exceedingly rough passage;"--"_A_ very important
difference." The adverb _quite_, however, may be placed either before or
after the article, though perhaps with a difference of construction: as,
"This is _quite a_ different thing;"--or, "This is _a quite different_
thing." "Finding it _quite an_ other thing;"--or, "Finding it _a quite
other_ thing."--_Locke, on Ed._, p. 153. Sometimes _two adverbs_ intervene
between the article and the adjective; as, "We had a _rather more_ explicit
account of the Novii."--_Philol. Museum_, i, 458. But when an other adverb
follows _too, so, as_, or _how_, the three words should be placed either
before the article or after the noun; as, "Who stands there in _so purely
poetical_ a light."--_Ib._, i, 449. Better, perhaps: "_In a light so purely
poetical_."

OBS. 7.--The definitives _this, that_, and some others, though they
supersede the article _an_ or _a_, may be followed by the adjective _one_;
for we say, "_this one thing_," but not, "_this a thing_." Yet, in the
following sentence, _this_ and _a_ being separated by other words, appear
to relate to the same noun: "For who is able to judge _this_ thy so great
_a_ people?"--_1 Kings_, iii, 9. But we may suppose the noun _people_ to be
understood after _this_. Again, the following example, if it is not wrong,
has an ellipsis of the word _use_ after the first _a_:

"For highest cordials all their virtue lose,
By _a_ too frequent and too bold _a_ use."--_Pomfret_.

OBS. 8.--When the adjective is placed _after_ the noun, the article
generally retains its place before the noun, and is not repeated before the
adjective: as, "_A_ man _ignorant_ of astronomy;"--"_The_ primrose _pale_."
In _Greek_, when an adjective is placed after its noun, if the article is
applied to the noun, it is repeated before the adjective; as, "[Greek: Hae
polis hae megalae,]"--"_The_ city _the_ great;" i.e., "The great city." [337]

OBS. 9.--Articles, according to their own definition and nature, come
_before_ their nouns; but the definite article and an adjective seem
sometimes to be placed after the noun to which they both relate: as,
"Section _the Fourth_;"--"Henry _the Eighth_." Such examples, however, may
possibly be supposed elliptical; as, "Section, _the fourth division_ of the
chapter;"--"Henry, _the eighth king_ of that name:" and, if they are so,
the article, in _English_, can never be placed after its noun, nor can two
articles ever properly relate