which do not admit of it.  Blair is grossly inconsistent with himself.  For, after drawing his distinction between Parsing and Construing, as above, he takes no further notice of the latter; but, having filled up seven pages with his most wretched mode of “PARSING,” adds, in an emphatic note:  “The Teacher should direct the Pupil to CONSTRUE, IN THE SAME MANNER, any passage from MY CLASS-BOOK, or other Work, at the rate of three or four lines per day.”—­D.  Blair’s Gram., p. 56.

[220] This is a comment upon the following quotation from Milton, where Hers for His would be a gross barbarism:—­

   “Should intermitted vengeance arm again
    His red right hand to plague us.”—­Par.  Lost, B. ii, l. 174.

[221] The Imperfect Participle, when simple, or when taken as one of the four principal terms constituting the verb or springing from it, ends always in ing.  But, in a subsequent chapter, I include under this name the first participle of the passive verb; and this, in our language, is always a compound, and the latter term of it does not end in ing:  as, “In all languages, indeed, examples are to be found of adjectives being compared whose signification admits neither intension nor remission.”—­CROMBIE, on Etym. and Syntax, p. 106.  According to most of our writers on English grammar, the Present or Imperfect Participle Passive is always a compound of being and the form of the perfect participle:  as, being loved, being seen.  But some represent it to have two forms, one of which is always simple; as, “PERFECT PASSIVE, obeyed or being obeyed.”—­Sanborn’s Analytical Gram., p. 55.  “Loved or being loved.”—­Parkhurst’s Grammar for Beginners, p. 11; Greene’s Analysis, p. 225.  “Loved, or, being loved.”—­Clark’s Practical Gram., p. 83.  I here concur with the majority, who in no instance take the participle in ed or en, alone, for the Present or Imperfect.

[222] In the following example, “he” and “she” are converted into verbs; as “thou” sometimes is, in the writings of Shakspeare, and others:  “Is it not an impulse of selfishness or of a depraved nature to he and she inanimate objects?”—­Cutler’s English Gram., p. 16.  Dr. Bullions, who has heretofore published several of the worst definitions of the verb anywhere extant, has now perhaps one of the best:  “A VERB is a word used to express the act, being, or state of its subject. “—­Analyt. & Pract.  Gram., p. 59.  Yet it is not very obvious, that “he” and “she” are here verbs under this definition.  Dr. Mandeville, perceiving that “the usual definitions of the verb are extremely defective,” not long ago helped the schools to the following:  “A verb is a word which describes the state or condition of a noun