_govern_ an objective case; as, _Ah me! O_ the tender _ties! O_ the soft
_enmity! O me_ miserable! _O_ wretched _prince! O_ cruel _reverse_ of
fortune! When an address is made, the interjection does not perform the
office of government."--_Putnam's Gram._, So KIRKHAM; who, under a rule
quite different from these, extends the doctrine of government to _all_
interjections: "According to the genius of the English language, transitive
verbs and prepositions _require_ the objective case of a noun or pronoun
after them; and this requisition is all that is meant by _government_, when
we say that these parts of speech _govern the objective_ case. THE SAME
PRINCIPLE APPLIES TO THE INTERJECTION. 'Interjections _require_ the
objective case of a pronoun of the first person after them; but the
nominative of a noun or pronoun of the second or third person; as, Ah _me_!
Oh _thou_! O my _country!_' To say, then, that interjections _require_
particular cases after them, is synonymous with saying, that they _govern_
those cases; and this office of the interjection is in _perfect accordance_
with that which it performs in the Latin, and many other
languages."--_Kirkham's Gram._, According to this, every interjection has
as much need of an object after it, as has a transitive verb or a
preposition! The rule has, certainly, _no_ "accordance" with what occurs in
Latin, or in any other language; it is wholly a fabrication, though found,
in some shape or other, in well-nigh all English grammars.

OBS. 4.--L. MURRAY'S doctrine on this point is thus expressed: "The
interjections _O! Oh!_ and _Ah! require_ the objective case of a pronoun in
the first person after them, as, 'O me! oh me! Ah me!' But the nominative
case in the second person: as, 'O thou persecutor!' 'Oh ye hypocrites!' 'O
thou, who dwellest,' &c."--_Octavo Gram._, INGERSOLL copies this most
faulty note literally, adding these words to its abrupt end,--i. e., to its
inexplicable "&c." used by Murray; "because the first person _is governed
by a preposition_ understood: as, 'Ah _for_ me!' or, '_O what will become
of_ me!' &c., and the second person is in the _nominative independent_,
there being a direct address."--_Conversations on E. Gram._, So we see that
this grammarian and Kirkham, both modifiers of Murray, understand their
master's false verb "_require_" very differently. LENNIE too, in renouncing
a part of Murray's double or threefold error, "_Oh! happy us!_" for, "_O_
happy _we