OBS. 6.—­Against this remark of Murray’s, a good argument may be drawn from the ridiculous use which has been made of his own suggestion in the other place.  For, though that suggestion never had in it the least shadow of truth, and was never at all applicable either to the three interjections, or to pronouns, or to cases, or to the persons, or to any thing else of which it speaks, it has not only been often copied literally, and called a “RULE” of syntax, but many have, yet more absurdly, made it a general canon which imposes on all interjections a syntax that belongs to none of them.  For example:  “An interjection must be followed by the objective case of a pronoun in the first person; and by a nominative of the second person; as—­Oh me! ah me! oh thou!  AH hail, ye happy men!”—­Jaudon’s Gram., p. 116.  This is as much as to say, that every interjection must have a pronoun or two after it!  Again:  “Interjections must be followed by the objective case of the pronoun in the first person; as, O me! Ah me! and by the nominative case of the second person; as, O thou persecutor!  Oh ye hypocrites!”—­Merchant’s Murray, p. 80; Merchant’s School Gram., p. 99.  I imagine there is a difference between O and oh,[440] and that this author, as well as Murray, in the first and the last of these examples, has misapplied them both.  Again:  “Interjections require the objective case of a pronoun of the first person, and the nominative case of the second; as, Ah me!  O thou”—­Frost’s El. of E. Gram., p. 48.  This, too, is general, but equivocal; as if one case or both were necessary to each interjection!

OBS. 7.—­Of nouns, or of the third person, the three rules last cited say nothing;[441] though it appears from other evidence, that their authors supposed them applicable at least to some nouns of the second person.  The supposition however was quite needless, because each of their grammars contains an other Rule, that, “When an address is made, the noun or pronoun is in the nominative case independent;” which, by the by, is far from being universally true, either of the noun or of the pronoun.  Russell imagines, “The words depending upon interjections, have so near a resemblance to those in a direct address, that they may very properly be classed under the same general head,” and be parsed as being, “in the nominative case independent.”  See his “Abridgment of Murray’s Grammar,” p. 91.  He does not perceive that depending and independent are words that contradict each other.  Into the same inconsistency, do nearly all those gentlemen fall, who ascribe to interjections a control over cases.  Even Kirkham, who so earnestly contends that what any words require after them they must necessarily govern, forgets his whole argument, or justly disbelieves it, whenever