6.  To a participle; as, “Still threatening to devour me.”—­Milton.  “Or as a thief bent to unhoard the cash of some rich burgher.”—­Id.

7.  To an adverb; as, “She is old enough to go to school.”—­“I know not how to act.”—­Nutting’s Gram., p. 106.  “Tell me when to come, and where to meet you.”—­“He hath not where to lay his head.”

8.  To a conjunction; as, “He knows better than to trust you.”—­“It was so hot as to melt these ornaments.”—­“Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.”—­Dr. Johnson.

9.  To a preposition; as, “I was about to write.”—­Rev., x, 4.  “Not for to hide it in a hedge.”—­Burns’s Poems, p. 42.  “Amatum iri, To be about to be loved.”—­Adam’s Gram., p. 95.[412]

10.  To an interjection; as, “O to forget her!”—­Young’s Night Thoughts.

OBS. 25.—­The infinitive is the mere verb, without affirmation, without person or number, and therefore without the agreement peculiar to a finite verb. (See Obs. 8th on Rule 2d.) But, in most instances, it is not without limitation of the being, action, or passion, to some particular person or persons, thing or things, that are said, supposed, or denied, to be, to act, or to be acted upon.  Whenever it is not thus limited, it is taken abstractly, and has some resemblance to a noun:  because it then suggests the being, action, or passion alone:  though, even then, the active infinitive may still govern the objective case; and it may also be easy to imagine to whom or to what the being, action, or passion, naturally pertains.  The uses of the infinitive are so many and various, that it is no easy matter to classify them accurately.  The following are unquestionably the chief of the things for which it may stand: 

1.  For the supplement to an other verb, to complete the sense; as, “Loose him, and let him go.”—­John, xi, 44.  “They that go to seek mixed wine.”—­Prov., xxiii, 30.  “His hands refuse to labour.”—­Ib., xxi, 25.  “If you choose to have those terms.”—­Tooke’s D. P., ii, 374.  “How our old translators first struggled to express this.”—­Ib., ii, 456.  “To any one who will please to examine our language.”—­Ib., ii, 444.  “They are forced to give up at last.”—­Ib., ii, 375.  “Which ought to be done.”—­Ib., ii, 451.  “Which came to pass.”—­Acts, xi, 28.  “I dare engage to make it out.”—­Swift.

2.  For the purpose, or end, of that to which it is added; as, “Each has employed his time and pains to establish a criterion.”—­Tooke’s D. P., ii, 374.  “I shall not stop now, to assist in their elucidation.”—­Ib., ii, 75.  “Our purposes are not endowed with words to make them known.”—­Ib., ii, 74. [A] “TOOL is some instrument taken up to work with.”—­Ib., ii, 145.  “Labour not to be rich.”—­Prov., xxiii, 4.  “I flee unto thee to hide me.”—­Ps., cxliii, 9.  “Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him.”—­Ib., cxl, 11.