and familiarise things, which are really above nature, and beyond the laws of cause and effect, as commonly understood by us.'

6

So also the phrase 'we make trifles of terrors' means, 'we turn terrors into sport.' The adjectives 'supernatural' and 'causeless' are used to qualify the objective things;' while the adjectives'modern' and familiar' are complementobjectives, to be taken in connection with the verb 'make.'

153. In our version of the Scriptures, we read:

Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire.-Psalm civ. 4.

It has sometimes been suggested that this passage might be taken just the other way :

Who maketh the winds his messengers; the flames of fire his ministers.

But I have some doubts as to the latter clause. Compare, too, Hebrews i. 7, 8.

154. As there is, in English nouns, no distinction of form between nominative and objective, the order of words is a matter of great importance. In the following passage from Gibbon, objectives are immediately followed by nominatives; and the reader is obliged to peruse the sentence more than once, in order to discover where the objectives end, and the nominatives begin. Speaking of Theodoric, he says:

The ambassadors who resorted to Ravenna from the most distant countries of Europe admired his wisdom, magnificence and courtesy; and if he sometimes accepted either slaves or arms, white horses or strange animals, the gift of a sun-dial, a waterclock, or a musician, admonished even the princes of Gaul of the superior art and industry of his Italian subjects.

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c. 39. After a little reflection, it is easy to see that the objectives end at animals, and the nominatives begin with the gift of a sun-dial. But a writer should not cause his readers to hesitate, even for a moment, upon mere points of grammar.

155. As a general rule, transitive verbs govern an objective, and intransitives do not. But we must be very careful to watch the change of construction in verbs. For an intransitive verb, when compounded with a preposition, may acquire a transitive force; and as, in English, the preposition

is generally not attached to the verb, but put after it, the construction is sometimes misunderstood.

For instance, run is an intransitive verb; but run through is transitive, in the sense of (1) pierce, (2) waste: as,

They ran him through, with a sword.

He ran through his property.

Here him is the objective, governed by the compound verb ran through; and property is the objective, governed, not by the preposition through, but by the compound verb ran through. For we might turn the sentences thus:

They pierced him with a sword.

He squandered his property.

See §§ 490, 491.

156. These constructions should be distinguished from others, where the intransitive, used with a preposition, still remains intransitive: as 'depart from,'' despair of.' But one remark is common to both; that this appending of a preposition gives rise to the idiom of throwing a preposition to the end of the sentence: as,

This I was afraid of.

That result I despaired of.

Those grammarians who derive their notions from the idiom of the Latin language, condemn this usage of the preposition as inelegant; but more recent investigations, in the Germanic dialects, have proved that this is an old English idiom.-See §§ 483-485.

157. A noun denoting time, space, or measure is often used absolutely; and from the analogy of similar constructions in Latin, we say that such nouns are in the objective case: as, They rode all day.

That tower was twenty feet high.

In 1661, the justices fixed the labourer's wages at seven shillings a week, wheat seventy shillings the quarter, and the labourer worked twelve hours a day.—Macaulay. It has been surmised, that a, in these constructions, is not the indefinite article, but a remnant of the Anglo-Saxon preposition an, 'in,' 'on.' But see § 304.

158. Dr. Angus remarks, (Handbook, § 413) that the preposition of is sometimes erroneously used with an adjective, in such constructions as the following:

Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high.-Esther v. 14.
To an infant of two or three years old.-Wayland.

But in the present state of our knowledge, we must guard against hasty judgments. We must not rashly condemn an idiomatic usage, if it be really idiomatic; but we must examine the custom of old writers, before we arrive at a final conclusion.

159. A noun in the objective case is often found with an intransitive verb, when the noun and the verb are akin in meaning. This is called in Latin grammar the Cognate Accusative: as, to dream a dream,' 'to run a race.'

So,

Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.-Numbers xxiii. 10.

160. The infinitive mood, used substantively, can stand as an objective: John loves to study;' and the infinitive so employed does not lose its power as a verb, but may have another objective dependent upon itself: as,

Ladies, you deserve

To have a temple built you.

Coriolanus, v. 3.

Occasionally, we find a forerunning it employed to show that an infinitive phrase is coming: as,

Thou dost; and think'st it much to tread the ooze

Of the salt deep.

Tempest, i. 2.

161. We saw, §§ 37, 38, that when a sentence takes the place of an objective, there are three forms in which the subordinate clause may appear:

1. I know [he is eloquent].

2. I know that he is eloquent]
3. I know [him to be eloquent].

We have termed the objective him, in the third example, a 'subject-accusative,' because it forms the subject of the subordinate clause, and yet it stands in the accusative or objective case before the infinitive to be. This mode of explanation is borrowed from the Latin grammarians, and is the most satisfactory that can be offered.

POSITION.

162. As a general rule, the objective follows the governing verb; but sometimes for the sake of emphasis, the order is reversed, and the objective stands first: as,

Honey from out the gnarled hive I'll bring.

Keats, Endymion, 4.

Such sober certainty of waking bliss

I never heard till now.

Milton, Comus, 263.

As pronouns often exhibit variations to mark difference of case, there is, with them, less danger of confusion; and a pronoun in the objective is freely placed before the verb: as, Him the Almighty Power

Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky.

Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 44-5. ` So, too, when the subject-nominative denotes a person, and the objective a thing or quality: as,

Equal toil the good commander endures with the common soldier.

Interrogative and relative pronouns, when used in the objective, occupy the first place in the sentence or clause; as, whom did he mean?''this is the man whom I mentioned.'

THE SECONDARY OBJECTIVE.

163. In Latin, some verbs govern two accusatives; others an accusative and a dative; others an accusative and a genitive. What we have termed the 'secondary objective' corresponds to the second accusative, to the dative, or to the genitive in the Latin construction.

The employment of the secondary objective, in place of a dative, is particularly observable in the usage of personal pronouns; for, me and thee are old datives, as well as accusatives; and him is a true dative, though we commonly employ it as an accusative.

164. The secondary objective is formed after verbs of 'giving,'' telling,'' showing:' as,

Give me that book.

I will tell thee a tale.

They showed him all.

Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.
Macbeth, iv. 3.

165. The secondary objective, in the case of personal pronouns, is often used to represent the person for whom, for whose benefit, or at whose request anything is done. This corresponds to what is called the dativus commodi: so,

Prince Henry. I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.

Falstaff. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest. 1st Hen. IV. iii. 3.

Talbot. Convey me Salisbury into his tent.

1st Hen. VI. i. 4.

Petruchio. Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.

Grumio. Knock you here, sir! why, sir, what am I, sir,
that I should knock you here, sir?

Petruchio. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate,
And rap me well.

Taming of the Shrew, i. 2.

166. The secondary objective is found after the verbs list and like, both in the sense of 'please;' after seem and think in the sense of' appear:' as,

And al that likith me, I dare wel sayn
It likith the.

i.e., all that pleaseth me, pleaseth thee.'
When in Salamanca's cave

Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame.

Chaucer.

Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel, ii. 13.

Yet there, meseems, I hear her singing loud.

Sidney.

Hotspur. By heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced

moon.

1st Henry IV. i. 3.

Hamlet, Madam, how like you this play?

Queen. The lady protests too much, methinks.

Hamlet, iii. 2.

In such phrases as 'methinks,' 'meseems,''meseemeth,' the pronoun me is a dative, and the sense is 'it appears to me,' it seems to me.' Some grammarians have found a difficulty in the form 'methinks,' from not being aware that in AngloSaxon there are two verbs, thencan, German denken, to think,' and thincan, German, dünken, to seem.' It is from the latter verb that we have our phrase me-thinks, corresponding to the German mir dünkt, or mich dünkt, it seems to me.' We may remark that the Germans can use, in this construction, either the dative mir or the accusative mich.