Articles relate to the nouns which they limit:[335] as, “At a little distance from the ruins of the abbey, stands an aged elm.”

   “See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing,
    The sot a hero, lunatic a king.”—­Pope’s Essay, Ep. ii, l. 268.

EXCEPTION FIRST.

The definite article used intensively, may relate to an adjective or adverb of the comparative or the superlative degree; as, “A land which was the mightiest.”—­Byron. “The farther they proceeded, the greater appeared their alacrity.”—­Dr. Johnson.  “He chooses it the rather”—­Cowper.  See Obs. 10th, below.

EXCEPTION SECOND.

The indefinite article is sometimes used to give a collective meaning to what seems a plural adjective of number; as, “Thou hast a few names even in Sardis.”—­Rev., iii, 4.  “There are a thousand things which crowd into my memory.”—­Spectator, No. 468.  “The centurion commanded a hundred men.”—­Webster.  See Etymology, Articles, Obs. 26.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE I.

OBS. 1.—­The article is a kind of index, usually pointing to some noun; and it is a general, if not a universal, principle, that no one noun admits of more than one article.  Hence, two or more articles in a sentence are signs of two or more nouns; and hence too, by a very convenient ellipsis, an article before an adjective is often made to relate to a noun understood; as, “The grave [people] rebuke the gay [people], and the gay [people] mock the grave” [people].—­Maturin’s Sermons, p. 103. “The wise [persons] shall inherit glory.”—­Prov., iii, 35. “The vile [person] will talk villainy.”—­Coleridge’s Lay Sermons, p. 105:  see Isaiah, xxxii, 6.  “The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple” [ones].—­Psal., xix, 7. “The Old [Testament] and the New Testament are alike authentic.”—­“The animal [world] and the vegetable world are adapted to each other.”—­“An epic [poem] and a dramatic poem are the same in substance.”—­Ld.  Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 274.  “The neuter verb is conjugated like the active” [verb].—­Murray’s Gram., p. 99.  “Each section is supposed to contain a heavy [portion] and a light portion; the heavy [portion] being the accented syllable, and the light [portion] the unaccented” [syllable].—­Rush, on the Voice, p. 364.