in poetry, be used with moderation.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 166.  “Similies should never be taken from low or mean objects.”—­Ib., p. 167.  “It were certainly better to say, ‘The house of lords,’ than ‘the Lord’s house.’”—­Murray’s Gram., 8vo, p. 177.  “Read your answers.  Unit figure?  ‘Five.’  Ten’s?  ‘Six.’  Hundreds?  ‘Seven.’”—­Abbott’s Teacher, p. 79.  “Alexander conquered Darius’ army.”—­Kirkham’s Gram., p. 58.  “Three days time was requisite, to prepare matters.”—­Brown’s Estimate, ii, 156.  “So we say that Ciceros stile and Sallusts, were not one, nor Cesars and Livies, nor Homers and Hesiodus, nor Herodotus and Theucidides, nor Euripides and Aristophanes, nor Erasmus and Budeus stiles.”—­Puttenham’s Arte of English Poesie, iii, 5. “Lex (i.e. legs) is no other than our ancestors past participle laeg, laid down.”—­Tooke’s Diversions, ii, 7.  “Achaia’s sons at Ilium slain for the Atridae’ sake.”—­Cowper’s Iliad.  “The corpse[167] of half her senate manure the fields of Thessaly.”—­Addison’s Cato.

   “Poisoning, without regard of fame or fear: 
    And spotted corpse are frequent on the bier.”—­Dryden.

CHAPTER IV.—­ADJECTIVES.

An Adjective is a word added to a noun or pronoun, and generally expresses quality:  as, A wise man; a new book.  You two are diligent.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—­Adjectives have been otherwise called attributes, attributives, qualities, adnouns; but none of these names is any better than the common one.  Some writers have classed adjectives with verbs; because, with a neuter verb for the copula, they often form logical predicates:  as, “Vices are contagious.”  The Latin grammarians usually class them with nouns; consequently their nouns are divided into nouns substantive and nouns adjective.  With us, substantives are nouns; and adjectives form a part of speech by themselves.  This is generally acknowledged to be a much better distribution.  Adjectives cannot with propriety be called nouns, in any language; because they are not the names of the qualities which they signify.  They must be added to nouns or pronouns in order to make sense.  But if, in a just distribution of words, the term “adjective nouns” is needless and improper, the term “adjective pronouns” is, certainly, not less so:  most of the words which Murray and others call by this name, are not pronouns, but adjectives.