is purity and neatness of expression which is chiefly to be studied.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 271. “It is not the difficulty of the language, but on the contrary the simplicity and facility of it, that occasions this neglect.”—­Lowth’s Gram., p. vi. “It is a wise head and a good heart that constitutes a great man.”—­Child’s Instructor, p. 22.

OBS. 17.—­The pronoun it very frequently refers to something mentioned subsequently in the sentence; as, “It is useless to complain of what is irremediable.”  This pronoun is a necessary expletive at the commencement of any sentence in which the verb is followed by a phrase or a clause which, by transposition, might be made the subject of the verb; as, “It is impossible to please every one.”—­W.  Allen’s Gram. “It was requisite that the papers should be sent.”—­Ib. The following example is censured by the Rev. Matt.  Harrison:  “It is really curious, the course which balls will sometimes take.”—­Abernethy’s Lectures.  “This awkward expression,” says the critic, “might have been avoided by saying, ’The course which balls will sometimes take is really curious.’”—­Harrison, on the English Language, p. 147.  If the construction is objectionable, it may, in this instance, be altered thus:  “It is really curious, to observe the course which balls will sometimes take!” So, it appears, we may avoid a pleonasm by an addition.  But he finds a worse example:  saying, “Again, in an article from the ‘New Monthly,’ No. 103, we meet with the same form of expression, but with an aggravated aspect:—­’It is incredible, the number of apothecaries’ shops, presenting themselves.’  It would be quite as easy to say, ‘The number of apothecaries’ shops, presenting themselves, is incredible.’ “—­Ib., p. 147.  This, too, may take an infinitive, “to tell,” or “to behold;” for there is no more extravagance in doubting one’s eyes, than in declaring one’s own statement “incredible.”  But I am not sure that the original form is not allowable.  In the following line, we seem to have something like it: 

   “It curled not Tweed alone, that breeze.”—­Sir W. Scott.

OBS. 18.—­Relative and interrogative pronouns are placed at or near the beginning of their own clauses; and the learner must observe that, through all their cases, they almost invariably retain this situation in the sentence, and are found before their verbs even when the order of the construction would reverse this arrangement:  as, “He who preserves me, to whom I owe my being, whose I am, and whom I serve, is eternal.”—­Murray, p. 159.  “He whom you seek.”—­Lowth.

   “The good must merit God’s peculiar care;
    But who, but God, can tell us who they are?”—­Pope.