o the pronoun _they_, which immediately follows, and
in which alone the incongruity lies.

[398] This order of the persons, is _not universally_ maintained in those
languages. The words of Mary to her son, "Thy _father and I_ have sought
thee sorrowing," seem very properly to give the precedence to her husband;
and this is their arrangement in St. Luke's Greek, and in the Latin
versions, as well as in others.

[399] The hackneyed example, "_I and Cicero are well,"--"Ego et Cicero
valemus_"--which makes such a figure in the grammars, both Latin and
English, and yet is ascribed to Cicero himself, deserves a word of
explanation. Cicero the orator, having with him his young son Marcus Cicero
at Athens, while his beloved daughter Tullia was with her mother in Italy,
thus wrote to his wife, Terentia: "_Si tu, et Tullia, lux nostra, valetix;
ego, et suavissimus Cicero, valemus_."--EPIST. AD FAM. Lib. xiv, Ep. v.
That is, "If thou, and Tullia, our joy, are well; I, and the sweet lad
Cicero, are likewise well." This literal translation is good English, and
not to be amended by inversion; for a father is not expected to give
precedence to his child. But, when I was a boy, the text and version of Dr.
Adam puzzled me not a little; because I could not conceive how _Cicero_
could ever have said, "_I and Cicero are well_." The garbled citation is
now much oftener read than the original. See it in _Crombie's Treatise_, p.
243; _McCulloch's Gram._, p. 158; and others.

[400] Two singulars connected by _and_, when they form a part of such a
disjunction, are still equivalent to a plural; and are to be treated as
such, in the syntax of the verb. Hence the following construction appears
to be inaccurate: "A single consonant or _a mute and a liquid_ before an
accented vowel, _is_ joined to that vowel"--_Dr. Bullions, Lat. Gram._ p.
xi.

[401] Murray the schoolmaster has it, "_used_ to govern."--_English Gram._,
p. 64. He puts the verb in a _wrong tense_. Dr. Bullions has it, "_usually
governs_."--_Lat. Gram._, p. 202. This is right.--G. B.

[402] The two verbs _to sit_ and _to set_ are in general quite different in
their meaning; but the passive verb _to be set_ sometimes comes pretty near
to the sense of the former, which is for the most part neuter. Hence, we
not only find the Latin word _sedeo, to sit_, used in the sense of _being
set_, as, "Ingens coena _sedet_," "A huge supper _is set_," _Juv._, 2, 119;
but, in the seven texts above