those interjections which have been supposed to require
or govern the objective. But how far is analogy alone a justification? Is
"_O thee_" good English, because "_O te_" is good Latin? No: nor is it bad
for the reason which our grammarians assign, but because our best writers
never use it, and because _O_ is more properly the sign of the vocative.
The literal version above should therefore be changed; as, "O Bollanus,
_thou_ happy numskull! said I to myself."

OBS. 13--Allen Fisk, "author of Adam's Latin Grammar Simplified," and of
"Murray's English Grammar Simplified," sets down for "_False Syntax_" not
only that hackneyed example, "Oh! happy we," &c., but, "O! You, who love
iniquity," and, "Ah! you, who hate the light."--_Fisk's E. Gram._, p. 144.
But, to imagine that either _you_ or _we_ is wrong here, is certainly no
sing of a great linguist; and his punctuation is very inconsistent both
with his own rule of syntax and with common practice. An interjection set
off by a comma or an exclamation point, is of course put absolute _singly_,
or by itself. If it is to be read as being put absolute with something
else, the separation is improper. One might just as well divide a
preposition from its object, as an interjection from the case which it is
supposed to govern. Yet we find here not only such a division as Murray
sometimes improperly adopted, but in one instance a total separation, with
a capital following; as, "O! You, who love iniquity," for, "O you who love
iniquity!" or "O ye," &c. If a point be here set between the two pronouns,
the speaker accuses all his hearers of loving iniquity; if this point be
removed, he addresses only such as do love it. But an interjection and a
pronoun, each put absolute singly, one after the other, seem to me not to
constitute a very natural exclamation. The last example above should
therefore be, "Ah! you hate the light." The first should be written, "_O_
happy we!"

OBS. 14.--In other grammars, too, there are many instances of some of the
errors here pointed out. R. C. Smith knows no difference between _O_ and
_oh_; takes "_Oh!_ happy _us_" to be accurate English; sees no impropriety
in separating interjections from the pronouns which he supposes them to
"govern;" writes the same examples variously, even on the same page;
inserts or omits commas or exclamation points at random; yet makes the
latter the means by which interjections are to be known! See his _New
Gram._, pp. 40, 96