Uncrowned, unplumed, unhelmed, unpedigreed;
Unlaced, uncoroneted, unbestarred."
--_Pollok, C. of T._, B. viii, l. 89.

OBS. 12.--Participles in _ing_ often become _nouns_. When preceded by an
article, an adjective or a noun or pronoun of the possessive case, they are
construed as nouns; and, if wholly such, have neither adverbs nor active
regimen: as, "He laugheth at the _shaking_ of a spear."--_Job_, xli, 29.
"There is _no searching_ of _his understanding_."--_Isaiah_, xl, 28. "In
_their setting_ of their threshold by ray threshold."--_Ezekiel_, xliii, 8.
"That any man should make _my glorying_ void."--_1 Cor._, ix, 15. The terms
so converted form the class of _verbal_ or _participial_ nouns. But some
late authors--(J. S. Hart, S. S. Greene, W. H. Wells, and others--) have
given the name of participial nouns to many _participles_,--such
participles, often, as retain all their verbal properties and adjuncts, and
merely partake of some syntactical resemblance to nouns. Now, since the
chief characteristics of such words are from the verb, and are incompatible
with the specific nature of a noun, it is clearly improper to call them
_nouns_. There are, in the popular use of participles, certain mixed
constructions which are reprehensible; yet it is the peculiar nature of a
_participle_, to participate the properties of other parts of speech,--of
the verb and adjective,--of the verb and noun,--or sometimes, perhaps, of
all three. A participle immediately preceded by a preposition, is not
converted into a noun, but remains a participle, and therefore retains its
adverb, and also its government of the objective case; as, "I thank you
_for helping him so seasonably_." Participles in this construction
correspond with the Latin gerund, and are sometimes called _gerundives_.

OBS. 13.--To distinguish the participle from the participial noun, the
learner should observe the following four things: 1. Nouns take articles
and adjectives before them; participles, as such, do not. 2. Nouns may
govern the possessive case before them, but not the objective after them;
participles may govern the objective case, but not so properly the
possessive. 3. Nouns, if they have adverbs, require the hyphen; participles
take adverbs separately, as do their verbs. 4. Participial nouns express
actions as things, and are sometimes declined like other nouns; participles
usually refer actions to their agents or recipients, and have in English