first line and the last,) rejects these two examples, substituting for the former, “His meat was locusts and wild honey,” and for the latter, “The wages of sin is death.”  He very evidently supposes all three of his examples to be good English.  In this, according to Churchill, he is at fault in two instances out of the three; and still more so, in regard to the note, or rule, itself.  In stead of being “a rule in all grammars,” it is (so far as I know) found only in these authors, and such as have implicitly copied it from Murray.  Among these last, are Alger, Ingersoll, R. C. Smith, Fisk, and Merchant.  Churchill, who cites it only as Murray’s, and yet expends two pages of criticism upon it, very justly says:  “To make that the nominative case, [or subject of the affirmation,] which happens to stand nearest to the verb, appears to me to be on a par with the blunder pointed out in note 204th;” [that is, of making the verb agree with an objective case which happens to stand nearer to it, than its subject, or nominative.]—­ Churchill’s New Gram., p. 313.

[393] “If the excellence of Dryden’s works was lessened by his indigence, their number was increased.”—­Dr. Johnson.  This is an example of the proper and necessary use of the indicative mood after an if, the matter of the condition being regarded as a fact.  But Dr. Webster, who prefers the indicative too often, has the following note upon it:  “If Johnson had followed the common grammars, or even his own, which is prefixed to his Dictionary, he would have written were—­’If the excellence of Dryden’s works were lessened’—­Fortunately this great man, led by usage rather than by books, wrote correct English, instead of grammar.”—­ Philosophical Gram., p. 238.  Now this is as absurd, as it is characteristic of the grammar from which it is taken.  Each form is right sometimes, and neither can be used for the other, without error.

[394] Taking this allegation in one sense, the reader may see that Kirkham was not altogether wrong here; and that, had he condemned the solecisms adopted by himself and others, about “unity of idea” and “plurality of idea,” in stead of condemning the things intended to be spoken of, he might have made a discovery which would have set him wholly right.  See a footnote on page 738, under the head of Absurdities.

[395] In his English Reader, (Part II, Chap. 5th, Sec. 7th,) Murray has this line in its proper form, as it here stands in the words of Thomson; but, in his Grammar, he corrupted it, first in his Exercises, and then still more in his Key.  Among his examples of “False Syntax” it stands thus: 

   “What black despair, what horror, fills his mind!”
        —­Exercises, Rule 2.

So the error is propagated in the name of Learning, and this verse goes from grammar to grammar, as one that must have a “plural” verb.  See Ingersoll’s Gram., p. 242; Smith’s New Gram., p. 127; Fisk’s Gram., p. 120; Weld’s E. Gram., 2d Ed., p. 189; Imp.  Ed., p. 196.