ension of "Grammarians in general, and Lowth and Murray in
particular," for entertaining the idea of such a case. "Surprise must
cease," says he, "on an acquaintance with the fact, that persons who imbibe
such fantastical doctrine _should be destitute of sterling information_ on
the subject of English grammar.--The English language is a stranger to this
case. We speak thus, with confidence, conscious of the justness of _our_
opinion:--an opinion, not precipitately formed, but one which is the result
of mature and deliberate inquiry. '_Shame being lost_, all virtue is lost:'
The meaning of this is,--'_When_ shame _is being lost_, all virtue is
lost.' Here, the words _is being lost_ form _the true present tense_ of the
passive voice; in which voice, all verbs, thus expressed, are
_unsuspectedly_ situated: thus, agreeing with the noun _shame_, as the
nominative of the first member of the sentence."--_Wright's Philosophical
Gram._, p. 192. With all his deliberation, this gentleman has committed one
oversight here, which, as it goes to contradict his scheme of the passive
verb, some of his sixty venerable commenders ought to have pointed out to
him. My old friend, the "Professor of _Elocution_ in Columbia College," who
finds by this work of "superior excellence," that "the nature of the
_verb_, the most difficult part of grammar, has been, at length,
_satisfactorily explained_," ought by no means, after his "very attentive
examination" of the book, to have left this service to me. In the clause,
"all virtue _is lost_," the passive verb "_is lost_" has the form which
Murray gave it--the form which, till within a year or two, _all men_
supposed to be the only right one; but, according to this new philosophy of
the language, all men have been as much in error in this matter, as in
their notion of the nominative absolute. If Wright's theory of the verb is
correct, the only just form of the foregoing expression is, "all virtue _is
being lost_." If this central position is untenable, his management of the
nominative absolute falls of course. To me, the inserting of the word
_being_ into all our passive verbs, seems the most monstrous absurdity ever
broached in the name of grammar. The threescore certifiers to the accuracy
of that theory, have, I trow, only recorded themselves as so many
_ignoramuses_; for there are more than threescore myriads of better
judgements against them.

IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

FALSE SYNTAX UNDER