not; or, if they may,
there is still a question how far it is right to lay it aside. The
following lines are a sort of translation from Horace; and I submit it to
the reader, whether it is comely for a Christian divine to be less reverent
toward God, than a heathen poet; and whether the plural language here used,
does not lack the reverence of the original, which is singular:--

"Preserve, Almighty Providence!
Just what _you gave_ me, competence."--_Swift_.

OBS. 9.--The terms, _solemn style, familiar style, modern style, ancient
style, legal style, regal style, nautic style, common style_, and the like,
as used in grammar, imply no certain divisions of the language; but are
designed merely to distinguish, in a general way, the _occasions_ on which
some particular forms of expression may be considered proper, or the
_times_ to which they belong. For what is grammatical sometimes, may not be
so always. It would not be easy to tell, definitely, in what any one of
these styles consists; because they all belong to one language, and the
number or nature of the peculiarities of each is not precisely fixed. But
whatever is acknowledged to be peculiar to any one, is consequently
understood to be improper for any other: or, at least, the same phraseology
cannot belong to styles of an opposite character; and words of general use
belong to no particular style.[238] For example: "So then it is not of him
that _willeth_, nor of him that _runneth_, but of God that _showeth_
mercy."--_Rom._, ix, 16. If the termination _eth_ is not obsolete, as some
say it is, all verbs to which this ending is added, are of the solemn
style; for the common or familiar expression would here be this; "So then
it is not of him that _wills_, nor of him that _runs_, but of God that
_shows_ mercy." Ben Jonson, in his grammar, endeavoured to arrest this
change of _eth_ to _s_; and, according to Lindley Murray, (_Octavo Gram._,
p. 90,) Addison also injudiciously disapproved it. In spite of all such
objections, however, some future grammarian will probably have to say of
the singular ending _eth_, as Lowth and Murray have already said of the
plural _en_: "It was laid aside as unnecessary."

OBS. 10.--Of the origin of the personal terminations of English verbs, that
eminent etymologist Dr. Alexander Murray, gives the following account: "The
readers of our modern tongue may be reminded, that the terminations, _est,
eth_, and _s_, in our verbs, as in _laye