OBS. 18.—­Nothing is more certain, than that the relatives, who, which, what, that, and as, are often nominatives, and the only subjects of the verbs which follow them:  as, “The Lord will show who are his, and who is holy.”—­Numbers, xvi, 5.  “Hardly is there any person, but who, on such occasions, is disposed to be serious.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 469.  “Much of the merit of Mr. Addison’s Cato depends upon that moral turn of thought which distinguishes it.”—­Ib., 469.  “Admit not a single word but what is necessary.”—­Ib., p. 313.  “The pleader must say nothing but what is true; and, at the same time, he must avoid saying any thing that will hurt his cause.”—­Ib., 313.  “I proceed to mention such as appear to me most material.”—­Ib., p. 125.  After but or than, there is sometimes an ellipsis of the relative, and perhaps also of the antecedent; as, “There is no heart but must feel them.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 469.  “There is no one but must be sensible of the extravagance.”—­Ib., p. 479.  “Since we may date from it a more general and a more concerted opposition to France than there had been before.”—­Bolingbroke, on Hist., p. 213.  That is, “than what there had been before;”—­or, “than any opposition which there had been before.”  “John has more fruit than can be gathered in a week.”—­O.  B. Peirce’s Gram., pp. 196 and 331.  I suppose this sentence to mean, “John has more fruit than what can be gathered in a week.”  But the author of it denies that it is elliptical, and seems to suppose that can be gathered agrees with John.  Part of his comment stands thus:  “The above sentence—­’John has more fruit than can be gathered in a week’—­in every respect full and perfect—­must, to be grammatical! according to all the ‘old theories,’ stand, John has more fruit than that fruit is which, or which fruit can be gathered in a week!!!”—­Ib., 331.  What shall be done with the headlong critic who thus mistakes exclamation points for arguments, and multiplies his confidence in proportion to his fallacies and errors?

OBS. 19.—­In a question, the nominative I or thou put after the verb, controls the agreement, in preference to the interrogative who, which, or what, put before it; as, “Who am I?  What am I?  Who art thou?  What art thou?” And, by analogy, this seems to be the case with all plurals; as, “Who are we?  Who are you?  Who are they?  What are these?” But sometimes the interrogative pronoun is the only nominative used; and then the verb, whether singular or plural, must agree with this nominative, in the third person, and not, as Cobbett avers, with an antecedent understood:  as, “Who is in the house? Who are in the house? Who strikes