these, were the arguments advanced;”—­“The positions were such as appear incontrovertible;”—­“It appears that the positions were incontrovertible;” —­“That the positions were incontrovertible, is apparent;”—­“The positions were apparently incontrovertible;”—­“In appearance, the positions were incontrovertible.”—­Ibid. If to shun the expression will serve our turn, surely here are ways enough!  But to those who “pause and reflect” with the intention to decide, I would commend the following example:  “Reconciliation was offered, on conditions as moderate as were consistent with a permanent union.”—­Murray’s Key, under Rule 1.  Here Murray supposes “was” to be wrong, and accordingly changes it to “were,” by the Rule, “A verb must agree with its nominative case in number and person.”  But the amendment is a pointed rejection of Campbell’s “impersonal verb,” or verb which “has no nominative;” and if the singular is not right here, the rhetorician’s respectable authority vouches only for a catalogue of errors.  Again, if this verb must be were in order to agree with its nominative, it is still not clear that as, is, or ought to be, the nominative; because the meaning may perhaps be better expressed thus:—­“on conditions as moderate as any that were consistent with a permanent union.”

OBS. 13.—­A late writer expresses his decision of the foregoing question thus:  “Of all the different opinions on a grammatical subject, which have arisen in the literary world, there scarcely appears one more indefensible than that of supposing as follows to be an impersonal verb, and to be correctly used in such sentences as this.  ’The conditions were as follows.’  Nay, we are told that, “A few late writers have adopted this form, ‘The conditions were as follow,’ inconsiderately;” and, to prove this charge of inconsiderateness, the following sentence is brought forward:  ’I shall consider his censure [censures is the word used by Campbell and by Murray] so far only as concern my friend’s conduct.’ which should be, it is added, ‘as concerns, and not as concern.’  If analogy, simplicity, or syntactical authority, is of any value in our resolution of the sentence, ‘The conditions were as follows,’ the word as is as evident a relative as language can afford.  It is undoubtedly equivalent to that or which, and relates to its antecedent those or such understood, and should have been the nominative to the verb follow; the sentence, in its present form, being inaccurate.  The second sentence is by no means a parallel one.  The word as is a conjunction; and though it has, as a relative, a reference to its antecedent so, yet in its capacity of a mere conjunction, it cannot possibly be the nominative case to any verb.  It should be, ‘it concerns.’  Whenever as relates to an adverbial