*Paints and dyewoods" means different kinds of paint and dyewood, no two things of a kind being understood.

"He found his fears of whips and ropes

By many a dram outweighed his hopes."-McFingal. This term outweigh, is precisely the one recognized by popular language; so little does the thought of counting hopes and fears enter into the mind. What is intended and understood here, is the different modifications of hope and fear, from different causes, relations, and objects. Hope and fear are affections of the mind. Specific number is not applicable to them, and is not implied in their plural forms, farther than as number is unavoidably included in variety. "Color" is a quality of matter, and so is "blackness." The latter has no plural form; because, however this quality may vary in its proportion, or degree of intensity, it is always considered as being the same thing in kind. "Colors" means different kinds of color, or of coloring matter, the import always being variety, and not the numerical augmentation of things like each other. The same observations will apply to virtues, vices, terrors, remedies, crimes, punishments, laws, governments, religions, and a very numerous list of other words. It would be easy to follow these exemplifications through other languages; but this is not necessary to the purpose of the present work. When a merchant advertises " Sugars and Fresh Teas," he means different kinds of tea and sugar; for no one sort, whatever the quantity may be, can form a plural.

These principles, like many others, hitherto unnoticed, will be found important in their application.

107. Many nouns have no plural. The reasons are founded in philosophy, according to the nature of the case. Wheat and rye are sensible objects, which have no plural; for the articles to which the names are applied are computed by bulk or quantity, and not by number.

Universe has no plural; because from the extent of the term, there can be but one. Immensity, infinitude, eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, and other words of this class, can have no plural; because the singular fills all conceivable extension. For the same reason, these terms cannot properly admit any specifying word; and their correlative adjectives, as eternal, infinite, &c. preclude the idea of comparative degrees. A want of attention to these principles has produced a remarkable vagueness in the expressions of authors who deservedly stand high in other respects.

The noun being thus philosophically attended to, it will be seen afterwards how the pronoun is substituted for it, the adjective refers to it, and the verb agrees with it, according to the nature of the thing.

PRONOUNS.

108. Pro is the Latin preposition for. Pronouns are words used instead of nouns, to prevent their tiresome repetition; as, John Brown is a good scholar: he learns well: we must reward him. The words he and him stand for John Brown, and the pronoun we stands for all the persons whom the speaker represents.

109. The pronouns in English are, I, me, thou, thee, he, him, she, her, it, we, ye or you, they, them, who and whom.

Each of these words is special and invariable. The nominatives and objectives of these pronouns are indeed correlative by use and application, but one is not necessarily to be deemed a mere modification of the other, as in Greek and Latin declensions. The misconception of this fact has led to great error in practice. The words I and me; we and us; she and her, are from totally different roots; and there was no more reason to suppose from their mere relative employment, that one was a derivative from the other, than that William Tell is the objective case of Switzerland, or that the name knifeblade was derived from bucks-horn, because handles are sometimes made of that material. It is the general character of the English language that its distinct words are more numerous, and each word respectively more specific and absolute in its application, than those of almost any other system of human speech. In these respects it has in particular but little affinity with Greek and Latin, with which it has been most compared, and in which analogy has been most industriously sought.

110. Pronouns, like nouns, are of two numbers, the singular and the plural; but they do not form the plural, from the singular, by a different ending of the same word. The simple theory of English pronouns is that a specific and invariable word is prepared for each relative position in which a pronoun can be placed.

Pronouns are of three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter.

They have three persons, first, second, and third. The first person is the one who speaks; the second is spoken to ; and the third is spoken of;

or, the first person speaks, to the second, about the third.

111. Pronouns, though very convenient in giving variety to discourse, are not an original, nor an absolutely necessary part of speech. This, like some other branches of knowledge, may be learned from savages and children, if we had no other means of discovering the fact. The tenants of the American forest, in their various dialects, have one general word for the third person singular, which answers for the three genders; and when one of these men, in speaking broken English, mentions a woman, he habitually calls her he or him. However oddly this may sound to us, it is only the application of e same principle to the singular number, which we ourselves use in the plural; for we say they or them without distinguishing whether we mean women or men. It is very natural for an Indian, or any other person, to carry into a foreign language the habits with which he is familiar in his mother tongue. It is no more philosophically improper that savages should say he, for one person, male or female, than that polite scholars should say they, for ten of either sex. All English learners, in French, Spanish, Italian, and many other tongues, are liable to turn Indians in misapplying the pronoun plural for they.

Children also instruct us in the secondary character of pronouns; for when the little prattler speaks of himself, he commonly makes use of his own nanie, instead of the words lor me; as, "Charley fall down:""give John drink."

112. Grammatical writers have very generally made out a table of words of three cases, which they call personal pronouns. It seems strange that persons acquainted with language should fail to

perceive that this personal pronoun in the possessive case is always nominative or objective, and unavoidably so, for it is never used without a direct connexion with a verb, as subject or object. The following is Mr. Murray's Table :

The words mine, thine, her's, our's, your's, and their's, are a mere contraction or sinking of a word, always necessarily understood.

A few examples will illustrate this principle. This is my book; or emphatically my own book.

Here the word book is inserted after my; because perspicuity requires it to be so inserted, if it has not been previously expressed.

This book is mine.

Here the word book, being placed before the verb, its repetition immediately after it, is useless as it regards perspicuity; and that object being accomplished, the only remaining consideration is brevity. If the contraction had not already been made, it is altogether likely that a community of illiterate people would soon fall into it. That this was the manner of formation in England, is corroborated by the vulgar contractions, hisn, hern, ourn, yourn, and theirn, in the same way.