3. “Methinks I see the portals of eternity wide open to receive him.” “Methought I was incarcerated beneath the mighty deep.”  “I was there just thirty years ago.”

4.  “Their laws and their manners, generally speaking, were extremely rude.” “Considering their means, they have effected much.”

5.

  “Ah me! nor hope nor life remains.”
  “Me miserable! which way shall I fly?”

6.

   “O happiness! our being’s end and aim! 
  Good, pleasure, ease, content! whatever thy name,
  That something still which prompts th’ eternal sigh. 
  For which we bear to live, or dare to die.”—­

The verb let, in the idiomatic examples under number 1, has no nominative specified, and is left applicable to a nominative of the first, second, or third person, and of either number.  Every action necessarily depends on an agent or moving cause; and hence it follows, that the verb, in such constructions, has a nominative understood; but as that nominative is not particularly pointed out, the constructions may be considered anomalous.

Instead of saying, “Let it [to] be enacted;” or, “It is or shall be enacted;” “Let him [to] be blessed;” or, “He shall be blessed;” “Let us turn to survey,” &c.; the verbs, be enacted, be blessed, turn, &c. according to an idiom of our language, or the poet’s license, are used in the imperative, agreeing with a nominative of the first or third person.

The phrases, methinks and methought, are anomalies, in which the objective pronoun me, in the first person, is used in place of a nominative, and takes a verb after it in the third person. Him was anciently used in the same manner; as, “him thute, him thought.”  There was a period when these constructions were not anomalies in our language.  Formerly, what we call the objective cases of our pronouns, were employed in the same manner as our present nominatives are. Ago is a contraction of agone, the past part. of to go.  Before this participle was contracted to an adverb, the noun years preceding it, was in the nominative case absolute; but now the construction amounts to an anomaly.  The expressions, “generally speaking,” and “considering their means,” under number 4, are idiomatical and anomalous, the subjects to the participles not being specified.

According to the genius of the English language, transitive verbs and prepositions require the objective case of a noun or pronoun after them; and this requisition is all that is meant by government, when we say, that these parts of speech govern the objective case.  See pages 52, 57, and 94.  The same principle applies to the interjection.  Interjections require the objective case of a pronoun of the first