!

In analysis of these examples, first, read off the whole subject and the whole predicate separately; next point out the verb, tell to which class it belongs, and its mode, tense, number, person; then point out the subject noun, telling class, number, gender, person, repeat rule of concord between subject noun and verb; then turn to the verb and say that it is modified by the objective (here name the word), and the dative (naming the noun in the dative).

For example, 'allowed' in the first proposition is modified by the objective credit, and the dative me. After this, the objective and dative nouns may be classed and described.

In the analysis the words in Roman may be omitted as usual.

EXERCISE II., III., &c.-Let the learner write a given number of propositions formed with the verbs above given (or similar verbs, if he can find them), followed by appropriate dative and objective modifications.

(10) Some of this class of verbs admit of being modified by an infinitive and dative. (11) For example, He allowed me to ride, Promised me to send, Told him to go, &c.

EXERCISE. Let the learner form a given number of propositions with such of the verbs in the above list as admit an infinitive and dative, accompanying the verbs in each proposition by both these modifications.

[REMARK.-(12) It will be noticed that when an infinitive holds the place of an objective modification, the dative still takes precedence in the order of arrangement, though, as we shall show more fully hereafter, the objective modification has a closer relation with the verb in sense, than the dative, and though in fact it is not the verb alone, but the verb modified or completed by the objective noun or infinitive, that is completed by the dative. (13) If the noun or pronoun expressing the dative modification is placed after the objective (which is its natural place in the order of sense), it must be preceded by the preposition to. (14) This proves the kind of relation which these dative nouns hold to the verb, and that they are not to be confounded with accusatives complementary of the active verb. (15) Two circumstances distinguish the dative modification from the noun comple

(10) In what manner are some of these verbs which admit a dative modified? (11) Give examples.

[(12) Repeat the substance of the remark. (13) When the noun or pronoun expressing the dative modification is placed after the objective modification, by what must it be preceded? (14) What does this prove? (15) Mention the two circumstances which distinguish the dative modification from the noun complementary of the active verb.

mentary of the active verb; first, as we have just remarked, the da tive always takes precedence of the objective modification, whereas the noun complementary always follows it; and, second, when the objective modification is not an infinitive, the datice can be replaced without injury to the sense, by the noun or pronoun with the preposition to (or sometimes for) placed after the objective modification.

(16) We cannot prove the nature of this construction so directly when an infinitive follows the dative, because we cannot then replace the dative by a noun and the intermediary words to or for after the infinitive; but we ascertain the construction which the verb requires when a noun or pronoun (as objective modification) follows it, and may safely conclude, that what is a datire in this case, must remain a dative when an infinitive follows. (17) For example, if in the proposition, John told him a story, the pronoun him is a dative modification, we may be assured that it performs the same function in the proposition, John told him to write.]

NOTE.-The mode of analyzing this construction hitherto generally adopted, by saying that the noun is in the objective case, and that the preposition to is suppressed, appears to us improper. If the preposition To had ever been used with these datives when placed before the objective modification, this explanation of the construction might be allowed. But we believe that to has never, in any period of the language, been used before nouns or pronouns employed to express a dative sense, when placed before any kind of objective modification, whether noun, pronoun or infinitive.

This construction is in reality a remnant of the ancient Anglo-Saxon usage of a dative modification, which has continued in our language after the distinct dative form by which it was anciently indicated has entirely disappeared, except in the pronouns. What we call an accusative or objective case in the personal pronouns, has at least full as much claim to be considered a dative as an accusative. In most of the pronouns, the same form served the functions of both dative and accusative; and, as regards the pronoun masculine of the third person, HIM was in fact the ancient dative and not the accusative. The accusative had another form altogether distinct. Them also descends from the dative and not from the accusative plural, which in the Anglo-Saxon corresponds with the nominative plural. (See § 155.) It is therefore inconsistent with the history of this construction, to say that there is a preposition suppressed before the noun. In the ancient language the function of the word was indicated by the dative form; the same is now indicated by the place which it holds in the arrangement before the objective

(16) What is said of the means of ascertaining this distinction when an infinitive serves as objective modification? (17) Illustrate by example.]

modification. No complement, as far as we remember at present, except a dative of this kind, can with propriety always come between the verb and the objective modification, when it follows the verb. The mode in which we have ventured, in opposition to established usage, to treat this construction, is not only more consistent with the history of our language, but it prepares us better to account for the singularity, that these verbs when passively employed have sometimes (contrary to the general laws of language), what serves as a dative to the verb (actively employed) for their subject

noun.

What we have said above might in consistency be carried much farther. Besides the fact which we shall notice presently, that many datives after what were originally intransitive verbs, have come to be considered objectives, and the verbs which they modify, in consequence, to be recognised as transitive, the nouns and pronouns which follow prepositions were originally often real datives in form and sense. For instance, in any of the above examples when we place the noun or pronoun, which serves as dative modification after the objective, and place the preposition to before it, it is as much historically a dative as before. That is to say, the Anglo-Saxons employed the preposition to generally with the dative case, never with the accusative. Many of their prepositions, like to, do not take after them an accusative. But it would serve no purpose except to perplex the student to revive distinctions which in the present usage of the language are marked neither by a change of form, nor by a particular arrangement, and which can now serve no practical purpose.

There is one relic of the old English dative, which we must notice in order to explain a number of expressions, now obsolete, but of frequent recurrence in our older writers. (18) We allude to the following impersonal verbs preceded by a form of one or other of the pronouns, most generally by me; me seems, me listeth, me thinks, and its past tense, me thought. (See § 66: 8-14.) (19) The pronoun in all these is a dative modification. (20) Me seems is equivalent to it seems to me; me listeth, or me lists, to it listeth to me. (21) Me thinks is also equivalent to it seems to me, and me thought to it seemed to me.

NOTE-This verb (think) is now obsolete in our language. It must not be confounded with the verb think now in use. In many of the northern dialects, and (what is most to our purpose) especially in the Anglo-Saxon,

(18) Enumerate certain obsolete forms of expression, which are to be explained by a reference to the ancient use of a dative case. (19) What is the pronoun in all these expressions? (20) What are me seems and me listeth equivalent to? (21) What is me thinks equivalent to; and me thought its past tense?

the parent language of the English, there were two verbs nearly alike in form, the one meaning the same with our now existing verb to think, the other nearly what we now express by the verb seem.

These two verbs became confounded in form at an early period in our language, if not sometimes in the later Anglo-Saxon; but the two distinct meanings were retained and recognised as distinct down to the middle of the seventeenth century, if not later. See Mr. R. Taylor's additional notes to the Diversions of Purley, and Dr. Latham's English Language.

We add a few examples in illustration of what has been said of these forms of expression from Mr. Taylor's judicious and learned notes, p. xxxi. "Thus Shakspeare:

Prince. Where shall we sojourne till our coronation?
Glo. Where it thinks best unto your royal self.

Richard the Third, act 3, sc. 1.

as it stands in the first copies, though since altered to seems.'

666

"Me seemeth good that with some little traine
Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetcht.'

Richard the Third, act. 2, sc. 2.

'Let him do what seemeth him good.'-1 Sam. iii. 18.
'Him ought not to be a tiraunt.'-Leg. Good Wom., 429.

'The garden that so likid me.'-Chauc. R. Rose, l. 1312.

'So it liked the emperor to know which of his daughters loved him best.' --Gesta Rom., ed. Swan, 1. lxxii., ch. 20.

'He should ask of the emperor what him list.'-Ib. lxxxv. 41. 'Well me quemeth,' (pleaseth) Chauc. Conf. Am. 68. Also our common expression, if you please;" where you is evidently not the nominative to the verb, but is governed by it, (complement to it,) q. d. 'If you it please;' yet by a singular perversion of the phrase, we say, 'I do not please,' 'If she should please,' for 'It does not please me,' 'It should please her.'

'Stanley. Please it your majestie to give me leave

I'le muster up my friends and meete your grace.
Where and what time your majestie shall please.

Richard the Third, act 4, sc. 4."

It will be seen from these examples that impersonal verbs (or verbs having a proposition or phrase for their subject) without the representative it, were once common in our language, and took generally a dative comple ment. See another example in Par. Lost, b. II., 942.

"Behoves him now both oar and sail"

There are many other latent datives in our language now commonly re garded as objectives, and as expressing the passive object of the verbs which they modify. But as these datives have no longer a distinct form, and follow verbs which do not take a second noun (without a preposition) after them, we have no ready means of detecting them and distinguishing them from accusatives. We cannot detect them by changing the order of arrangement as when the verb takes both a dative and accusative modification. For instance, the verb obey, when first introduced into the language, we presume, always, like the Latin and French words from which it is derived, took after it not a direct, but an indirect object—a dative, not an objective modification. To illustrate this we may give the following examples; “To whom your fathers would not obey."—Acts 7: 39. "His servants ye are to whom ye obey." These examples prove that the translators of the Bible considered the verb obey, susceptible, in their time, of a dative and not of an accusative modification, since they have evidently introduced the preposition to in these two places, lest whom should be taken for an objective mcdification.

Wiclif in his translation often uses the preposition to before the noun or pronoun which follows obey, showing that where the preposition is omitted the case is still a dative. For example, " And thei obeien to him.”—Mark 1: 27. In the following example we have proof that both command and obey were in Wiclif's time followed by a dative, not by an objective construction. "He comaundith to wyndis and to the see, and thei obeien to him." We still say, approach to a place, as well as approach a place, trust to a person or thing, or in a person or thing, (the latter expression is very often used in the translation of the Scriptures,) as well as trust a person, escape from a danger, as well as, escape a danger. This shows that when the preposition is omitted, the noun after these verbs is a dative, and not an objective. There are several other verbs which take after them nouns without a preposition, and which nouns we now recognise as objectives, but which, it may be fairly presumed, were originally proper datives, and the verbs instead of being active or transitive, as we now consider them, were neuter verbs, and incapable of taking after them an objective modification. Such verbs are oppose, serve, succeed, succour, from the Latin, and answer, bid, forbid, follow, forswear, withstand, from the Anglo-Saxon, which in these languages are followed by datives. If no examples can be found of a preposition employed to attach nouns to these verbs, it should not surprise us, as we find nouns with the force of datives so often attached to active verbs without a preposition. We may add to the list above the verb profit, which in the times of Wiclif sometimes took after it a noun with the preposition to, thus proving that it was not regarded as transitive.—“And the worde that was herd profi tide not to hem" (them).

From these remarks, the learned reader will discover that our language was originally more similar than it now seems to be to the Latin and Greek lan