contrary, be _sour_ as vinegar.

But this verb frequently has another object after it; as, "to _smile_
the _wrinkles_ from the brow of age," or "_smile_ dull _cares_ away." "A
sensible wife would soon _reason_ and _smile him_ into good nature."

But I need not multiply examples. When such men as Johnson, Walker,
Webster, Murray, Lowthe, and a host of other wise and renowned men,
gravely tell us that _eat_ and _drink_, which they define, "to _take
food_; _to feed_; _to take a meal_; _to go to meals_; to be maintained
in food; _to swallow liquors_; _to quench thirst_; to take any liquid;"
are _intransitive_ or _neuter_ verbs, having no objects after them, we
must think them insincere, egregiously mistaken, or else possessed of a
means of subsistence different from people generally! Did they _eat_ and
_drink_, "take food and swallow liquors," _in_transitively; that is,
without _eating_ or _drinking_ any thing? Is it possible in the nature
of things? Who does not see the absurdity? And yet they were _great_
men, and nobody has a right to question such _high_ authority. And the
"_simplifiers_" who have come after, making books and teaching grammar
to _earn_ their _bread_, have followed close in their footsteps, and, I
suppose, _eaten_ nothing, and thrown their bread away! Was I a believer
in neuter verbs and desired to get money, my first step would be to set
up a boarding house for all believers in, and _practisers_ of,
intransitive verbs. I would board cheap and give good fare. I could
afford it, for no provisions would be consumed.

Some over cautious minds, who are always second, if not last, in a good
cause, ask us why these principles, if so true and clear, were not found
out before? Why have not the learned who have studied for many
centuries, never seen and adopted them? It is a sufficient answer to
such a question, to ask why the copernican system of astronomy was not
sooner adopted, why the principles of chemistry, the circulation of the
blood, the power and application of steam, nay, why all improvement was
not known before. When grammar and dictionary makers, those wise
expounders of the principles of speech, have so far forgotten facts as
to teach that _eat_ and _drink_, "express neither action nor passion,"
or are "confined to the agents;" that when a man eats, he eats nothing,
or when he drinks, he drinks nothing, we need not stop long to decide
why these things were unknown before. The wisest may sometimes