of the noun (represented by them) in the nominative.”  I wonder what would be an impediment to the absurdities of such a dogmatist!  The following is his last example:  “‘Zeal, with discretion, do much;’ and not ‘does much;’ for we mean, on the contrary, that it does nothing.  It is the meaning that must determine which of the numbers we ought to employ.”  This author’s examples are all fictions of his own, and such of them as here have a plural verb, are wrong.  His rule is also wrong, and contrary to the best authority.  St. Paul says to Timothy, “Godliness with contentment is great gain:”—­1 Tim., vi, 6.  This text is right; but Cobbett’s principle would go to prove it erroneous.  Is he the only man who has ever had a right notion of its meaning? or is he not rather at fault in his interpretations?

OBS. 21.—­There is one other apparent exception to Rule 16th, (or perhaps a real one,) in which there is either an ellipsis of the preposition with, or else the verb is made singular because the first noun only is its true subject, and the others are explanatory nominatives to which the same verb must be understood in the plural number; as, “A torch, snuff and all, goes out in a moment, when dipped in the vapour.”—­ADDISON:  in Johnson’s Dict., w.  All.  “Down comes the tree, nest, eagles, and all.”—­See All, ibidem.  Here goes and comes are necessarily made singular, the former agreeing with torch and the latter with tree; and, if the other nouns, which are like an explanatory parenthesis, are nominatives, as they appear to me to be, they must be subjects of go and come understood.  Cobbett teaches us to say, “The bag, with the guineas and dollars in it, were stolen,” and not, was stolen.  “For,” says he, “if we say was stolen, it is possible for us to mean, that the bag only was stolen,”—­English Gram., 246.  And I suppose he would say, “The bag, guineas, dollars, and all, were stolen,” and not, “was stolen;” for here a rule of syntax might be urged, in addition to his false argument from the sense.  But the meaning of the former sentence is, “The bag was stolen, with the guineas and dollars in it;” and the meaning of the latter is, “The bag was stolen, guineas, dollars, and all.”  Nor can there be any doubt about the meaning, place the words which way you will; and whatever, in either case, may be the true construction of the words in the parenthetical or explanatory phrase, they should not, I think, prevent the verb from agreeing with the first noun only.  But if the other nouns intervene without affecting this concord, and without a preposition to govern them, it may be well to distinguish them in the punctuation; as, “The bag, (guineas, dollars, and all,) was stolen.”

NOTES TO RULE XVI.