"A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod;

An honest man's the noblest work of God."-Pope.

"I dread thee, fate, relentless and severe,

With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear."-Burns.

EXERCISES. INCOMPLETE.

Johns wife has been here. Henrys wifes sister is ill, Go to Hyams and get measured for a suit of clothes. The boys top is lost. The boys hats have been burat. Edward Bulwer Lyttons new work called "My Novel" is very interesting. The Queen of Englands palace is in Saint James Park. One mans meat is another mans poison. Do you take your English lessons at your masters? No, he comes to my aunts and I go there. Captain Ross voyage to the North Pole was very dangerous. That book is my sisters. That is my sisters book. You must keep him at arms length. This is one of Marys poems. Peters wifes mother lay sick of a fever. I admire Beaumont and Fletchers plays. The fox has carried off a hen of Williams. Sir Walter Scotts works are instructive as well as amusing. The writings of Hannah More are not comparable with Scotts. Potters Greek and Kennets Roman antiquities are somewhat out of date. Mere happiness or misery is for the most part of their own making. The House of Lords differs greatly from the Lords house.

PARSING.

Ex.-A mother's tenderness and a father's care bestowed on me the best gifts of this world.

A, the indefinite article qualifying mother.

Mother's, a common noun, feminine gender, singular number, the possessive case, governed by tenderness, according to the rule "one noun governs another in the possessive or genitive case."

Father's, a common noun, masculine gender, singular number, possessive case, governed by care, according to the rule, &c. Care, a common noun, of the neuter gender, forming with tenderness the compound subject to the verb bestow.

Bestow, a verb, in the present time or tense, having for its subject or nominative case the two nouns, tenderness and care.

On,

Me,

a preposition, governing me, according to the rule " nouns and pronouns may be dependent on prepositions."

a pronoun depending on the preposition on, according to the rule, &c.

the, the definite article, qualifying gifts.

Best, an adjective, qualifying gifts.

Gifts, a common noun, in the neuter gender and the plural num ber, being the object to the verb bestow, according to the rule "the object of a verb is that person or thing on which the action of the verb falls."

Of,

a preposition, forming with world, the Norman-French genitive, that is, the preposition of governs world, according to the rule, &c.

This, a demonstrative pronoun, qualifying world.

World, a common noun of the neuter gender and in the singular number, governed by the preposition of, according to the rule, &c.

Words with their proper prepositions, for the formation of sen

If we look at the etymology of the word adjective (Latin ad, to, and jacio, I throw or put), we find that an adjective is a word which is put to another. This is not a specific definition, for equally well may it be said that a pronoun or a preposition is a word put to another. Failing in the etymology, we must look to the sense for information. Take the following phrases ::

White linen pleases the eye.

Long days come in summer.
Tall men are often weak.

Here we find the words white, long, and tall related in the same way to the several nouns linen, days and men. And the former words are related to the latter so as to ascribe to them a certain quality, that is to tell us of what kind or sort they are; thus the linen spoken of is clean not dirty, the days are long not short, the men are tall and not of low stature. These three words then assign the quality of the three nouns before which they are placed. And these three words are commonly called adjectives. Hence we learn that it is the function (office) of adjectives to assign the qualities of nouns. An adjective may accordingly be termed a qualifier; that is, a word which states the quality of a noun. As the adjective qualifies (from the Latin qualis, of what kind, and facio, I make), so does it answer to the question of what kind? Thus, in the instances. given above, linen of what kind? Answer, white. What kind of days? Answer, long What kind of men? Answer, tall. a qualifying word depends for its meaning on the word qualified. What is the signification of clean, long, tall, without the nouns before which they stand? A lofty-are words having no sense until you add tower, or a similar term. There is then, you now see, some reason for the name adjective, i. e. the added word, inasmuch as the adjective has no independent meaning, and acquires meaning only in union with a noun.

But

As added words, adjectives come into existence after nouns to which, in their very nature, they are adjuncts. Adjectives, therefore, are in the history of language of late origin. This is seen also in the fact that they imply a greater degree of discrimination in regard to the qualities of things than is involved in the existence of nouns. A noun, in giving a name to an object, describes its qualities. Thus the word man characterises an intelligent being. But under the general term man stand many individual men. These individual men vary from each other; some are tall, some short; some weak, some strong; some young, some old; some black, some white. The one class is subdivided into many classes, and the signs of these classes are severally given by adjectives. The adjective, in consequence, implies an advanced state of mental culture, since it is the expression of somewhat minute mental discrimination.

The adjective, I have intimated, has no meaning by itself. "A red-" are senseless words, but "a red orange' "" conveys an idea. The widest signification given to an adjective by appending to it the word thing, as, 66 a good thing; a bad thing." Hence, you see how near the adjective stands in sense to the noun, for thing is a very indefinite term. Indeed the adjective and the noun alike denote qualities. Thus, a swift stream is "a swift or rapid flow" (of water). The noun stream describes the flow of the water, as you may see, in the fact that you cannot with propriety speak of a flowing stream, inasmuch as it is in the very nature of a stream to flow, and flowing or to flow is involved in the term stream itself. But you can say a swift stream, because swift adds a description to the description already given, telling you how the stream flows. Thus the noun stream sets forth the quality of flowing, and the adjective swift sets forth the quality of swiftness. The noun and the adjective indeed describe qualities in different ways; the noun describes a quality in the abstract; the adjective describes a quality in the concrete. Abstract and concrete are logical terms. Abstract (from the Latin abs, from, and traho, I draw), represents a quality as drawn away or standing apart from any particular object; whiteness is an abstract word, as it describes the quality white considered alone, that is, apart from any subject. Concrete (Latin con, (cum) with, and cresco, I grow) is a term which speaks of qualities in union with subjects, e. g. an octavo, what? Volume; an octavo volume; octavo describes a certain quality as belonging or attached (concrete) to a book here called a volume. Abstract and concrete terms then are nearly related. In truth, a concrete term passes into an abstract term merely by taking the termination ness; as good, good-ness. So nearly are concrete and abstract terms related that they are sometimes used for one another. In the Hebrew, a very early and a primitive language, concrete terms or adjectives are comparatively few, their office being frequently discharged by abstract terms or nouns. In English, adjectives are occasionally used as nouns, thus "elder" in the singular, becomes in the plural "the elders." The ease with which adjectives become nouns is exemplified in such proper names as Mr. Brown, Mr. White, Mr.

Short, Mr. Long, &c. Nouns also perform the part of adjectives, as a fish slice,' a silver spoon, 99 66 a gold pin,"

Adjectives in English undergo no change from gender, number, cr case. We use the term good, for instance, indifferently with a masculine and a feminine noun, a singular and a plural, the subject and the object, e. g.,

Obj. I saw a good man and a good woman, good boys and good girls. Subj. A good man and a good woman, good boys and good girls were seen by me.

The only inflexion which adjectives undergo is one by which degrees of quality are expressed. In thought, take any quality, say long, and consider of what modifications it is capable. An object may be long as opposed to an object that is short. This we may call its positive condition. Or one object may be longer than another. Here, as a comparison is made or implied, we may call this the comparative condition. Or, again, an object may be longer than many other objects, that is, it may be longest. Longest may be termed the superlative condition, inasmuch as the object that is longest surpasses, that is, becomes superlative, to all others. Here, then, are three conditions, the positive, long; the comparative, longer; and the superlative, longest. These three conditions are ordinarly termed degrees, hence we have the positive degree, the comparative degree, and the superlative degree. These are the three degrees of comparison, to use the common phraseology, though there is little propriety in calling the positive condition a degree of comparison.

Now observe how these degrees of comparison are indicated. Long the positive becomes long-er in the comparative, and long-est in the superlative. You thus see that the addition of er to the positive forms the comparative; and the addition of est to the positive forms the superlative.

While, however, we say long, longer, longest, we do not say eventful, eventfuler, eventfulest; but instead, we say eventful, more eventful, most eventful. Accordingly, we have a second way of describing the degrees of comparison, namely, by prefixing to the positive the adverbs more and most. Respecting the employment of these two methods the following rules may be given.

Monosyllables take at the end er to form the comparative, and est, to form the superlative; or, when the word ends in a vowel, r and st, to form the comparative and superlative; e. g.,

Monosyllables and dissyllables ending in y change the y into i,

Dissyllables which terminate in le or re, take in the comparative , and in the superlative st; e. g.,

Dissyllables of which the accent is on the last syllable, may have

Positive.

Able

Noble

Sincere

er and est; e. g.,

All these classes of words may, however, be compared by more and most, and with the last class the use of more and most seems preferable; e. g.,

Generally in words of more than one syllable, the employmen'

of more and most is correct, if not obligatory; e. g.,

Adjectives formed by the suffix some, except handsome (handsomer, handsomest), require more and most; e. g.,

Exclusively by more and most, are formed the adjectives which have the ensuing terminations; e. g.,

If a word ends with a consonant preceded by a short vowel, the consonant is doubled before er and est; e. g.,