OBS. 5.—­For the true doctrine of three cases, we have the authority of Murray, in his later editions; of Webster, in his “Plain and Comp.  Grammar, grounded on True Principles,” 1790; also in his “Rudiments of English Grammar,” 1811; together with the united authority of Adams, Ainsworth, Alden, Alger, Bacon, Barnard, Bingham, Burr, Bullions, Butler, Churchill, Chandler, Cobbett, Cobbin, Comly, Cooper, Crombie, Davenport, Davis, Fisk, A. Flint, Frost, Guy, Hart, Hiley, Hull, Ingersoll, Jaudon, Kirkham, Lennie, Mack, M’Culloch, Maunder, Merchant, Nixon, Nutting, John Peirce, Perley, Picket, Russell, Smart, R. C. Smith, Rev. T. Smith, Wilcox, and I know not how many others.

OBS. 6.—­Dearborn, in 1795, recognized four cases:  “the nominative, the possessive, the objective, and the absolute.”—­Columbian Gram., pp. 16 and 20.  Charles Bucke, in his work misnamed “A Classical Grammar of the English Language,” published in London in 1829, asserts, that, “Substantives in English do not vary their terminations;” yet he gives them four cases; “the nominative, the genitive, the accusative, and the vocative.”  So did Allen, in a grammar much more classical, dated, London, 1813.  Hazen, in 1842, adopted “four cases; namely, the nominative, the possessive, the objective, and the independent.”—­Hazen’s Practical Gram., p. 35.  Mulligan, since, has chosen these four:  “Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative.”—­Structure of E. Lang., p. 185.  And yet his case after to or for is not “dative,” but “accusative!”—­ Ib., p. 239.  So too, Goodenow, of Maine, makes the cases four:  “the subjective,[164] the possessive, the objective, and the absolute.”—­Text-Book, p. 31.  Goldsbury, of Cambridge, has also four:  “the Nominative, the Possessive, the Objective, and the Vocative.”—­Com.  S. Gram., p. 13.  Three other recent grammarians,—­Wells, of Andover,—­ Weld, of Portland,—­and Clark, of Bloomfield, N. Y.,—­also adopt “four cases;—­the nominative, the possessive, the objective, and the independent.”—­Wells’s Gram., p. 57; Weld’s, 60; Clark’s, 49.  The first of these gentlemen argues, that, “Since a noun or pronoun, used independently, cannot at the same time be employed as ’the subject of a verb,’ there is a manifest impropriety in regarding it as a nominative.”  It might as well be urged, that a nominative after a verb, or in apposition with an other, is, for this reason, not a nominative.  He also cites this argument:  “’Is there not as much difference between the nominative and [the] independent case, as there is between the nominative and [the] objective? If so, why class them together as one case?’—­S.  R. Hall.”—­Wells’s School Gram., p. 51.  To this I answer, No.  “The nominative is that case which primely denotes the