lf_
so bold," &c. (3.) "Cursed be he that _setteth light_ by his father or his
mother: and all the people shall say, Amen."--_Deut._, xxvii, 16. This may
mean, "that setteth light _esteem_ or _estimation_," &c.

OBS. 4.--When an adjective follows an infinitive or a participle, the noun
or pronoun to which it relates, is sometimes before it, and sometimes after
it, and often considerably remote; as, "A real gentleman cannot but
practice those virtues _which_, by an intimate knowledge of mankind, he has
found to be _useful_ to them."--"He [a melancholy enthusiast] thinks
_himself_ obliged in duty to be _sad_ and _disconsolate_."--_Addison_. "He
is scandalized at _youth_ for being _lively_, and at _childhood_ for being
playful."--_Id._ "But growing _weary_ of one who almost walked him out of
breath, _he_ left him for Horace and Anacreon."--_Steele._

OBS. 5.--Adjectives preceded by the definite article, are often used, by
_ellipsis_, as _nouns_; as, _the learned_, for _learned men_. Such phrases
usually designate those classes of persons or things, which are
characterized by the qualities they express; and this, the reader must
observe, is a use quite different from that _substitution_ of adjectives
for nouns, which is noticed in the fourth exception above. In _our_
language, the several senses in which adjectives may thus be taken, are not
distinguished with that clearness which the inflections of other tongues
secure. Thus, _the noble, the vile, the excellent_, or _the beautiful_, may
be put for three extra constructions: first, for _noble persons, vile
persons_, &c.; secondly, for _the noble man, the vile man_, &c.; thirdly,
for the abstract qualities, _nobility, vileness, excellence, beauty_. The
last-named usage forms an exception to the rule; in the other two the noun
is understood, and should be supplied by the parser. Such terms, if
elliptical, are most commonly of the plural number, and refer to the word
_persons_ or _things_ understood; as, "_The careless_ and _the imprudent,
the giddy_ and _the fickle, the ungrateful_ and _the interested_,
everywhere meet us."--_Blair_. Here the noun _persons_ is to be six times
supplied. "Wherever there is taste, _the witty_ and _the humorous_ make
themselves perceived."--_Campbell's Rhet._, p. 21. Here the author meant,
simply, the qualities _wit_ and _humour_, and he ought to have used these
words, because the others are equivocal, and are more naturally conceived
to refer to