participle governing.  Again, the using of adverbs for adjectives, is a fault as gross.  Example:  “Apprehending the nominative to be put absolutely.”—­ Murray’s Gram., p. 155.  Here absolutely ought to be absolute; an adjective, relating to the word nominative.  But, in poetry, there is not only a frequent substitution of quality for manner, in such a way that the adjective may still be parsed adjectively; but sometimes also what appears to be (whether right or wrong) a direct use of adjectives for adverbs, especially in the higher degrees of comparison:  as,

   “Firmer he roots him the ruder it blow.”
        —­Scott, L. of L., C. ii, st. 19.

    “True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
    As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.”
        —­Pope, Ess. on Crit.

    “And also now the sluggard soundest slept.”
        —­Pollok, C. of T., B. vi, l. 257.

    “In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,
    What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so.”
        —­Milton, P. R., B. iv, l. 361.

OBS. 5.—­No use of words can be right, that actually confounds the parts of speech; but in many instances, according to present practice, the same words may be used either adjectively or adverbially. Firmer and ruder are not adverbs, but adjectives.  In the example above, they may, I think, be ranked with the instances in which quality is poetically substituted for manner, and be parsed as relating to the pronouns which follow them.  A similar usage occurs in Latin, and is considered elegant. Easiest, as used above by Pope, may perhaps be parsed upon the same principle; that is, as relating to those, or to persons understood before the verb move.  But soundest, plainest, and easiest, as in the latter quotations, cannot be otherwise explained than as being adverbs. Plain and sound, according to our dictionaries, are used both adjectively and adverbially; and, if their superlatives are not misapplied in these instances, it is because the words are adverbs, and regularly compared as such. Easy, though sometimes used adverbially by reputable writers, is presented by our lexicographers as an adjective only; and if the latter are right, Milton’s use of easiest in the sense and construction of most easily, must be considered an error in grammar.  And besides, according to his own practice, he ought to have preferred plainliest to plainest, in the adverbial sense of most plainly.