[106] Where the word “See” accompanies the reference, the reader may generally understand that the citation, whether right or wrong in regard to grammar, is not in all respects exactly as it will be found in the place referred to.  Cases of this kind, however, will occur but seldom; and it is hoped the reasons for admitting a few, will be sufficiently obvious.  Brevity is indispensable; and some rules are so generally known and observed, that one might search long for half a dozen examples of their undesigned violation.  Wherever an error is made intentionally in the Exercises, the true reading and reference are to be expected in the Key.

[107] “Et irritaverunt ascendentes in mare, Mare rubrum.”—­Latin Vulgate, folio, Psal. cv, 7.  This, I think, should have been “Mare Rubrum,” with two capitals.—­G.  BROWN.

[108] The printers, from the manner in which they place their types before them, call the small letters “lower-case letters,” or “letters of the lower case.”

[109] I imagine that “plagues” should here be plague, in the singular number, and not plural.  “Ero more ius, o mors; morsus tuus ero, inferne.”—­Vulgate. “[Greek:  Pou hae dikae sou, thanate; pou to kentron sou, aidae;]”—­Septuagint, ibid.

[110] It is hoped that not many persons will be so much puzzled as are Dr. Latham and Professor Fowler, about the application of this rule.  In their recent works on The English Language, these gentlemen say, “In certain words of more than one syllable, it is difficult to say to which syllable the intervening Consonant belongs.  For instance, does the v in river and the v in fever belong to the first or to the second syllable?  Are the words to be divided thus, ri-ver, fe-ver? or thus, riv-er, fev-er?”—­Fowler’s E. Gram., 1850, Sec.85; Latham’s Hand-Book, p. 95.  Now I suppose it plain, that, by the rule given above, fever is to be divided in the former way, and river in the latter; thus, fe-ver, riv-er.  But this paragraph of Latham’s or Fowler’s is written, not to disembarrass the learner, but just as if it were a grammarian’s business to confound his readers with fictitious dilemmas—­and those expressed ungrammatically!  Of the two Vees, so illogically associated in one question, and so solecistically spoken of by the singular verb “does,” one belongs to the former syllable, and the other, to the latter; nor do I discover that “it is difficult to say” this, or to be well assured that it is right.  What an admirable passage for one great linguist to steal from an other!

[111] “The usual rules for dividing [words into] syllables, are not only arbitrary but false and absurd.  They contradict the very definition of a syllable given by the authors themselves. * * * * A syllable in pronunciation is an indivisible thing; and strange as it may appear, what is indivisible in utterance is divided in writing:  when the very purpose of dividing words into syllables in writing, is to lead the learner to a just pronunciation.”—­Webster’s Improved Gram., p. 156; Philosophical Gram., 221.