Percival Leigh

“ Why, Fanny Elsler's feet and Taglioni's feet are poetical feet—are they not? or else what is meant by calling dancing the poetry of Motion? And cannot each of those artistes boast of a toe which is the very essence of all poetry—a TO' KAAO'N?
No. You may make verses on Taglioni's feet, (though if she be a poetess, she can do that better than you, standing, too, on one leg, like the man that Horace speaks of;) but you cannot make them of her feet. Feet of which verses are composed are made of syllables, not of bones, muscles, and ligaments. Feet and pauses are the constituent parts of a verse. ”

“ Grammatically speaking, we say that there are, in English, as many sorts of words as a cat is said to have lives, nine; namely, the Article, the Substantive or Noun, the Adjective, the Pronoun, the Verb, the Adverb, the Preposition, the Conjunction, and the Interjection.
Comically speaking, there are a great many sorts of words which we have not room enough to particularise individually. We can therefore only afford to classify them. For instance; there are words which are spoken in the Low Countries, and are High Dutch to persons of quality. ”

“ Accent is the marking with a peculiar stress of the voice a particular letter or syllable in a word, in such a manner as to render it more distinct or audible than the rest. Thus, in the word théatre, the stress of the voice should be on the letter e and first syllable the; and in cóntrary, on the first syllable con. How shocking it is to hear people say con-tráry, the-átre! The friends of education will be reminded with regret, that an error in the pronunciation of the first of these words is very early impressed on the human mind. ”

“ A verse consists of a certain number and variety of syllables, put together and arranged according to certain laws.
Verses being also called dulcet strains, harmonious numbers, tuneful lays, and so forth, it is clear that such combination and arrangement must be so made as to please the ear.
Versification is the making of verses. This seems such a truism as to be not worth stating; but it is necessary to define what Versification is, because many people suppose it to be the same thing with poetry. ”

“ Hope to be thought not altogether unworthy of regard: fear to be rejected as having no pretensions to the affections of such unparalleled loveliness. Know not in what terms to declare my feelings. Adore you, worship you, dote on you, am wrapt up in you! think but on you, live but for you, would willingly die for you!—in short, love you! ”

“ All we shall observe is, that in our opinion, advice concerning manners stand in the same relation to a Comic English Grammar, as instruction in morals does to a Serious one. For the remarks which it will now be our business to make, we bespeak the indulgence of our elder readers, and the attention of such as are of tender age. ”

“ Letters are divided into Vowels and Consonants. The vowels are capable of being perfectly uttered by themselves. They are, as it were, independent members of the Alphabet, and like independent members elsewhere, form a small minority. The vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y.
An I. O. U. is a more pleasant thing to have, than it is to give.
A blow in the stomach is very likely to W up.
W is a consonant when it begins a word, as "Wicked Will Wiggins whacked his wife with a whip;" but in every other place it is a vowel, as crawling, drawling, sawney, screwing, Jew. ”

“ A liberty not unfrequently taken with the English Language, is the substitution of the perfect participle for the imperfect tense, and of the imperfect tense for the perfect participle: as, "He run like mad, with the great dog after him." ”

“ The infinitive mood, or part of a sentence, is sometimes used as the nominative case to the verb: as, "to be good is to be happy:" which is as grammatical an assertion as "Toby Good is Toby Happy;" and rather surpasses it in respect of sense. "That two pippins are a pair, is a proposition which no man in his senses will deny." ”

“ Every philosopher has his weak points, and in the Sylva Sylvarum may be found some gammon of Bacon.
RULE XX.
When a comparison is made between two or more things, the latter noun or pronoun is not governed by the conjunction than or as, but agrees with the verb, or is governed by the verb or preposition, expressed or understood: as, "The French are a lighter people than we," (that is "than we are,") "and yet we are not so dark as they," that is, "as they are." "I should think that they admire me more than them," that is, "than they admire them." ”

“ To verbs belong Number, Person, Mood, and Tense. These may be called the properties of a verb; and like those of opium, they are soporiferous properties. There are two very important objects which the writer of every book has, or ought to have in view, to get a reader who is wide awake, and to keep him so:—the latter of which, when Number, Person, Mood, and Tense are to be treated of, is no such easy matter ”

“ The pronunciation of a long syllable commonly occupies double the time of a short one: thus, "Pāte," and "Brōke," must be pronounced as slowly again as "Păt," and "Knǒck."
We have remarked a curious tendency in the more youthful students of Grammar to regard the quantity of words (in their lessons) more as being "small" or "great" than as coming under the head of "long" or "short." Their predilection for small quantities of words is very striking and peculiar; food for the mind they seem to look upon as physic ”

“ How does your garden grow?"
How many evils, alas! arise from juvenile associations!
Words of two syllables never have more than one of them accented, except for the sake of peculiar emphasis. Gentlemen, however, whose profession it is to drive certain public vehicles called cabs, are much accustomed to disregard this rule, and to say, "pó-líte" (or "púr-líte") , "gén-téel," "cón-cérn," "pó-líce," and so on: nay, they go so far as to convert a word of one syllable into two, for the sake of indulging in this style of pronunciation ”

“ Some neuter substantives are by a figure of speech converted into the masculine or feminine gender: thus we say of the sun, that when he shines upon a Socialist, he shines upon a thief; and of the moon, that she affects the minds of lovers. ”

“ A man who turns lover becomes a protest-ant; and his conduct at the same time generally undergoes a reformation, especially if he has previously been a rake.
The zeal, however, of a reformed rake, like that of Jack in Dean Swift's "Tale of a Tub," is sometimes apt to outrun his discretion.
When the same word, being a dissyllable, is both a noun and a verb, the verb has mostly the accent on the latter, and the noun on the former syllable: as,
"Molly, let Hymen's gentle hand
⁠Cemént our hearts together,
With such a cément as shall stand
⁠In spite of wind and weather. ”

“ We beg to inform thee, that the third person plural has no distinction of gender.
SECTION II.
OF THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS.
The Pronouns called Relative are such as relate, for the most part, to some word or phrase, called the antecedent, on account of its going before: they are, who, which, and that: as, "The man who does not drink enough when he can get it, is a fool: but he that drinks too much is a beast." ”

“ The various specimens of versification of which examples have been given, may be improved and varied by the admission of secondary feet into their composition; but as we are not writing an Art of Poetry, we cannot afford to show how: particularly as the only way, after all, of acquiring a real knowledge of the structure of English verse, is by extensive reading. Besides, there yet remain a few Directions for Poetical Beginners, which we feel ourselves called upon to give, and for which, if we do not take care, we shall not have room. ”

“ Lindley Murray judiciously observes, that "if we consider the subject of comparison attentively, we shall perceive that the degrees of it are infinite in number, or at least indefinite:" and he proceeds to say, "A mountain is larger than a mite; by how many degrees? How much bigger is the earth than a grain of sand? ”

“ When a verb comes between two nouns, either of which may be taken as the subject of the affirmation, it may agree with either of them: as, "Two-and-six-pence is half-a-crown." Due regard, however, should be paid to that noun which is most naturally the subject of the verb: it would be clearly wrong to say, "Ducks and green peas is a delicacy." "Fleas is a nuisance." ”

“ The nominative denotes the subject, and usually goes before the verb or attribute; and the word or phrase, denoting the object, follows the verb; as, "The flirt torments her lover." Here, a flirt is the subject; torments, the attribute or thing affirmed; and her lover, the object.
It strikes us, though, that we are somewhat digressing from our subject, namely Syntax, which,
Principally consists of two parts (which the flirt does not, for she is all body and no soul) Concord and Government.
Concord is the agreement which one word has with another, in gender, number, case or person. ”

“ RULE VII.
The relative and the verb, when the former is preceded by two nominatives of different persons, may agree in person with either, according to the sense: as, "I am the young gentleman who do the lovers at the Chatham;" or, "who does."
Let this maxim be borne constantly in mind. "A murderer of good characters should always be made an example of." ”

“ Prosody consists of two parts; wherefore, although it may be a topic, a head, or subject for discussion, it can never be a point; for a point is that which hath no parts. Besides, there are a great many lines to be considered in the second part of Prosody, which treats of Versification. The first division teaches the true Pronunciation of Words, including Accent, Quantity, Emphasis, Pause, and Tone.
Lord Chesterfield's book about manners, which is intended to teach us the proper tone to be adopted in Society, may be termed an Ethical Prosody. ”

“ Of this proposition we shall now give a few illustrations, which we would endeavor to render still clearer by the addition of musical notes, but that these would hardly express, with adequate exactness, the modulations of sound to which we allude; and besides, we hope to be sufficiently understood without such help. This part of the Grammar should be read aloud by the student; or, which is better still, the interjection, where it is possible, should be repeated with the proper intonation by a class; the sentence which gives occasion to it being read by the preceptor. ”

“ Those conjunctions which have a positive and absolute signification, require the indicative mood: as, "He who fasts may be compared to a horse: for as the animal eats not a bit, so neither does the man partake of a morsel."⁠"The rustic is deluded by false hopes, for his daily food is gammon." ”

“ To produce the agreement and right disposition of words in a sentence, the following rules (and observations?) should be carefully studied.
RULE I.
A verb must agree with its nominative case in number and person: as "I perceive." "Thou hast been to Boston." "Apes chatter." "Frenchmen gabble."
Certain liberties are sometimes taken with this rule: as, "I own I likes good beer." "You'm a fine fellow, aint yer?" Such modes of speaking are adopted by those who neither know nor care anything about grammatical correctness ”

“ The quantity of a syllable means the time taken up in pronouncing it. As there is in Arithmetic a long division and a short division, so in Prosody is Quantity considered as long or short.
A syllable is said to be long, when the accent is on the vowel, causing it to be slowly joined in pronunciation to the next letter: as, "Flēa, small, creature."
A syllable is called short, when the accent lies on the consonant, so that the vowel is quickly joined to the succeeding letter: as "Crăck, little, devil." ”

“ All words are either primitive or derivative. A primitive word is that which cannot be reduced to any simpler word in the language; as, brass, York, knave. A derivative word, under the head of which compound words are also included, is that which may be reduced to another and a more simple word in the English language ”

“ The word as, so often used in this and other Grammars, is a conjunction: as, "Mrs. A. is as well as can be expected."
CHAPTER X.
OF DERIVATION.
Those who know Latin, Greek, Saxon, and the other languages from which our own is formed, do not require to be instructed in philological derivation; and on those who do not understand the said tongues, such instruction would be thrown away. In what manner English words are derived, one from another, the generality of persons know very well: there are, however, a few words and phrases, which it is expedient to trace to their respective sources ”

“ But as a rusty weathercock may vary in being more or less rusty, so an adjective varies in the degrees of comparison.
The degrees of comparison, like the Genders, the Graces, the Fates, the Kings of Cologne, the Weird Sisters, and many other things, are three; the Positive, the Comparative, and the Superlative.
The Positive state simply expresses the quality of an object; as, fat, ugly, foolish.
The Comparative degree increases or lessens the signification of the positive; as fatter, uglier, more foolish, less foolish. ”

“ If after what we have said anybody does not understand the nature of Tone, all we shall say of him is, that he is a Tony Lumpkin.
CHAPTER II.
OF VERSIFICATION.
It is with peculiar pleasure that we approach this part of Prosody. We belong to a class of persons to whom a celebrated phrenological manipulator ascribes "some poetical feeling, if studied or called forth;" and, to borrow another expression from the same quarter, we sometimes "versify a little;" that is to say, we diversify our literary occupations by an occasional flirtation with the muses. ”

“ A hat without a crown, a tattered coat, threadbare and out at elbows, a pair of breeches which looked like a piece of dirty patchwork diversified by various holes, and of boots which a Jew would hardly have raked from a kennel, at once proclaimed him a man who had seen better days. ”

“ A Conjunction means literally, a union or meeting together. An ill-assorted marriage is
A COMICAL CONJUNCTION. But our conjunctions are used to connect words and sentences, and have nothing to do with the joining of hands. They are chiefly of two sorts, the Copulative and Disjunctive.
The Copulative Conjunction is employed for the connection or continuation of a sentence: as, "Jack and Gill went up the Hill," "I will sing a song if Gubbins will." "A thirsty man is like a Giant because he is a Gog for drink." ”

“ Furthermore, the moon is continually changing; on which account alone she might be referred to the feminine gender. The earth is feminine, tricked out, as she is, with gems and flowers. Cities and towns are likewise feminine, because there are as many windings, turnings, and little odd corners in them as there are in the female mind, A ship is feminine, inasmuch as she is blown about by every wind. Virtue is feminine by courtesy. Fortune and misfortune, like mother and daughter, are both feminine. ”

“ We here approach the conclusion of our labors. Young gentlemen, once more it is earnestly requested that you will give your careful attention to the rules and admonitions which have been above laid down for your guidance. We might have given a great many more; but we hope that the spirit of our instructions will enable the diligent youth to supply, by observation and reflection, that which, for obvious reasons, we have necessarily left unsaid. ”

“ That, however, which the Perfect Tense represents as done, is completely, or, as we say of a green one, when he is humbugged by the thimble-rig people, regularly done; as, "I have been out on the river." "I have caught a crab."
Catching a crab is a thing regularly (in another sense than completely) done, when civic swains pull young ladies up to Richmond. We beg to inform persons unacquainted with aquatic phraseology, that "pulling pup" young ladies, or others, is a very different thing from "pulling up" an omnibus conductor or a cabman. What an equivocal language is ours! ”

“ With many other sorts of words, which will be readily suggested by the reader's fancy.
But now let us go on with the parts of speech.
1. An Article is a word prefixed to substantives to point them out, and to show the extent of their meaning; as, a dandy, an ape, the simpleton.
One kind of comic article is otherwise denominated an oddity, or queer article.
Another kind of comic article is often to be met with in some of our monthly magazines.
2. A Substantive or Noun is the name of anything that exists, or of which we have any notion ”