which are expressed in the twenty-four rules above.  If other authors prefer more, or fewer, or different principles for their chief rules, I must suppose, it is because they have studied the subject less.  Biased, as we may be, both by our knowledge and by our ignorance, it is easy for men to differ respecting matters of expediency; but that clearness, order, and consistency, are both expedient, and requisite, in didactic compositions, is what none can doubt.

OBS. 7.—­Those English grammarians who tell us, as above, that syntax is divided into parts, or included under a certain number of heads, have almost universally contradicted themselves by treating the subject without any regard to such a division; and, at the same time, not a few have somehow been led into the gross error of supposing broad principles of concord or government where no such things exist.  For example, they have invented general RULES like these:  “The adjective agrees with its noun in number, case, and gender.”—­Bingham’s English Gram., p. 40.  “Interjections govern the nominative case, and sometimes the objective:  as, ‘O thou! alas me!’”—­Ib., p. 43.  “Adjectives agree with their nouns in number.”—­Wilbur and Livingston’s Gram., p. 22.  “Participles agree with their nouns in number.”—­Ib., p. 23.  “Every adjective agrees in number with some substantive expressed or understood.”—­ Hiley’s Gram., Rule 8th, p. 77.  “The article THE agrees with nouns in either number:  as, The wood, the woods.”—­Bucke’s Classical Grammar of the English Language, p. 84.  “O! oh! ah! require the accusative case of a pronoun in the first person after them:  as ‘Ah me!’ But when the second person is used, it requires a nominative case:  as, ‘O thou!’”—­Ib., p. 87.  “Two or more Nominatives in the singular number, connected by the Conjunction or, nor, EITHER, NEITHER, govern a singular Verb.  But Pronouns singular, of different persons, joined by or, EITHER, nor, NEITHER, govern a plural Verb.”—­Ib., p. 94.  “One Nominative frequently governs many Verbs.”—­Ib., p. 95.  “Participles are sometimes governed by the article.”—­Murray’s Gram., 8vo, p. 192.  “An adverb, an adjective, or a participle, may involve in itself the force of a preposition, and govern the objective case.”—­Nutting’s Gram., p. 99.  “The nominative case governs the verb.” [326]—­Greenleaf’s Gram., p. 32; Kirkham’s, 176; and others.  “The nominative case comes before the verb.”—­Bingham’s Gram., p. 38; Wilbur and Livingston’s, 23.  “The Verb TO BE, always governs a Nominative, unless it be of the Infinitive Mood.”—­Buchanan’s Syntax, p. 94.  “A verb in the infinitive mood may be governed by a verb, noun, adjective,