e_ strength?
hast thou clothed _his_ neck with thunder? Canst thou make _him_ afraid as
a grasshopper? the glory of _his_ nostrils is terrible."--_Job_, xxxix, 19.
"Doth _the hawk_ fly by thy wisdom, and stretch _her_ wings toward the
south? Doth _the eagle_ mount up at thy command, and make _her_ nest on
high?"--_Ib._, ver. 26. These were called, by the old grammarians,
_epicene_ nouns--that is, _supercommon_; but they are to be parsed each
according to the gender of the pronoun which is put for it.

OBS. 6.--The gender of words, in many instances, is to be determined by the
following principle of universal grammar. Those terms which are equally
applicable to both sexes, (if they are not expressly applied to females,)
and those plurals which are known to include both sexes, should be called
masculine in parsing; for, in all languages, the masculine gender is
considered the most worthy,[159] and is generally employed when both sexes
are included under one common term. Thus _parents_ is always masculine, and
must be represented by a masculine pronoun, for the gender of a word is a
property indivisible, and that which refers to the male sex, always takes
the lead in such cases. If one say, "Joseph took _the young child and his
mother_ by night, and fled with _them_ into Egypt," the pronoun _them_ will
be masculine; but let "_his_" be changed to _its_, and the plural pronoun
that follows, will be feminine. For the feminine gender takes precedence of
the neuter, but not of the masculine; and it is not improper to speak of a
young child without designating the sex. As for such singulars as _parent,
friend, neighbour, thief, slave_, and many others, they are feminine when
expressly applied to any of the female sex; but otherwise, masculine.

OBS. 7.--Nouns of multitude, when they convey the idea of unity or take the
plural form, are of the neuter gender; but when they convey the idea of
plurality without the form, they follow the gender of the individuals which
compose the assemblage. Thus a _congress_, a _council_, a _committee_, a
_jury_, a _sort_, or a _sex_, if taken collectively, is neuter; being
represented in discourse by the neuter pronoun _it_: and the formal
plurals, _congresses, councils, committees, juries, sorts, sexes_, of
course, are neuter also. But, if I say, "The committee disgraced
_themselves_," the noun and pronoun are presumed to be masculine, unless it
be known that I am speaking of a committee of female