Under this name have been arranged, by the grammarians and rhetoricians, many different forms of unusual or irregular agreement; some of which are quite too unlike to be embraced in the same class, and not a few, perhaps, too unimportant or too ordinary to deserve any classification as figures.  I therefore omit some forms of expression which others have treated as examples of Syllepsis, and define the term with reference to such as seem more worthy to be noticed as deviations from the ordinary construction of words.  Dr. Webster, allowing the word two meanings, explains it thus:  “SYLLEPSIS, n. [Gr. syllaepsis.] 1.  In grammar, a figure by which we conceive the sense of words otherwise than the words import, and construe them according to the intention of the author; otherwise called substitution.[480] 2.  The agreement of a verb or adjective, not with the word next to it, but with the most worthy in the sentence.”—­American Dict.

OBS. 2.—­In short, Syllepsis is a conception of which grammarians have conceived so variously, that it has become doubtful, what definition or what application of the term is now the most appropriate.  Dr. Prat, in defining it, cites one notion from Sanctius, and adds an other of his own, thus:  “SYLLEPSIS, id est, Conceptio, est quoties Generibus, aut Numeris videntur voces discrepare.  Sanct. l. 4. c. 10.  Vel sit Comprehensio indignioris sub digniore.”—­Prat’s Lat.  Gram., Part ii, p. 164.  John Grant ranks it as a mere form or species of Ellipsis, and expounds it thus:  “Syllepsis is when the adjective or verb, joined to different substantives, agrees with the more worthy.”—­Institutes of Lat.  Gram., p. 321.  Dr. Littleton describes it thus:  “SYLLLEPSIS [sic—­KTH],—­A Grammatical figure where two Nominative Cases singular of different persons are joined to a Verb plural.”—­Latin Dict., 4to.  By Dr. Morell it is explained as follows:  “SYLLEPSIS,—­A grammatical figure, where one is put for many, and many for one, Lat. Conceptio.”—­Morell’s Ainsworth’s Dict., 4to, Index Vitand.  IV. Enallage is the use of one part of speech, or of one modification, for an other.  This figure borders closely upon solecism; and, for the stability of the language, it should be sparingly indulged.  There are, however, several forms of it which can appeal to good authority:  as,

1. “You know that you are Brutus, that say this.”—­Shak.

2.  “They fall successive[ly], and successive[ly] rise.”—­Pope.

3.  “Than whom [who] a fiend more fell is nowhere found.”—­Thomson.

4.  “Sure some disaster has befell” [befallen].—­Gay.

5.  “So furious was that onset’s shock,
    Destruction’s gates at once unlock” [unlocked].—­Hogg.

OBSERVATIONS.