the remark, “Active transitive participles, like their verbs, govern the objective case; as, ’I am desirous of hearing him;’ ‘Having praised them, he sat down.’”—­Hiley’s Gram., p. 93.  This is a rule by which one may parse the few objectives which are governed by participles; but, for the usual construction of participles themselves, it is no rule at all; neither does the grammar, full as it is, contain any. “Hearing” is here governed by of, and “Having praised” relates to he; but this author teaches neither of these facts, and the former he expressly contradicts by his false definition of a preposition.  In his first note, is exhibited, in two parts, the false and ill-written rule which Churchill quotes from Crombie. (1.) “When the noun, connected with the participle, is active or doing something, the participle must have an article before it, and the preposition of after it; as, ’In the hearing of the philosopher;’ or, ‘In the philosopher’s hearing;’ ’By the preaching of Christ;’ or, ‘By Christ’s preaching.’  In these instances,” says Hiley, “the words hearing and preaching are substantives.”  If so, he ought to have corrected this rule, which twice calls them participles; but, in stead of doing that, he blindly adds, by way of alternative, two examples which expressly contradict what the rule asserts. (2.) “But when the noun represents the object of an action, the article and the preposition of must be omitted; as, ’In hearing the philosopher.’”—­Ib., p. 94.  If this principle is right, my second note below, and most of the corrections under it, are wrong.  But I am persuaded that the adopters of this rule did not observe how common is the phraseology which it condemns; as, “For if the casting-away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?”—­Rom., xi, 15.  Finally, this author rejects the of which most critics insert when a possessive precedes the verbal noun; justifies and prefers the mixed or double construction of the participle; and, consequently, neither wishes nor attempts to distinguish the participle from the verbal noun.  Yet he does not fail to repeat, with some additional inaccuracy, the notion, that, “What do you think of my horse’s running? is different to [say from,] What do you think of my horse running?”—­Ib., p. 94.

OBS. 47.—­That English books in general, and the style of even our best writers, should seldom be found exempt from errors in the construction of participles, will not be thought wonderful, when we consider the multiplicity of uses to which words of this sort are put, and the strange inconsistencies into which all our grammarians have fallen in treating this part of syntax.  It is useless, and worse