roads.’”—­Murray’s Gram., Rule viii, Late Editions; Alger’s Murray, p. 56; Alden’s, 85; Bacon’s, 48; Maltby’s, 59; Miller’s, 66; Merchant’s, 81; S. Putnam’s, 10; and others.  “Pronominal adjectives must agree with their nouns in gender, number, and person; thus, ’My son, hear the instructions of thy father.’  ’Call the labourers, and give them their hire.’”—­Maunder’s Gram., Rule xvii.  Here Murray gives a rule for pronouns, and illustrates it by adjectives; and Maunder, as ingeniously blunders in reverse:  he gives a rule for adjectives, and illustrates it by pronouns.  But what do they mean by “their substantives,” or “their nouns?” As applicable to pronouns, the phrase should mean nouns antecedent; as applicable to adjectives, it should mean nouns subsequent.  Both these rules are therefore false, and fit only to bewilder; and the examples to both are totally inapplicable.  Murray’s was once essentially right, but he afterwards corrupted it, and a multitude of his admirers have since copied the perversion.  It formerly stood thus:  “The pronominal adjectives this and that, &c. and the numbers[209] one, two, &c., must agree in number with their substantives:  as, ’This book, these books; that sort, those sorts; one girl, ten girls; another road, other roads.’ “—­Murray’s Gram., Rule viii, 2d Ed., 1796.

OBS. 9.—­Among our grammarians, some of considerable note have contended, that the personal pronouns have but two cases, the nominative and the objective.  Of this class, may be reckoned Brightland, Dr. Johnson, Fisher, Mennye, Cardell, Cooper, Dr. Jas. P. Wilson, W. B. Fowle. and, according to his late grammars, Dr. Webster.  But, in contriving what to make of my or mine, our or ours, thy or thine, your or yours, his, her or hers, its, and their or theirs, they are as far from any agreement, or even from self-consistency, as the cleverest of them could ever imagine.  To the person, the number, the gender, and the case, of each of these words, they either profess themselves to be total strangers, or else prove themselves so, by the absurdities they teach.  Brightland calls them “Possessive Qualities, or Qualities of Possession;” in which class he also embraces all nouns of the possessive case.  Johnson calls them pronouns; and then says of them, “The possessive pronouns, like other adjectives, are without cases or change of termination.”—­Gram., p. 6.  Fisher calls them “Personal Possessive Qualities;” admits the person of my, our, &c.; but supposes mine, ours, &c. to supply the place of the nouns which govern them! Mennye makes them one of his three classes of pronouns, “personal, possessive, and relative;” giving to both forms the rank which Murray once gave, and