OBS. 27.—­Upon this point, many philologists are open to criticism; and none more so, than the recent author above cited.  By his own plain showing, this grammarian has no conception of the difference of meaning, upon which the foregoing distinction is founded.  What marvel, then, that he falls into errors, both of doctrine and of practice?  But, if no such difference exists, or none that is worthy of a critic’s notice; then the error is mine, and it is vain to distinguish between the restrictive and the resumptive sense of relative pronouns.  For example:  “The boy that desires to assist his companions, deserves respect.”—­G.  Brown. “That boy, who desires to assist his companions, deserves respect.”—­D.  H. Sanborn. According to my notion, these two sentences clearly convey two very different meanings; the relative, in the former, being restrictive, but, in the latter, resumptive of the sense of the antecedent.  But of the latter example this author says, “The clause, ’who desires to assist his companions,’ with the relative who at its head, explains or tells what boy deserves respect; and, like a conjunction, connects this clause to the noun boy.”—­Analytical Gram., p. 69.  He therefore takes it in a restrictive sense, as if this sentence were exactly equivalent to the former.  But he adds, “A relative pronoun is resolvable into a personal pronoun and a conjunction.  The sentence would then read, ’That boy desires to assist his companions, and he deserves respect.’  The relative pronoun governs the nearer verb, and the antecedent the more distant one.”—­Ib., p. 69.  Now, concerning the restrictive relative, this doctrine of equivalence does not hold good; and, besides, the explanation here given, not only contradicts his former declaration of the sense he intended, but, with other seeming contradiction, joins the antecedent to the nearer verb, and the substituted pronoun to the more distant.

OBS. 28.—­Again, the following principles of this author’s punctuation are no less indicative of his false views of this matter:  “RULE xiv.—­Relative pronouns in the nominative or [the] objective case, are preceded by commas, when the clause which the relative connects [,] ends a sentence; as, ’Sweetness of temper is a quality, which reflects a lustre on every accomplishment’—­B.  Greenleaf.’  Self [-] denial is the sacrifice [,] which virtue must make.’ [_—­L.  Murray._] The comma is omitted before the relative, when the verb which the antecedent governs, follows the relative clause; as, ’He that suffers by imposture, has too often his virtue more impaired than his fortune.’—­Johnson.”  See Sanborn’s Analytical Gram., p. 269.  Such are some of our author’s principles—­“the essence of modern improvements.”  His practice, though often wrong, is none the worse for contradicting these doctrines.  Nay, his proudest boast is ungrammatical, though peradventure not the less believed:  “No [other] grammar in the language probably contains so great a quantity of condensed and useful matter with so little superfluity.”—­Sanborn’s Preface, p. v.