--_Gen._, xi, 6.

"Well, if a king's a lion, at the least
The _people_ ARE a many-headed _beast_."--_Pope_, Epist. i, l. 120.

OBS. 5.--Lindley Murray says, "On many occasions, _where_ a noun of
multitude is used, it is very difficult to decide, whether the verb should
be in the singular, or in the plural number; and this difficulty has
induced some grammarians to cut the knot at once, and to assert that every
noun of multitude must always be considered as conveying the idea of
unity."--_Octavo Gram._, p. 153. What these occasions, or who these
grammarians, are, I know not; but it is certain that the difficulty here
imagined does not concern the application of such rules as require the verb
and pronoun to conform to the sense intended; and, where there is no
apparent impropriety in adopting either number, there is no occasion to
raise a scruple as to which is right. To cut knots by dogmatism, and to tie
them by sophistry, are employments equally vain. It cannot be denied that
there are in every multitude both a unity and a plurality, one or the other
of which must be preferred as the principle of concord for the verb or the
pronoun, or for both. Nor is the number of nouns small, or their use
unfrequent, which, according to our best authors, admit of either
construction: though Kirkham assails and repudiates _his own rules_,
because, "Their application is quite limited."--_Grammar in Familiar
Lectures_, p. 59.

OBS. 6.--Murray's doctrine seems to be, not that collective nouns are
generally susceptible of two senses in respect to number, but that some
naturally convey the idea of unity, others, that of plurality, and a few,
either of these senses. The last, which are probably ten times more
numerous than all the rest, he somehow merges or forgets, so as to speak of
_two classes_ only: saying, "Some nouns of multitude certainly convey to
the mind an idea of plurality, others, that of a whole as one thing, and
others again, sometimes that of unity, and sometimes that of plurality. On
this ground, it is warrantable, and consistent with the nature of things,
to apply a plural verb and pronoun _to the one class_, and a singular verb
and pronoun _to the other_. We shall immediately perceive the _impropriety_
of the following constructions: 'The clergy _has_ withdrawn _itself_ from
the temporal courts;' 'The assembly _was_ divided in _its_ opinion;'
&c."--_Octavo Gram._, p. 153. The simple fact is, that _clergy, assembly