a simple sentence [,] except the principal parts;”—­yet not more than two of them all appearing to have taken any thought, and they but little, about the formal application of their common doctrine.  In Allen’s English Grammar, which is one of the best, and likewise in Wells’s, which is equally prized, this reduction of all connected words, or parts of speech, into “the principal parts” and “the adjuncts,” is fully recognized; the adjuncts, too, are discriminated by Allen, as “either primary or secondary,” nor are their more particular species or relations overlooked; but I find no method prescribed for the analysis intended, except what Wells adopted in his early editions but has since changed to an other or abandoned, and no other allusion to it by, Allen, than this Note, which, with some appearance of intrusion, is appended to his “Method of Parsing the Infinitive Mood:”—­“The pupil may now begin to analyse [analyze] the sentences, by distinguishing the principal words and their adjuncts.”—­W.  Allen’s E. Gram., p. 258.

OBS. 3.—­These authors in general, and many more, tell us, with some variation of words, that the agent, subject, or nominative, is that of which something is said, affirmed, or denied; that the attribute, verb, or predicate, is that which is said, affirmed, or denied, of the subject; and that the object, accusative, or case sequent, is that which is introduced by the finite verb, or affected by the action affirmed.  Lowth says, “In English the nominative case, denoting the agent, usually goes before the verb, or attribution; and the objective case, denoting the object, follows the verb active.”—­Short Introd., p. 72.  Murray copies, but not literally, thus:  “The nominative denotes the subject, and usually goes before the verb [,] or attribute; and the word or phrase, denoting the object, follows the verb:  as, ‘A wise man governs his passions.’  Here, a wise man is the subject; governs, the attribute, or thing affirmed; and his passions, the object.”—­Murray’s Octavo, p. 142; Duodecimo, 116.  To include thus the adjuncts with their principals, as the logicians do, is here manifestly improper; because it unites what the grammatical analyzer is chiefly concerned to separate, and tends to defeat the main purpose for which “THE PRINCIPAL PARTS” are so named and distinguished.

OBS. 4.—­The Third Method of Analysis, described above, is an attempt very briefly to epitomize the chief elements of a great scheme,—­to give, in a nutshell, the substance of what our grammarians have borrowed from the logicians, then mixed with something of their own, next amplified with small details, and, in some instances, branched out and extended to enormous bulk and length.  Of course, they have not failed to set forth the comparative merits of this scheme in a sufficiently favourable light.  The two ingenious gentlemen who seem to have been