NEGATION _of the Greek article_, made to occupy a place in
language, and to express _force!_ The force of what? Of a plural _an_ or
_a,!_ of such a word as _ans_ or _aes!_ The error of the first of these
sentences, Dr. Blair has copied entire into his eighth lecture.

OBS. 12.--The following rules of agreement, though found in many English
grammars, are not only objectionable with respect to the sense intended,
but so badly written as to be scarcely intelligible in any sense: 1. "The
article _a_ or _an agrees_ with nouns _in_ the singular number _only,
individually, or collectively_: as, A Christian, an infidel, a score, a
thousand." 2. "The definite article _the_ may _agree_ with nouns _in the
singular_ AND[135] _plural number_: as, The garden, the houses, the
stars."--_Murray's Gram._, 8vo, p. 170; 12mo, 139; _Fish's Murray_, 98; _a
Teacher's_, 45. For the purpose of preventing any erroneous construction of
the articles, these rules are utterly useless; and for the purpose of
syntactical parsing, or the grammatical resolution of this part of speech,
they are awkward and inconvenient. The syntax of the articles may be much
better expressed in this manner: "_Articles relate to the nouns which they
limit_," for, in English, the bearing of the articles upon other words is
properly that of simple _relation_, or dependence, according to the sense,
and not that of _agreement_, not a similarity of distinctive modifications.

OBS. 13.--Among all the works of earlier grammarians, I have never yet
found a book which taught correctly the _application_ of the two forms of
the indefinite article _an_ or _a_. Murray, contrary to Johnson and
Webster, considers _a_ to be the original word, and _an_ the euphonic
derivative. He says: "_A_ becomes _an_ before a vowel, and before a silent
_h_. But if _the h be_ sounded, _the a only_ is to be used."--_Murray's
Gram._, p. 31. To this he adds, in a marginal note, "_A instead of an_ is
_now_ used before words beginning with _u_ long. It is used before _one.
An_ must be used before _words_ WHERE _the h_ is not silent, if the accent
is on the second syllable; as, _an heroic action, an historical
account_."--_Ib._ This explanation, clumsy as it is, in the whole
conception; broken, prolix, deficient, and inaccurate as it is, both in
style and doctrine; has been copied and copied from grammar to grammar, as
if no one could possibly better it. Besides several other faults, it
contains a palpable mi