also been thought worthy of a
particular name, and been called _Antiptosis_. But _Enallage_, the most
comprehensive of these terms, having been often of old applied to all such
changes, reducing them to one head, may well be now defined as above, and
still applied, in this way, to all that we need recognize as figures. The
word _Enallaxis_, preferred by some, is of the same import. "ENALLAXIS, so
called by _Longinus_, or ENALLAGE, is an _Exchange_ of _Cases, Tenses,
Persons, Numbers_, or _Genders_."--_Holmes's Rhet._, Book i, p. 57.

"An ENALLAXIS changes, when it pleases,
Tenses, or Persons, Genders, Numbers, Cases."--_Ib._, B. ii, p. 50.

OBS. 2.--Our most common form of _Enallage_ is that by which a single
person is addressed in the plural number. This is so fashionable in our
civil intercourse, that some very polite grammarians improperly dispute its
claims to be called a _figure_; and represent it as being more ordinary,
and even more literal than the regular phraseology; which a few of them, as
we have seen, would place among the _archaisms_. The next in frequency, (if
indeed it can be called a different form,) is the practice of putting _we_
for _I_, or the plural for the singular in the _first person_. This has
never yet been claimed as literal and regular syntax, though the usages
differ in nothing but commonness; both being honourably authorized, both
still improper on some occasions, and, in both, the _Enallage_ being alike
obvious. Other varieties of this figure, not uncommon in English, are the
putting of adjectives for adverbs, of adverbs for nouns, of the present
tense for the preterit, and of the preterit for the perfect participle.
But, in the use of such liberties, elegance and error sometimes approximate
so nearly, there is scarcely an obvious line between them, and grammarians
consequently disagree in making the distinction.

OBS. 3.--Deviations of this kind are, _in general_, to be considered
solecisms; otherwise, the rules of grammar would be of no use or authority.
_Despauter_, an ancient Latin grammarian, gave an improper latitude to this
figure, or to a species of it, under the name of _Antiptosis_; and
_Behourt_ and others extended it still further. But _Sanctius_ says,
"_Antiptosi grammaticorum nihil imperitius, quod figmentum si esset verum,
frustra quaereretur, quem casum verba regerent_." And the _Messieurs De Port
Royal_ reject the figure altogether. There are, however, some change