23.  THIRD DEFINITION:—­“An Adjective is a word added to a substantive, to express its quality.”—­Lowth, Murray, Bullions, Pond, and others.  Here we have the choice of two meanings; but neither of them is according to truth.  It seems doubtful whether “its quality” is the adjective’s quality, or the substantive’s; but in either sense, the phrase is false; for an adjective is added to a noun, not to express any quality either of the adjective or of the noun, but to express some quality of the thing signified by the noun.  But the definition is too much restricted; for adjectives may be added to pronouns as well as to nouns, nor do they always express quality.

24.  FOURTH DEFINITION:—­“A Pronoun is a word used instead of a noun, to avoid the too frequent repetition of the same word.”—­Dr. Ash’s Gram., p. 25; Murray’s, 28 and 50; Felton’s, 18; Alger’s, 13; Bacon’s, 10; and others.  The latter part of this sentence is needless, and also contains several errors. 1.  The verb avoid is certainly very ill-chosen; because it implies intelligent agency, and not that which is merely instrumental. 2.  The article the is misemployed for a; for, “the too frequent repetition,” should mean some particular too frequent repetition—­an idea not intended here, and in itself not far from absurdity. 3.  The phrase, “the same word” may apply to the pronoun itself as well as to the noun:  in saying, “I came, I saw, I conquered,” there is as frequent a repetition of the same word, as in saying, “Caesar came, Caesar saw, Caesar conquered.”  If, therefore, the latter part of this definition must be retained, the whole should be written thus:  “A Pronoun is a word used in stead of a noun, to prevent too frequent a repetition of it.”

25.  FIFTH DEFINITION:—­“A Verb is a word which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer”—­Lowth, Murray, and others.  NOTE:—­“A verb may generally be distinguished by its making sense with any of the personal pronouns, or the word to before it.”—­Murray, and others.  It is confessedly difficult to give a perfect definition of a verb; and if, with Murray, we will have the participles to be verbs, there must be no small difficulty in forming one that shall be tolerable.  Against the foregoing old explanation, it may be objected, that the phrase to suffer, being now understood in a more limited sense than formerly, does not well express the nature or import of a passive verb.  I have said, “A Verb is a word that signifies to be, to act, or to be acted upon.”  Children cannot readily understand, how every thing that is in any way acted upon, may be said to suffer.  The participle, I think, should be taken as a distinct part of speech, and have its own