You may distinguish an adjective by its making sense with the word thing: as, a poor thing, a sweet thing, a cool thing; or with any particular substantive, as a ticklish position, an awkward mistake, a strange step.
4. A Pronoun is a word used in lieu of a noun, in order to avoid tautology: as, "The man wants calves; he is a lath; he is a walking-stick.''
5. A Verb is a word which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer: as, I am; I calculate; I am fixed.
A verb may usually be distinguished by its making sense with a personal pronoun, or with the word to before it: as I yell, he grins, they caper; or to drink, to smoke, to chew.
Fashionable accomplishments!
Certain substantives are, with peculiar elegance, and by persons who call themselves genteel, converted into verbs: as, "Do you wine?" "Will you liquor?"
6. An Adverb is a part of speech which, joined to a verb, an adjective, or another adverb, serves to express quality or circumstance concerning it: as, "She swears dreadfully; she is incorrigibly lazy; and she is almost continually in liquor."
7. An Adverb is generally characterised by answering to the question, How?'how much? when? or where? as in the verse, "Merrily danced the Quaker's wife," the answer to the question, How did she dance? is, merrily.
8. Prepositions serve to connect words together, and to show the relation between them: as, "Off with his head, so much for Buckingham!"
9. A Conjunction is used to connect not only words, but sentences also: as, Smith and Jones are happy be~ cause they are single. A miss is as good as a mile.
10. An Interjection is a short word denoting passion or emotion: as, 'Oh, Sophonisba! Sophonisba, oh!" Pshaw! Pish! Pooh! Bah! Ah! Au! Eughph! Yaw! Hum! Ha! Lauk! La! Lor! Heigho! Well! There! &c.
Among the foregoing interjections there may, perhaps, be some unhonored by the adoption of genius, and unknown in the domains of literature. For the present notice of them some apology may be required, but little will be given; their insertion may excite astonishment, but their omission would have provoked complaint: though unprovided with a Johnsonian title to a place in the English vocabulary, they have long been recognised by the popular voice; and let it be remembered, that as custom supplies the defects of legislation, so that which is not sanctioned by magisterial authority may nevertheless be justified by vernacular usage.
CHAPTER II. OF THE ARTICLES
The Articles in English are two, a and the; a becomes an before a vowel, and before an h which is not sounded: as, an exquisite, an hour-glass. But if the h be pronounced, the a only is used: as, a homicide, a homoepathist, a hum.
A or an is called the indefinite article, because it is used, in a vague sense, to point out some one thing belonging to a certain kind, but in other respects indeterminate; as,
"A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!"
So say grammarians. Eating-house keepers tell a different story. A cheese, in common discourse, means an object of a certain shape, size, weight, and so on, entire and perfect; so that to call half a cheese a cheese, would constitute a flaw in an indictment against a thief who had stolen one. But a waiter will term a fraction, or a modicum of cheese, a cheese; a plate-full of pudding, a pudding; and a stick of celery, a salary. Here we are reminded of the famous exclamation of one of these gentry: – "Sir! there's two teas and a brandy-and-water just sloped without paying!" The is termed the definite article, inasmuch as it denotes what particular thing or things are meant as,
"The miller he stole corn,
The weaver he stole yarn,
And the little tailor he stole broad-cloth
To keep the three rogues warm."
A substantive to which no article is prefixed is taken in a general sense; as, "Applesauce is proper for goose that is, for all geese.
A few additional remarks may advantageously be made with respect to the articles. The mere substitution of the definite for the indefinite article is capable of changing entirely the meaning of a sentence. "That is a ticket" is the assertion of a certain fact; but "That is the ticket!" means something which is quite different.
The article is not prefixed to a proper name; as, Stubbs, Wiggins, Brown or Hobson, except for the sake of distinguishing a particular family, or description of persons; as, He is a Burke; that is, one of the Burkes, or a person resembling Burke.
The definite article is frequently used with adverbs in the comparative and superlative degree: as, "The longer I live, the taller, I grow or, as we have all heard the showman say, "This here, gentlemen and ladies, is the vonderful heagle of the sun; the 'otterer it grows, the higherer he flies!"
CHAPTER III
Proper names, or substantives, are the names belonging to individuals: as William, Birmingham.
These are sometimes converted into nicknames, of improper names: as Bill, Brummagem.
Common names, or substantives, denote kinds containing many sorts, or sorts containing many individual» under them: as brute, beast, bumpkin, cherub, infant, goblin, &c.
Proper names, when an article is prefixed to them, are employed as common names: as, "They thought him a perfect Chesterfield; he quite astonished the Browns."
Common names, on the other hand, are made to denote individuals, by the addition of articles or pronouns: as,
"There was a little man, and he had little gun."
"That boy will be the death of me!"
Substantives are considered according to gender, number, and case; they are all of the third person when spoken of, and of the second when spoken to; as,
Matilda, fairest maid, who art
In countless bumpers toasted,
O let thy pity baste the heart
Thy fatal charms have roasted!
The distinction between nouns with regard to sex is called Gender. There are three genders: the Masculine, the Feminine, and the Neuter.
The masculine gender belongs to animals of the male kind: as, a fop, a jackass, a boar, a poet, a lion.
The feminine gender is peculiar to animals of the female kind: as, a poetess, a lioness, a goose.
The neuter gender is that of objects which are neither males nor females: as, a toast, a tankard, a pot, a pipe, a pudding, a pie, a sausage, &c. &c. &c.
We might go on to enumerate an infinity of objects of the neuter gender, of all sorts and kinds; but in the selection of the foregoing examples we have been guided by two considerations: —
1. The desire of exciting agreeable emotions in the mind of the reader.
2. The wish to illustrate the following proposition, "That almost everything nice is also neuter."
Except, however, a nice young lady, a nice duck, and one or two other nice things, which we do not at present remember.
Some neuter substantives are by a figure of speech converted into the masculine or feminine gender: thus we say of the sun, that when he shines upon a Socialist, t he shines upon a thief; and of the moon, that she affects the minds of lovers.
There are certain nouns with which notions of strength, vigor, and the like qualities, are more particularly connected; and these are the neuter substantives which are figuratively rendered masculine. On the other hand, beauty, amiability, and so forth, are held to invest words with a feminine character. Thus the sun is said to be masculine, and the moon feminine. But for our own