_second daughters_ and
_third daughters_; and, 'the _first_ and _second verses_.' if it means any
thing, must represent the _first verses_ and the _second verses_."--
_Peirce's English Gram._, p. 263. According to my notion, this
interpretation is as false and hypercritical, as is the rule by which the
author professes to show what is right. He might have been better employed
in explaining some of his own phraseology, such as, "the _indefinite-past
and present_ of the _declarative mode_."--_Ib._, p. 100. The critic who
writes such stuff as this, may well be a misinterpreter of good common
English. It is plain, that the two examples which he thus distorts, are
neither obscure nor inelegant. But, in an alternative of single things, the
article _must be repeated_, and a plural noun is improper; as, "But they do
not receive _the_ Nicene _or the_ Athanasian _creeds_."--_Adam's Religious
World_, Vol. ii, p. 105. Say, "_creed_." So in an enumeration; as, "There
are three participles: _the_ present, _the_ perfect, and _the_ compound
perfect _participles_"--_Ingersoll's Gram._, p. 42. Expunge this last word,
"_participles_." Sometimes a sentence is wrong, not as being in itself a
solecism, but as being unadapted to the author's thought. Example: "Other
tendencies will be noticed in the Etymological and Syntactical
part."--_Fowler's E. Gram._, N. Y., 1850, p. 75. This implies, what appears
not to be true, that the author meant to treat Etymology and Syntax
_together_ in a single part of his work. Had he put an _s_ to the noun
"part," he might have been understood in either of two other ways, but not
in this. To make sure of his meaning, therefore, he should have said--"in
the Etymological _Part_ and _the_ Syntactical."

[339] Oliver B. Peirce, in his new theory of grammar, not only adopts
Ingersoll's error, but adds others to it. He supposes no ellipsis, and
declares it grossly improper ever to insert the pronoun. According to him,
the following text is wrong: "My son, _despise not thou_ the chastening of
the Lord."--_Heb._, xii, 5. See _Peirce's Gram._, p. 255. Of this
gentleman's book I shall say the less, because its faults are so many and
so obvious. Yet this is "_The Grammar of the English Language_," and claims
to be the only work which is worthy to be called an English Grammar. "The
first and only Grammar of the English Language!"--_Ib._, p. 10. In
punctuation, it is a very _chaos_, as one might guess from the following
Rul