name of any person or thing;” (Burn’s Gram., p. 36;) and this only it is, that can be absolute, or independent, in English.  This scheme of four cases is, in fact, a grave innovation.  As authority for it, Wells cites Felton; and bids his readers, “See also Kennion, Parkhurst, Fowle, Flint, Goodenow, Buck, Hazen, Goldsbury, Chapin, S. Alexander, and P. Smith.”—­Page 57.  But is the fourth case of these authors the same as his?  Is it a case which “has usually the nominative form,” but admits occasionally of “me” and “him,” and embraces objective nouns of “time, measure, distance, direction, or place?” No.  Certainly one half of them, and probably more, give little or no countenance to such an independent case as he has adopted.  Parkhurst admitted but three cases; though he thought two others “might be an improvement.”  What Fowle has said in support of Wells’s four cases, I have sought with diligence, and not found.  Felton’s “independent case” is only what he absurdly calls, “The noun or pronoun addressed.”—­ Page 91.  Bucke and Goldsbury acknowledge “the nominative case absolute;” and none of the twelve, so far as I know, admit any objective word, or what others call objective, to be independent or absolute, except perhaps Goldsbury.

OBS. 7.—­S.  R. Hall, formerly principal of the Seminary for Teachers at Andover, (but no great grammarian,) in 1832, published a manual, called “The Grammatical Assistant;” in which he says, “There are at least five cases, belonging to English nouns, differing as much from each other, as the cases of Latin and Greek nouns.  They may be called Nominative, Possessive, Objective, Independent and Absolute.”—­P. 7.  O. B. Peirce will have both nouns and pronouns to be used in five cases, which he thus enumerates:  “Four simple cases; the Subjective, Possessive, Objective, and the Independent; and the Twofold case.”—­Gram., p. 42.  But, on page 56th, he speaks of a “twofold subjective case,” “the twofold objective case,” and shows how the possessive may be twofold also; so that, without taking any of the Latin cases, or even all of Hall’s, he really recognizes as many as seven, if not eight.  Among the English grammars which assume all the six cases of the Latin Language, are Burn’s, Coar’s, Dilworth’s, Mackintosh’s, Mennye’s, Wm. Ward’s, and the “Comprehensive Grammar,” a respectable little book, published by Dobson of Philadelphia, in 1789, but written by somebody in England.

OBS. 8.—­Of the English grammars which can properly be said to be now in use, a very great majority agree in ascribing to nouns three cases, and three only.  This, I am persuaded, is the best number, and susceptible of the best defence, whether we appeal to authority, or to other argument.  The disputes of grammarians make no small part of the history of grammar; and in submitting to