d to the second."--_Ib._, & _Ib._ "Pray consider us, in
this respect, as the _weakest_ sex."--_Spect._, No. 533. In this last
sentence, the comparative, _weaker_, would perhaps have been better;
because, not an absolute, but merely a comparative weakness is meant. So
Latham and Child: "It is better, in speaking of only two objects, to use
the comparative degree rather than the superlative, even, where we use the
article _the_. _This is the better of the two_, is preferable to _this is
the best of the two_."--_Elementary Gram._, p. 155. Such is their rule; but
very soon they forget it, and write thus: "In this case the relative refers
to the _last_ of the two."--_Ib._, p. 163.

OBS. 14.--Hyperboles are very commonly expressed by comparatives or
superlatives; as, "My _little finger_ shall be _thicker_ than my _father's
loins_."--_1 Kings_, xii, 10. "Unto me, who am _less than the least_ of all
saints, is this grace given."--_Ephesians_, iii, 8. Sometimes, in thus
heightening or lowering the object of his conception, the writer falls into
a catachresis, solecism, or abuse of the grammatical degrees; as,
"Mustard-seed--which is _less than all the seeds_ that be in the
earth."--_Mark_, iv, 31. This expression is objectionable, because
mustard-seed is a seed, and cannot be less than itself; though that which
is here spoken of, may perhaps have been "_the least of all seeds_:" and it
is the same Greek phrase, that is thus rendered in Matt, xiii, 32. Murray
has inserted in his Exercises, among "unintelligible and inconsistent words
and phrases," the following example from Milton:

"And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide."--_Exercises_, p. 122.

For this supposed inconsistency, ho proposes in his Key the following
amendment:

"And, in the _lower_ deep, _another_ deep
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide."--_Key_, p. 254.

But, in an other part of his book, he copies from Dr. Blair the same
passage, with commendation: saying, "The following sentiments of _Satan in
Milton_, as strongly as they are described, _contain nothing_ but what is
_natural and proper_:

'Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And in the lowest _depth_, a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.' _P. Lost_, B. iv, l. 73."
_Bl