OBSERVATIONS ON RULE VIII.

OBS. 1.—­Many grammarians make an idle distinction between the nominative absolute and the nominative independent, as if these epithets were not synonymous; and, at the same time, they are miserably deficient in directions for disposing of the words so employed.  Their two rules do not embrace more than one half of those frequent examples in which the case of the noun or pronoun depends on no other word.  Of course, the remaining half cannot be parsed by any of the rules which they give.  The lack of a comprehensive rule, like the one above, is a great and glaring defect in all the English grammars that the author has seen, except his own, and such as are indebted to him for such a rule.  It is proper, however, that the different forms of expression which are embraced in this general rule, should be discriminated, one from an other, by the scholar:  let him therefore, in parsing any nominative absolute, tell how it is put so; whether with a participle, by direct address, by pleonasm, or by exclamation.  For, in discourse, a noun or a pronoun is put absolute in the nominative, after four modes, or under the following four circumstances:  (of which Murray’s “case absolute,” or “nominative absolute,” contains only the first:)

I. When, with a participle, it is used to express a cause, or a concomitant fact; as, “I say, this being so, the law being broken, justice takes place.”—­Law and Grace, p. 27. "Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea.” &c.—­Luke, iii, 1.  “I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.”—­Gen., xxiv, 27.

---------“While shame, thou looking on,
Shame to be overcome or overreach’d,
Would utmost vigor raise.”—­Milton, P. L., B. ix, 1, 312.

II.  When, by direct address, it is put in the second person, and set off from the verb, by a comma or an exclamation point; as, “At length, Seged, reflect and be wise.”—­Dr. Johnson. “It may be, drunkard, swearer, liar, thief, thou dost not think of this.”—­Law and Grace, p. 27.

   “This said, he form’d thee, Adam! thee, O man!
    Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breath’d
    The breath of life.”—­Milton’s Paradise Lost, B. vii, l. 524.

III.  When, by pleonasm, it is introduced abruptly for the sake of emphasis, and is not made the subject or the object of any verb; as, “He that hath, to him shall be given.”—­Mark, iv, 25. “He that is holy, let him be holy still.”—­Rev., xxii, 11. “Gad, a troop shall overcome him.”—­Gen., xlix, 19.  “The north and the south,