The Grammar of English Grammars. Goold Brown
p. 145.
"The wisest nations, having the most and best ideas, will consequently have the best and most copious languages."—Harris's Hermes, p. 408.
"Here we trace the operation of powerful causes, while we remain ignorant of their nature; but everything goes on with such regularity and harmony, as to give a striking and convincing proof of a combining directing intelligence."—Life of W. Allen, Vol. i, p. 170.
"The wisest, unexperienced, will be ever
Timorous and loth, with novice modesty,
Irresolute, unhardy, unadventurous."—Milton.
IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.
ERRORS OF ADJECTIVES.
LESSON I.—DEGREES.
"I have the real excuse of the honestest sort of bankrupts."—Cowley's Preface, p. viii.
[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the adjective honestest is harshly compared by est. But, according to a principle stated on page 283d concerning the regular degrees, "This method of comparison is to be applied only to monosyllables, and to dissyllables of a smooth termination, or such as receive it and still have but one syllable after the accent." Therefore, honestest should be most honest; thus, "I have real excuse of the most honest sort of bankrupts."]
"The honourablest part of talk, is, to give the occasion."—Bacon's Essays, p. 90. "To give him one of his own modestest proverbs."—Barclay's Works, iii, 340. "Our language is now certainly properer and more natural, than it was formerly."—Bp. Burnet. "Which will be of most and frequentest use to him in the world."—Locke, on Education, p. 163. "The same is notified in the notablest places in the diocese."—Whitgift. "But it was the dreadfullest sight that ever I saw."—Pilgrim's Progress, p. 70. "Four of the ancientest, soberest, and discreetest of the brethren, chosen for the occasion, shall regulate it."—Locke, on Church Gov. "Nor can there be any clear understanding of any Roman author, especially of ancienter time, without this skill."—Walker's Particles, p. x. "Far the learnedest of the Greeks."—Ib., p. 120. "The learneder thou art, the humbler be thou."—Ib., p. 228. "He is none of the best or honestest."—Ib., p. 274. "The properest methods of communicating it to others."—Burn's Gram., Prof, p. viii. "What heaven's great King hath powerfullest to send against us."—Paradise Lost. "Benedict is not the unhopefullest husband that I know."—SHAK.: in Joh. Dict. "That he should immediately do all the meanest and triflingest things himself."—RAY: in Johnson's Gram., p. 6. "I shall be named among the famousest of women."—MILTON'S Samson Agonistes: ib. "Those have the inventivest heads for all purposes."—ASCHAM: ib. "The wretcheder are the contemners of all helps."—BEN JONSON: ib. "I will now deliver a few of the properest and naturallest considerations that belong to this piece."—WOTTON: ib. "The mortalest poisons practised by the West Indians, have some mixture of the blood, fat, or flesh of man."—BACON: ib. "He so won upon him, that he rendered him one of the faithfulest and most affectionate allies the Medes ever had."—Rollin, ii, 71. "'You see before you,' says he to him, 'the most devoted servant, and the faithfullest ally, you ever had.'"—Ib., ii, 79. "I chose the flourishing'st tree in all the park."—Cowley. "Which he placed, I think, some centuries backwarder than Julius Africanus thought fit to place it afterwards."—Bolingbroke, on History, p. 53. "The Tiber, the notedest river of Italy."—Littleton's Dict.
"To fartherest shores the ambrosial spirit flies."
—Cutler's Gram., p. 140.
——"That what she wills to do or say,
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best."
—Milton, B. viii, l. 550.
LESSON II.—MIXED.
"During the three or four first years of its existence."—Taylor's District School, p. 27.
[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the cardinal numbers, three and four are put before the ordinal first. But, according to the 7th part of Obs. 7th, page 280th, "In specifying any part of a series, we ought to place the cardinal number after the ordinal." Therefore the words three and four should be placed after first; thus, "During the first three or four years of its existence."]
"To the first of these divisions, my ten last lectures have been devoted."—Adams's Rhet., Vol. i, p. 391. "There are in the twenty-four states not less than sixty thousand common schools."—Taylor's District School, p. 38. "I know of nothing which gives teachers so much trouble as this want of firmness."—Ib., p. 57. "I know of nothing that throws such darkness over the line which separates right from wrong."—Ib., p. 58. "None need this purity and simplicity of language and thought so much as the common school instructor."—Ib., p. 64. "I know of no periodical that is so valuable to the teacher as the Annals of Education."—Ib., p. 67. "Are not these schools of the highest importance? Should not every individual feel the deepest interest in their character and condition?"—Ib., p. 78. "If instruction were made a profession, teachers would feel a sympathy for each other."—Ib., p. 93. "Nothing is so likely to interest children as novelty and change."—Ib., p. 131. "I know of no labour which affords so much happiness as that of the teacher's."—Ib., p. 136. "Their school exercises are the most pleasant and agreeable of any that they engage in."—Ib., p. 136. "I know of no exercise so beneficial to the pupil as that of drawing maps."—Ib., p. 176. "I know of nothing in which our district schools are so defective as they are in the art of teaching grammar."—Ib., p. 196. "I know of nothing so easily acquired as history."—Ib. p. 206. "I know of nothing for which scholars usually have such an abhorrence, as composition."—Ib., p. 210. "There is nothing in our fellow-men that we should respect with so much sacredness as their good name."—Ib., p. 307. "Sure never any thing was so unbred as that odious man."—CONGREVE: in Joh. Dict. "In the dialogue between the mariner and the shade of the deceast."—Philological Museum, i, 466. "These master-works would still be less excellent and finisht"—Ib., i, 469. "Every attempt to staylace the language of polisht conversation, renders our phraseology inelegant and clumsy."—Ib., i, 678. "Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words that ever blotted paper."—SHAK.: in Joh. Dict. "With the most easy, undisobliging transitions."—BROOME: ib. "Fear is, of all affections, the unaptest to admit any conference with reason."—HOOKER: ib. "Most chymists think glass a body more undestroyable than gold itself."—BOYLE: ib. "To part with unhackt edges, and bear back our barge undinted."—SHAK.: ib. "Erasmus, who was an unbigotted Roman Catholic, was transported with this passage."—ADDISON: ib. "There are no less than five words, with any of which the sentence might have terminated."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 397. "The one preach Christ of contention; but the other, of love."—Philippians, i, 16. "Hence we find less discontent and heart-burnings, than where the subjects are unequally burdened."—Art of Thinking, p. 56.
"The serpent, subtil'st beast of all the field,
I knew; but not with human voice indu'd."
—MILTON: Joh. Dict., w. Human.
"How much more grievous would our lives appear,
To reach th' eighth hundred, than the eightieth year?"
—DENHAM: B. P., ii, 244.
LESSON III.—MIXED.
"Brutus engaged with Aruns; and so fierce was the attack, that they pierced one another at the same time."—Lempriere's Dict.
[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the phrase one another is here applied to two persons only, the words an and other being needlessly compounded. But, according to Observation 15th, on the Classes of Adjectives, each other must be applied to two persons or things, and one an other to more