“If God have required them of him, as is the fact, he has time.”—­Ib., p. 351.  “Unless a previous understanding to the contrary have been had with the Principal.”—­Berrian’s Circular, p. 5.  “O if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave.”—­Milton’s Comus, l. 239.  “O if Jove’s will Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay.”—­Milton, Sonnet 1.  “SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD:  If thou love, If thou loved, If thou have loved, If thou had loved, If thou shall or will love, If thou shall or will have loved.”—­L.  Murray’s Gram., 2d Ed., p. 71; Cooper’s Murray, 58; D.  Adams’s Gram., 48; and others.  “Till religion, the pilot of the soul, have lent thee her unfathomable coil.”—­Tupper’s Thoughts, p. 170.  “Whether nature or art contribute most to form an orator, is a trifling inquiry.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 338.  “Year after year steals something from us; till the decaying fabric totter of itself, and crumble at length into dust.”—­Murray’s Key, 8vo, p. 225.  “If spiritual pride have not entirely vanquished humility.”—­West’s Letters, p. 184.  “Whether he have gored a son, or have gored a daughter.”—­Exodus, xxi, 31.  “It is doubtful whether the object introduced by way of simile, relate to what goes before, or to what follows.”—­Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 45.

   “And bridle in thy headlong wave,
    Till thou our summons answer’d have.”—­Milt., Comus, l. 887.

RULE XV.—­FINITE VERBS.

When the nominative is a collective noun conveying the idea of plurality, the Verb must agree with it in the plural number:  as, “The council were divided.”—­“The college of cardinals are the electors of the pope.”—­Murray’s Key, p. 176.  “Quintus Curtius relates, that a number of them were drowned in the river Lycus.”—­Home’s Art of Thinking, p. 125.

   “Yon host come learn’d in academic rules.”
        —­Rowe’s Lucan, vii, 401.

    “While heaven’s high host on hallelujahs live.”
        —­Young’s N. Th., iv, 378.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XV.

OBS. 1.—­To this rule there are no exceptions; because, the collective noun being a name which even in the singular number “signifies many,” the verb which agrees with it, can never properly be singular, unless the collection be taken literally as one aggregate, and not as “conveying the idea of plurality.”  Thus, the collective noun singular being in general susceptible of two senses, and consequently admitting two modes of concord, the form of the verb, whether singular or plural, becomes the principal index to the particular sense in which the nominative is taken.  After such a noun, we can use either a singular verb, agreeing with it literally, strictly, formally, according to Rule 14th; as, “The