they do not find a separate one expressed for every finite verb,
and a verb whenever they do not find a separate one expressed for every
nominative. This mode of interpretation not only precludes the agreement of
a verb with two or more nominatives, so as to render nugatory two of the
most important rules of these very gentlemen's syntax; but, what is worse,
it perverts many a plain, simple, and perfect sentence, to a form which its
author did not choose, and a meaning which he never intended. Suppose, for
example, the text to be, "A good constitution and good laws make good
subjects."--_Webster's Essays_, p. 152. Does not the verb _make_ agree with
_constitution_ and _laws_, taken conjointly? and is it not a _perversion_
of the sentence to interpret it otherwise? Away then with all this
_needless subaudition!_ But while we thus deny that there can be a true
ellipsis of what is not necessary to the construction, it is not to be
denied that there _are_ true ellipses, and in some men's style very many.
The assumption of O. B. Peirce, that no correct sentence is elliptical, and
his impracticable project of a grammar founded on this principle, are among
the grossest of possible absurdities.

OBS. 25.--Dr. Wilson says, "There may be several subjects to the same verb,
several verbs to the same subject, or several objects to the same verb, and
the sentence be simple. But when the sentence remains simple, the same verb
must be differently affected by its several adjuncts, or the sense liable
to be altered by a separation. If the verb or the subject _be_ affected in
the same manner, or the sentence _is_ resolvable into more, it is
compounded. Thus, 'Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red,
mixed in due proportion, produce white,' is a simple sentence, for the
subject is indivisible. But, 'Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange,
and red, are refrangible rays of light,' is a compound sentence, and may be
separated into seven."--_Essay on Gram._, p. 186. The propriety of the
distinction here made, is at least questionable; and I incline to consider
the second example a simple sentence, as well as the first; because what
the writer calls a separation into seven, involves a change of _are_ to
_is_, and of _rays_ to _ray_, as well as a sevenfold repetition of this
altered predicate, "_is a refrangible ray of light_." But the parser, in
interpreting the words of others, and expounding the construction of what
is writte