“Nouns or pronouns, following the verb to be; or the words than, but, as; or that answer the question who? have the same case after as preceded them.”—­Beck’s Gram., p. 29.  “The common gender is when the noun may be either masculine or feminine.”—­Frost’s Gram., p. 8.  “The possessive is generally pronounced the same as if the s were added.”—­Alden’s Gram., p. 11.  “For, assuredly, as soon as men had got beyond simple interjections, and began to communicate themselves by discourse, they would be under a necessity of assigning names to the objects they saw around them, which in grammatical language, is called the invention of substantive nouns.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 72.  “Young children will learn to form letters as soon, if not readier, than they will when older.”—­Taylor’s District School, p. 159.  “This comparing words with one another, constitutes what is called the degrees of comparison.”—­Sanborn’s Gram., p. 29.  “Whenever a noun is immediately annexed to a preceding neuter verb, it expresses either the same notion with the verb, or denotes only the circumstance of the action."—­Lowth’s Gram., p. 73.  “Two or more nouns or pronouns joined singular together by the conjunction and, must have verbs agreeing with them in the plural number.”—­Infant School Gram., p. 129.  “Possessive and demonstrative pronouns agree with their nouns in number and case; as, ’my brother,’ ’this slate, ‘these slates.’”—­Ib., p. 130.  “Participles which have no relation to time are used either as adjectives or as substantives.”—­Maunder’s Gram., p. 1.  “They are in use only in some of their times and modes; and in some of them are a composition of times of several defective verbs, having the same signification.”—­Lowth’s Gram., p. 59.  “When words of the possessive case that are in apposition, follow one another in quick succession, the possessive sign should be annexed to the last only, and understood to the rest; as, ’For David, my servant’s sake.’”—­Comly’s Gram., p. 92. “By this order, the first nine rules accord with those which respect the rules of concord; and the remainder include, though they extend beyond the rules of government.”—­Murray’s Gram., p. 143. “Own and self, in the plural selves, are joined to the possessives, my, our, thy, your, his, her, their; as, my own hand, myself, yourselves; both of them expressing emphasis or opposition, as, ‘I did it my own self,’ that is, and no one else; the latter also forming the reciprocal pronoun, as, ’he hurt himself.’”—­Lowth’s Gram., p. 25.  “A flowing copious style, therefore, is required in all public