leave,” ought rather to be, “Ask of your master leave,” “Ask your master for leave,” or, “Ask your master’s leave.”  The example from Mark ought to be, “They asked him about the parable.”  Again, the elliptical sentence, “Teach them thy sons,” is less perspicuous, and therefore less accurate, than the full expression, “Teach them to thy sons.” To teach is to tell things to persons, or to instruct persons in things; to ask is to request or demand things of or from persons, or to interrogate or solicit persons about or for things.  These verbs cannot be proved to govern two cases in English, because it is more analogical and more reasonable to supply a preposition, (if the author omits it,) to govern one or the other of the objects.

OBS. 11.—­Some writers erroneously allow passive verbs to govern the objective in English, not only where they imagine our idiom to coincide with the Latin, but even where they know that it does not.  Thus Dr. Crombie:  “Whatever is put in the accusative case after the verb, must be the nominative to it in the passive voice, while the other case is retained under the government of the verb, and cannot become its nominative.  Thus, ’I persuade you to this or of this, ’Persuadeo hoc tibi.  Here, the person persuaded is expressed in the dative case, and cannot, therefore, be the nominative to the passive verb.  We must, therefore, say, Hoc tibi persuadetur, ‘You are persuaded of this;’ not, Tu persuaderis.  ’He trusted me with this affair,’ or ‘He believed me in this,’ Hoc mihi credidit.—­Passively, Hoc mihi creditum est.  ‘I told you this,’ Hoc tibi dixi.  ‘YOU WERE TOLD THIS,’ Hoc tibi dictum est; not, Tu dictus es.” [No, surely:  for, ‘Tu dictus es,’ means, ‘You were called,’ or, ’Thou art reputed;’—­and, if followed by any case, it must be the nominative.’] “It is the more necessary to attend to this rule, and to these distinctions, as the idioms of the two languages do not always concur.  Thus, Hoc tibi dictum est, means not only ’This was told to you,’ but ‘YOU WERE TOLD THIS.’ Liber mihi apatre promissus est, means both ‘A book was promised (to) me by my father,’ and ’I WAS PROMISED A BOOK.’ Is primum rogatua est sententiam, ’He was first asked for his opinion,’ and ‘An opinion was first asked of him;’ in which last the accusative of the person becomes, in Latin, the nominative in the passive voice.”  See Grants Latin Gram., p. 210.