read?' = Do you wish me, or will you permit me, to read? Shall in the second and third persons expresses (a) a promise, (b) a command, or (c) a threat:

(a) 'You shall have these books to-morrow = I promise to let you have these books to-morrow.

(b) 'Thou shalt not steal' I command thee not to steal.

(a) (c) 'He shall be punished for this' = I threaten or promise to punish him for this offence.

1 So too: "You will come to-morrow."

Should is subject to the same rules as shall.

Should frequently expresses duty:

'You should not do so "

It is your duty not to do so.

Should often signifies a plan:

'I should not do so = It would not be my plan to do so. Should often expresses a supposition :

'Should they not agree to the proposals, what must I do' = Suppose that it happen that they will not agree to the proposals."

Incorrect use

X. Participles should grammatically refer to the noun to which they refer in sense. They are misof participles. used when made to refer to a noun which is either not in the sentence at all, or is in it in an obscure position.

Approaching1 nearer and nearer yet, this halo began to fade, and the causes which produced it slowly to develop themselves." 2

"The dispatch contained a proposition to Mr. Phoebus to repair to the court of St. Petersburg, and accept appointments of high distinction and emolument. Without in any way restricting the independent pursuit of his profession, he was offered a large salary." 3

Foreseeing from the first this double set of consequences from the success or failure of the Rebellion, it may be imagined with what feelings I contemplated the rush of nearly the whole upper and middle classes of my own country, even those who passed for Liberals, into a furious pro-Southern partisanship." 4

"Thus prepared, it will easily be believed that when I came into close intellectual communion with a person of the most eminent faculties, whose genius, as it grew and unfolded itself in thought, continually struck out truths far in advance of me, but in which I could not, as I had done in those others, detect any mixture of error, the greatest part of my mental growth consisted in the assimilation of those truths; and the most valuable part of my intellectual work was in building the bridges and clearing the paths which connected them with my general system of thought." 5

1 The context shows that it was Gabriel Varden who was approaching.

2 Dickens: Barnaby Rudge, chap. iii.

4 Mill: Autobiography, chap. vii.

Disraeli: Lothair, chap. lxxv.

5 Ibid. As a whole, the sentence is open to criticism.