“Who stops to plunder at this signal hour,
    The birds shall tear him, and the dogs devour.” 
        —­POPE:  Iliad, xv, 400.

OBS. 14.—­A pronoun sometimes represents a phrase or a sentence; and in this case the pronoun is always in the third person singular neuter:  as, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.”—­Gen., xxviii, 10.  “Yet men can go on to vilify or disregard Christianity; which is to talk and act as if they had a demonstration of its falsehood.”—­Butler’s Analogy, p. 269.  “When it is asked wherein personal identity consists, the answer should be the same as if it were asked, wherein consists similitude or equality.”—­Ib., p. 270.  “Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good.”—­Prov., xix, 2.  In this last example, the pronoun is not really necessary.  “That the soul be without knowledge, is not good.”—­Jenks’s Prayers, p. 144.  Sometimes an infinitive verb is taken as an antecedent; as, “He will not be able to think, without which it is impertinent to read; nor to act, without which it is impertinent to think.”—­Bolingbroke, on History, p. 103.

OBS. 15.—­When a pronoun follows two words, having a neuter verb between them, and both referring to the same thing, it may represent either of them, but not often with the same meaning:  as, 1.  “I am the man, who command.”  Here, who command belongs to the subject I, and the meaning is, “I who command, am the man.” (The latter expression places the relative nearer to its antecedent, and is therefore preferable.) 2.  “I am the man who commands.”  Here, who commands belongs to the predicate man, and the meaning is, “I am the commander.”  Again:  “I perceive thou art a pupil, who possessest good talents.”—­Cooper’s Pl. and Pract.  Gram., p. 136.  Here the construction corresponds not to the perception, which is, of the pupil’s talents.  Say, therefore, “I perceive thou art a pupil possessing (or, who possesses) good talents.”

OBS. 16.—­After the expletive it, which may be employed to introduce a noun or a pronoun of any person, number, or gender, the above-mentioned distinction is generally disregarded; and the relative is most commonly made to agree with the latter word, especially if this word be of the first or the second person:  as, “It is no more I that do it.”—­Rom., vii, 20.  “For it is not ye that speak.”—­Matt., x, 20.  The propriety of this construction is questionable.  In the following examples, the relative agrees with the it, and not with the subsequent nouns:  “It is the combined excellencies of all the denominations that gives to her her winning beauty and her powerful charms.”—­Bible Society’s Report, 1838, p. 89. “It