and "_Let me to proceed_," good English!

OBS. 3.--It is often impossible to say _by what_ the infinitive is
governed, according to the instructions of Murray, or according to any
author who does not parse it as I do. Nutting says, "The infinitive _mode_
sometimes follows the comparative conjunctions, _as, than_, and _how_,
WITHOUT GOVERNMENT."--_Practical Gram._, p. 106. Murray's uncertainty[415]
may have led to some part of this notion, but the idea that _how_ is a
"comparative conjunction," is a blunder entirely new. Kirkham is so puzzled
by "the language of that eminent philologist," that he bolts outright from
the course of his guide, and runs he knows not whither; feigning that other
able writers have well contended, "that this mood IS NOT GOVERNED by any
particular word." Accordingly he leaves his pupils at liberty to "_reject
the idea of government_, as applied to the verb in this mood;" and even
frames a rule which refers it always "To some noun or pronoun, as its
subject or actor."--_Kirkham's Gram._, p. 188. Murray teaches that the
object of the active verb sometimes governs the infinitive that follows it:
as, "They have a _desire_ to improve."--_Octavo Gram._, p. 184. To what
extent, in practice, he would carry this doctrine, nobody can tell;
probably to every sentence in which this object is the antecedent term to
the preposition _to_, and perhaps further: as, "I _have_ a _house_ to
_sell_"--_Nutting's Gram._, p. 106. "I _feel_ a _desire_ to _excel_." "I
_felt_ my _heart_ within me _die_."--_Merrick_.

OBS. 4.--Nutting supposes that the objective case before the infinitive
always governs it wherever it denotes the agent of the infinitive action;
as, "He commands _me_ to _write_ a letter."--_Practical Gram._, p. 96.
Nixon, on the contrary, contends, that the finite verb, in such a sentence,
can govern only one object, and that this object is the infinitive. "The
objective case preceding it," he says, "is the subject or agent of that
infinitive, and not governed by the preceding verb." His example is, "Let
_them_ go."--_English Parser_, p. 97. "In the examples, 'He is endeavouring
_to persuade_ them _to learn_,'--'It is pleasant _to see_ the sun,'--the
pronoun _them_, the adjective _pleasant_, and the participle
_endeavouring_, I consider as _governing_ the following verb in the
infinitive mode."--_Cooper's Plain and Pract. Gram._, p. 144. "Some
erroneously say that pronouns govern the infinitive mode in such