OBS. 1.—­To this rule, I incline to think, there are properly no other exceptions than the first two above; or, at least, that we ought to avoid, when we can, any additional anomalies.  Yet, not to condemn with unbecoming positiveness what others receive for good English, I have subjoined two items more, which include certain other irregularities now very common, that, when examples of a like form occur, the reader may parse them as exceptions, if he does not choose to censure them as errors.  The mixed construction in which participles are made to govern the possessive case, has already been largely considered in the observations on Rule 4th.  Murray, Allen, Churchill, and many other grammarians, great and small, admit that participles may be made the subjects or the objects of verbs, while they retain the nature, government, and adjuncts, of participles; as, “Not attending to this rule, is the cause of a very common error.”—­Murray’s Key, 8vo, p. 200; Comly’s Gram., 188; Weld’s Gram., 2d Ed., 170. “Polite is employed to signify their being highly civilized.’”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 219.  “One abhors being in debt.”—­Ib., p. 98; Jamieson’s Rhet., 71; Murray’s Gram., 144.  “Who affected being a fine gentleman so unmercifully.”—­Spect., No. 496.  “The minister’s being attached to the project, prolonged their debate.”—­Nixon’s Parser, p. 78.  “It finds [i.e., the mind finds,] that acting thus would gratify one passion; not acting, or acting otherwise, would gratify another.”—­Campbell’s Rhet., p. 109.  “But further, cavilling and objecting upon any subject is much easier than clearing up difficulties.”—­Bp.  Butler’s Charge to the Clergy of Durham, 1751.

OBS. 2.—­W.  Allen observes, “The use of the participle as a nominative, is one of the peculiarities of our language.”—­Elements of Gram., p. 171.  He might have added, that the use of the participle as an objective governed by a verb, as a nominative after a verb neuter, or as a word governing the possessive, is also one of the peculiarities of our language, or at least an idiom adopted by no few of its recent writers.  But whether any one of these four modern departures from General Grammar ought to be countenanced by us, as an idiom that is either elegant or advantageous, I very much doubt.  They are all however sufficiently common in the style of reputable authors; and, however questionable their character, some of our grammarians seem mightily attached to them all.  It becomes me therefore to object with submission.  These mixed and irregular constructions of the participle, ought, in my opinion, to be generally condemned as false syntax; and for this simple reason, that the ideas conveyed by them may generally, if not always, be expressed more briefly, and more elegantly,