IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE VI.

UNDER THE RULE ITSELF.—­OF PROPER IDENTITY.

“Who would not say, ‘If it be me,’ rather than, If it be I?”—­Priestley’s Gram., p. 105.

[FORMULE.—­Not proper, because the pronoun me,—­which comes after the neuter verb be, is in the objective case, and does not agree with the pronoun it, the verb’s nominative,[362] which refers to the same thing.  But, according to Rule 6th, “A noun or a pronoun put after a verb or participle not transitive, agrees in case with a preceding noun or pronoun referring to the same thing.”  Therefore, me should be I; thus, “Who would not say, ‘If it be I,’ rather than, ’If it be me?’”]

“Who is there?  It is me.”—­Priestley, ib., p. 104.  “It is him.”—­Id., ib., 104.  “Are these the houses you were speaking of?  Yes, they are them.”—­Id., ib., 104.  “It is not me you are in love with.”—­Addison’s Spect., No. 290; Priestley’s Gram., p. 104; and Campbell’s Rhet., p. 203.  “It cannot be me.”—­SWIFT:  Priestley’s Gram., p. 104.  “To that which once was thee.”—­PRIOR:  ib., 104.  “There is but one man that she can have, and that is me.”—­CLARISSA:  ib., 104.  “We enter, as it were, into his body, and become, in some measure, him.”—­ADAM SMITH:  ib., p. 105.  “Art thou proud yet?  Ay, that I am not thee.”—­Shak., Timon.  “He knew not whom they were.”—­Milnes, Greek Gram., p. 234.  “Who do you think me to be?”—­Priestley’s Gram., p. 108.  “Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?”—­Matt., xvi, 13.  “But whom say ye that I am?”—­Ib., xvi, 15.—­“Whom think ye that I am?  I am not he.”—­Acts, xiii, 25.  “No; I am mistaken; I perceive it is not the person whom I supposed it was.”—­Winter in London, ii, 66.  “And while it is Him I serve, life is not without value.”—­Zenobia, i, 76.  “Without ever dreaming it was him.”—­Life of Charles XII, p. 271.  “Or he was not the illiterate personage whom he affected to be.”—­Montgomery’s Lect. “Yet was he him, who was to be the greatest apostle of the Gentiles.”—­Barclay’s Works, i, 540.  “Sweet was the thrilling ecstacy; I know not if ’twas love, or thee.”—­Queen’s Wake, p. 14.  “Time was, when none would cry, that oaf was me.”—­Dryden, Prol. “No matter where the vanquish’d be, nor whom.”—­Rowe’s Lucan, B. i, l. 676.  “No, I little thought it had been him.”—­Life of Oration.  “That reverence and godly fear, whose object is ’Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.’”—­Maturin’s Sermons, p. 312.  “It is us that they seek to please, or rather to astonish.”—­West’s Letters, p. 28.  “Let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac.”—­Gen., xxiv, 14.  “Although I knew it to be he.”—­Dickens’s Notes, p. 9.  “Dear gentle youth, is’t none but thee?”—­Dorset’s Poems, p. 4.  “Whom do they say it is?”—­Fowler’s E. Gram., Sec.493.