OBS. 9.—­This error of crowding things together, is still more conspicuous in the following examples:  “RULE IV.  Every article, adjective, and participle, must qualify some noun, or pronoun, either expressed or understood.”—­Nutting’s Gram., p. 94.  “RULE IX.  The objective case is governed by a transitive verb or a preposition, usually coming before it.”—­Ib., p. 98.  Here an author who separates participles from verbs, has attempted first to compress the entire syntax of three different parts of speech into one short rule; and, secondly, to embrace all the forms of dependence, incident to objective nouns and pronouns, in an other as short.  This brevity is a poor exchange for the order and distribution which it prevents—­especially as none of its objects are here reached.  Articles do not relate to pronouns, unless the obsolete phrase the which is to be revived;[327] participles have other constructions than those which adjectives admit; there are exceptions to the rules which tie articles to nouns, and adjectives to nouns or pronouns; and the objective case may not only be governed by a participle, but may be put in apposition with an other objective.  The objective case in English usually stands for the Latin genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative; hence any rule that shall embrace the whole construction of this one case, will be the sole counterpart to four fifths of all the rules in any code of Latin syntax.  For I imagine the construction of these four oblique cases, will be found to occupy at least that proportion of the syntactical rules and notes in any Latin grammar that can be found.  Such rules, however, are often placed under false or equivocal titles;[328] as if they contained the construction of the governing words, rather than that of the governed.  And this latter error, again, has been transferred to most of our English grammars, to the exclusion of any rule for the proper construction of participles, of adverbs, of conjunctions, of prepositions, or of interjections.  See the syntax of Murray and his copyists, whose treatment of these parts of speech is noticed in the fifth observation above.

OBS. 10.—­It is doubtless most convenient, that, in all rules for the construction of cases, nouns and pronouns be taken together; because the very same doctrines apply equally well to both, and a case is as distinct a thing in the mind, as a part of speech.  This method, therefore, I have myself pursued; and it has indeed the authority of all grammarians—­not excepting those who violate its principles by adopting two special rules for the relative pronoun, which are not needed.  These special rules, which I shall notice again hereafter, may be seen in Murray’s Rule 6th, which is double, and contains them both.  The most complex rule that I have admitted, is that which embraces the government of objectives by verbs and participles.  The regimen by verbs, and the regimen by participles, may not improperly be reckoned distinct principles; but the near alliance of participles to their verbs, seems to be a sufficient reason for preferring one rule to two, in this instance.