_, p. 47. According to
common usage, it should be, "O for better times!"

OBS. 16.--The interjection may be placed at the _beginning_ or the _end_ of
a simple sentence, and sometimes _between_ its less intimate parts; but
this part of speech is seldom, if ever, allowed to interrupt the connexion
of any words which are closely united in sense. Murray's definition of an
interjection, as I have elsewhere shown, is faulty, and directly
contradicted by his example: "O virtue! how amiable thou art!"--_Octavo
Gram._, i, 28 and 128; ii. 2. This was a favourite sentence with Murray,
and he appears to have written it uniformly in this fashion; which,
undoubtedly, is altogether right, except that the word _"virtue"_ should
have had a capital Vee, because the quality is here personified.

OBS. 17.--Misled by the false notion, that the term _interjection_ is
appropriate only to what is "thrown in between the parts of a _sentence_,"
and perceiving that this is in fact but rarely the situation of this part
of speech, a recent critic, (to whom I should owe some acknowledgements, if
he were not wrong in every thing in which he charges me with error,) not
only denounces this name as "_barbarous_," preferring Webster's loose term,
"_exclamation_;" but avers, that, "The words called _interjection_ should
_never_ be so used--should _always stand alone_; as, 'Oh! virtue, how
amiable thou art.' 'Oh? Absalom, my son.' G. Brown," continues he, "drags
one into the middle of a sentence, _where it never belonged_; thus, 'This
enterprise, _alas_! will never compensate us for the trouble and expense
with which it has been attended.' If G. B. meant the _enterprize_ of
studying grammar, in the old theories, his sentiment is very appropriate;
but his _alas_! he should have known enough to have put into the right
place:--before the sentence representing the fact that excites the emotion
expressed by _alas_! See on the Chart part 3, of RULE XVII. An
_exclamation_ must _always precede_ the phrase or sentence describing the
fact that excites the emotion to be expressed by the _exclamation_; as:
Alas! I have alienated my friend! _Oh!_ Glorious hope of bliss
secure!"--_Oliver B. Peirce's Gram._, p. 375. "O Glorious hope of bliss
secure!"--_Ib._, p. 184. "O _glorious_ hope!"--_Ib._, p. 304.

OBS. 18.--I see no reason to believe, that the class of words which have
always, and almost universally, been called _interjections_, can ever be
more conveniently expla