Murray’s Gram., p. 169; Ingersoll’s, 195; and others.  “But though this elliptical style be intelligible, and is allowable in conversation and epistolary writing, yet in all writings of a serious or dignified kind, is ungraceful.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 112.  “There is no talent so useful towards rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of people, and is, in common language, called discretion.”—­SWIFT:  Blair’s Rhet., p. 113.  “Which to allow, is just as reasonable as to own, that ’tis the greatest ill of a body to be in the utmost manner maimed or distorted; but that to lose the use only of one limb, or to be impaired in some single organ or member, is no ill worthy the least notice.”—­ SHAFTESBURY:  ib., p. 115; Murray’s Gram., p. 322.  “If the singular nouns and pronouns, which are joined together by a copulative conjunction, be of several persons, in making the plural pronoun agree with them in person, the second person takes place of the third, and the first of both.”—­Murray’s Gram., p. 151; et al. “’The painter * * * cannot exhibit various stages of the same action.’ In this sentence we see that the painter governs, or agrees with, the verb can, as its nominative case.”—­Ib., p. 195.  “It expresses also facts which exist generally, at all times, general truths, attributes which are permanent, habits, customary actions, and the like, without the reference to a specific time.”—­Ib., p. 73; Webster’s Philos.  Gram., p. 71.  “The different species of animals may therefore be considered, as so many different nations speaking different languages, that have no commerce with each other; each of which consequently understands none but their own.”—­Sheridan’s Elocution, p. 142.  “It is also important to understand and apply the principles of grammar in our common conversation; not only because it enables us to make our language understood by educated persons, but because it furnishes the readiest evidence of our having received a good education ourselves.”—­Frost’s Practical Gram., p. 16.

EXERCISE XVII.—­MANY ERRORS.

“This faulty Tumour in Stile is like an huge unpleasant Rock in a Champion Country, that’s difficult to be transcended.”—­Holmes’s Rhet., Book ii, p. 16.  “For there are no Pelops’s, nor Cadmus’s, nor Danaus’s dwell among us.”—­Ib., p. 51.  “None of these, except will, is ever used as a principal verb, but as an auxiliary to some principal, either expressed or understood.”—­Ingersoll’s Gram., p. 134.  “Nouns which signify