!_" teaches thus: "Interjections sometimes _require_ the objective
case after them, but they never _govern_ it. In the first edition of this
grammar," says he, "I followed Mr. Murray and others, in leaving _we_, in
the exercises to be turned into _us_; but that it should be _we_, and not
_us_, is obvious; because it is the nominative to _are_ understood; thus,
_Oh_ happy _are we_, or, _Oh we are_ happy, (being) surrounded with so many
blessings."--_Lennie's Gram., Fifth Edition, Twelfth_, Here is an other
solution of the construction of this pronoun of the first person,
contradictory alike to Ingersoll's, to Kirkham's, and to Murray's; while
_all are wrong_, and this among the rest. The word should indeed be _we_,
and not _us_; because we have both analogy and good authority for the
former case, and nothing but the false conceit of sundry grammatists for
the latter. But it is a _nominative absolute_, like any other nominative
which we use in the same exclamatory manner. For the first person may just
as well be put in the nominative absolute, by exclamation, as any other;
as, "Behold _I_ and the _children_ whom God hath given me!"--_Heb._, "Ecce
_ego_ et _pueri_ quos mihi dedit Deus!"--_Beza_. "O brave _we!_"--_Dr.
Johnson, often_. So Horace: "O _ego_ laevus," &c.--_Ep. ad Pi._, 301.

"Ah! luckless _I!_ who purge in spring my spleen--
Else sure the first of bards had Horace been."
--_Francis's Hor._, ii, 209.

OBS. 5.--Whether Murray's remark above, on "_O! Oh!_ and _Ah!_" was
originally designed for a _rule of government_ or not, it is hardly worth
any one's while to inquire. It is too lame and inaccurate every way, to
deserve any notice, but that which should serve to explode it forever. Yet
no few, who have since made English grammars, have copied the text
literally; as they have, for the public benefit, stolen a thousand other
errors from the same quarter. The reader will find it, with little or no
change, in Smith's New Grammar, p. 96 and 134; Alger's, 56; Allen's, 117;
Russell's, 92; Blair's, 100, Guy's, 89; Abel Flint's, 59; A Teacher's, 43,
Picket's, 210; Cooper's[439] Murray, 136; Wilcox's, 95; Bucke's, 87;
Emmons's, 77; and probably in others. Lennie varies it _indefinitely_,
thus: "RULE. The interjections _Oh!_ and _Ah!_ &c. _generally_ require the
objective case of the first personal pronoun, _and_ the nominative of the
second; as, Ah _me!_ O _thou_ fool! O _ye_ hypocrites!"--_Lennie's Gram._,