int, Dr. Lowth observes, "Some writers have used _ye_ as the
objective case plural of the pronoun of the second person, very improperly
and ungrammatically; [as,]

'The more shame for _ye_; holy men I thought _ye_.' Shak. Hen. VIII.

'But tyrants dread _ye_, lest your just decree
Transfer the pow'r, and set the people free.' Prior.

'His wrath, which one day will destroy _ye_ both.' Milt. P. L. ii. 734.

Milton uses the same manner of expression in a few other places of his
Paradise Lost, and more frequently in his [smaller] poems, _It may,
perhaps, be allowed in the comic and burlesque style_, which often imitates
a vulgar and incorrect pronunciation; but in the serious and solemn style,
_no authority is sufficient_ to justify so manifest a solecism."--_Lowth's
Gram._, p. 22. Churchill copies this remark, and adds; "Dryden has _you_ as
the nominative, and _ye_ as the objective, in the same passage:[216]

'What gain _you_, by forbidding it to tease _ye_?
It now can neither trouble _ye_, nor please _ye_.'

Was this from a notion, that _you_ and _ye_, thus employed, were more
analogous to _thou_ and _thee_ in the singular number?"--_Churchill's
Gram._, p. 25. I answer, No; but, more probably, from a notion, that the
two words, being now confessedly equivalent in the one case, might as well
be made so in the other: just as the Friends, in using _thee_ for _you_,
are carelessly converting the former word into a nominative, to the
exclusion of _thou_; because the latter has generally been made so, to the
exclusion of _ye_. When the confounding of such distinctions is begun, who
knows where it will end? With like ignorance, some writers suppose, that
the fashion of using the plural for the singular is a sufficient warrant
for putting the singular for the plural: as,

"The joys of love, are they not doubly _thine,
Ye poor!_ whose health, whose spirits ne'er decline?"
--_Southwick's Pleas. of Poverty._

"But, _Neatherds_, go look to the kine,
Their cribs with fresh fodder supply;
The task of compassion be _thine_,
For herbage the pastures deny."--_Perfect's Poems_, p. 5.

OBS. 23.--When used in a burlesque or ludicrous manner, the pronoun _ye_ is
sometimes a mere expletive; or, perhaps, intended rather as an objective
governed by a preposition understood. But, in such a construction, I see no
reason to prefer it to the regular objective _you_; as,

"He'll