for the abstract qualities, nobility, vileness, excellence, beauty.  The last-named usage forms an exception to the rule; in the other two the noun is understood, and should be supplied by the parser.  Such terms, if elliptical, are most commonly of the plural number, and refer to the word persons or things understood; as, “The careless and the imprudent, the giddy and the fickle, the ungrateful and the interested, everywhere meet us.”—­Blair.  Here the noun persons is to be six times supplied.  “Wherever there is taste, the witty and the humorous make themselves perceived.”—­Campbell’s Rhet., p. 21.  Here the author meant, simply, the qualities wit and humour, and he ought to have used these words, because the others are equivocal, and are more naturally conceived to refer to persons.  In the following couplet, the noun places or things is understood after “open,” and again after “covert,” which last word is sometimes misprinted “coverts:” 

   “Together let us beat this ample field,
    Try what the open, what the covert, yield.”—­Pope, on Man.

OBS. 6.—­The adjective, in English, is generally placed immediately before its noun; as, “Vain man! is grandeur given to gay attire?”—­Beattie.  Those adjectives which relate to pronouns, most commonly follow them; as, “They left me weary on a grassy turf.”—­Milton. But to both these general rules there are many exceptions; for the position of an adjective may be varied by a variety of circumstances, not excepting the mere convenience of emphasis:  as, “And Jehu said, Unto which of all us?”—­2 Kings, ix, 5.  In the following instances the adjective is placed after the word to which it relates: 

1.  When other words depend on the adjective, or stand before it to qualify it; as, “A mind conscious of right,”—­“A wall three feet thick,”—­“A body of troops fifty thousand strong.”

2.  When the quality results from an action, or receives its application through a verb or participle; as, “Virtue renders life happy.”—­“He was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza.”—­1 Kings, xvi, 9.  “All men agree to call vinegar sour, honey sweet, and aloes bitter.”—­Burke, on Taste, p. 38.  “God made thee perfect, not immutable.”—­Milton.

3.  When the quality excites admiration, and the adjective would thus be more clearly distinctive; as, “Goodness infinite,”—­“Wisdom unsearchable.”—­Murray.

4.  When a verb comes between the adjective and the noun; as, “Truth stands independent of all external things.”—­Burgh.  “Honour is not seemly for a fool.”—­Solomon.

5.  When the adjective is formed by means of the prefix a; as, afraid, alert, alike, alive, alone, asleep, awake, aware, averse, ashamed, askew.  To these may be added a few other words; as, else, enough, extant, extinct, fraught, pursuant.