OBS. 5.—­When the speaker changes his nominative to take a stronger expression, he commonly uses no conjunction; but, putting the verb in agreement with the noun which is next to it, he leaves the other to an implied concord with its proper form of the same verb:  as, “The man whose designs, whose whole conduct, tends to reduce me to subjection, that man is at war with me, though not a blow has yet been given, nor a sword drawn.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 265.  “All Greece, all the barbarian world, is too narrow for this man’s ambition.”—­Ibid. “This self-command, this exertion of reason in the midst of passion, has a wonderful effect both to please and to persuade.”—­Ib., p. 260.  “In the mutual influence of body and soul, there is a wisdom, a wonderful wisdom, which we cannot fathom.”—­Murray’s Gram., Vol. i, p. 150.  If the principle here stated is just, Murray has written the following models erroneously:  “Virtue, honour, nay, even self-interest, conspire to recommend the measure.”—­Ib., p. 150.  “Patriotism, morality, every public and private consideration, demand our submission to just and lawful government.”—­Ibid. In this latter instance, I should prefer the singular verb demands; and in the former, the expression ought to be otherwise altered, thus.  “Virtue, honour, and interest, all conspire to recommend the measure.”  Or thus:  “Virtue, honour—­nay, even self-interest, recommends the measure.”  On this principle, too, Thomson was right, and this critic wrong, in the example cited at the close of the first observation above.  This construction is again recurred to by Murray, in the second chapter of his Exercises; where he explicitly condemns the following sentence because the verb is singular:  “Prudence, policy, nay, his own true interest, strongly recommends the line of conduct proposed to him.”—­Octavo Gram., Vol. ii, p. 22.

OBS. 6.—­When two or more nominatives are in apposition with a preceding one which they explain, the verb must agree with the first word only, because the others are adjuncts to this, and not joint subjects to the verb; as, “Loudd, the ancient Lydda and Diospolis, appears like a place lately ravaged by fire and sword.”—­Keith’s Evidences, p. 93.  “Beattie, James,—­a philosopher and poet,—­was born in Scotland, in the year 1735.”—­Murray’s Sequel, p. 306.  “For, the quantity, the length, and shortness of our syllables, is not, by any means, so fixed.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 124.  This principle, like the preceding one, persuades me again to dissent from Murray, who corrects or perverts the following sentence, by changing originates to originate:  “All that makes a figure on the great theatre of the world; the employments of the busy, the enterprises of the ambitious, and the exploits of the warlike;