thing.”—­Webber’s Gram., p. 31.  So Churchill:  “The superlative should not be used, when only two persons or things are compared.”—­New Gram., p. 80.  “In the first of these two sentences.”—­Ib., p. 162; Lowth, p. 120.  According to the rule, it should have been, “In the former of these two sentences;” but this would be here ambiguous, because former might mean maker.  “When our sentence consists of two members, the longest should, generally, be the concluding one.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 117:  and Jamieson’s, p. 99.  “The shortest member being placed first, we carry it more readily in our memory as we proceed to the second.”—­Ib., & Ib. “Pray consider us, in this respect, as the weakest sex.”—­Spect., No. 533.  In this last sentence, the comparative, weaker, would perhaps have been better; because, not an absolute, but merely a comparative weakness is meant.  So Latham and Child:  “It is better, in speaking of only two objects, to use the comparative degree rather than the superlative, even, where we use the article the. This is the better of the two, is preferable to this is the best of the two.”—­Elementary Gram., p. 155.  Such is their rule; but very soon they forget it, and write thus:  “In this case the relative refers to the last of the two.”—­Ib., p. 163.

OBS. 14.—­Hyperboles are very commonly expressed by comparatives or superlatives; as, “My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins.”—­1 Kings, xii, 10.  “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given.”—­Ephesians, iii, 8.  Sometimes, in thus heightening or lowering the object of his conception, the writer falls into a catachresis, solecism, or abuse of the grammatical degrees; as, “Mustard-seed—­which is less than all the seeds that be in the earth.”—­Mark, iv, 31.  This expression is objectionable, because mustard-seed is a seed, and cannot be less than itself; though that which is here spoken of, may perhaps have been “the least of all seeds:”  and it is the same Greek phrase, that is thus rendered in Matt, xiii, 32.  Murray has inserted in his Exercises, among “unintelligible and inconsistent words and phrases,” the following example from Milton: 

   “And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
    Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide.”—­Exercises, p. 122.

For this supposed inconsistency, ho proposes in his Key the following amendment: 

   “And, in the lower deep, another deep
    Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide.”—­Key, p. 254.

But, in an other part of his book, he copies from Dr. Blair the same passage, with commendation:  saying, “The following sentiments of Satan in Milton, as strongly as they are described, contain nothing but what is natural and proper: