So meus, tuus, and suus; noster, and vester, through the whole Latin language, will be found to take their agreement as mere adjectives, without the least attention to any representative character in them as pronouns. As words of relation, they have reference to persons, whether speaking, spoken to, or spoken of.

In French the lady says mon fils, mes garçons, where the adjective pronouns, mon and mes, my, represent the lady, so far as they have a particle of the pronoun character in them; yet both these words are masculine; one singular and the other plural. So the man says ma fille, putting his pronoun in the feminine. The same principle runs through the whole French language, as is well known to every person familiar with it.

162. In Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and other languages, where every thing in the construction of speech is he or she, there is the same occurrence of these possessive pronouns; contradicting every idea of the system on which their scholastic exposition has been founded. These pronominal representatives, therefore, entirely forsaking the character of their principals, and conforming to every other word with which they come in contact, appear, like their grammatical advocates, to be more influenced by precedent, than by truth and propriety.

The distributive, indefinite, and all the other classes of "adjective pronouns" are, on the same principle, misconceived and misinterpreted, in the general systems of grammar, as taught among the principal nations of the earth.

A and THE.

163. A strange error has long prevailed, of arbitrarily selecting two of the specifying adjectives, and, under the unmeaning name of articles, trying to explain them as a distinct sort of words. The French, Spanish, and Italian grammarians generally make three articles, though they have not separate terms for this purpose; but employ such as are frequently acknowledged to belong to other parts of speech.

164. The Abbé Girard tells us that the French article has no meaning, and belongs to no part of speech; but is only an "avant coureur," that is, a fore-runner, to let the reader know that a noun is coming, not far behind. A Portuguese grammarian, Dom Hamoniere, very soberly lays down, as a rule of syntax, that "the noun agrees with the article in number and gender." These ideas are well adapted to the system of grammatical philosophy which has prevailed for centuries in European schools.

165. The traditionary account respecting a and the, is this.

1. "Articles are words set before nouns, to limit and define them." "To determine the extent of their meaning :" "Particles established to specify the extent of the sense in which the noun is to be taken:" or according to the "best of all English grammars," "Words set before nouns to point them out, and show how far their signification extends.'

This is an important purpose, to be answered, in any language; and if the "articles" a and the could indeed define and limit nouns, in all the relations

in which it is necessary "to show how far their signification extends," they would, by their utility, compensate for the smallness of their number. They should not only be a separate part of speech; but like the privileged I and O, should always appear in capitals.

166. A is the "indefinite article ;" that is, the indefinite defining word; set before a noun to "limit" and "determine" the "extent of its meaning" and yet, this defining word A, necessarily "points out," "limits," "specifies," specifies," "defines," and "determines," in a vague, indefinite, unlimited, and indeterminate sense. Such is the absurdity of attempting to class these two adjectives as a separate part of speech, and ascribe a distinctive character to each, without regarding the real signification of the words. If "indefinite article" means indefinite article, then it would take as many of these words to show how far the signification of a noun extends, as it would of witch hazel rods, to point out a gold mine, or of levers, wheels, and balls, to make a perpetual motion.

167. The word article, Latin articulus, Greek agogov, a joint or knuckle, has no appropriate meaning, as applied to a and the; and as these two words, according to the grammarians, differ almost diametrically from each other, it would be far the most simple plan of teaching, to adopt at once, a proper noun for each. The names Robin Riddle and Peter Particular would be readily learned by scholars, and applied to a and the, as significant of their grammatical character.

168. A is always perfectly "definite," as to extension; it means half of two, or a quarter of four,

and never either more or less. A moment's examination will show how far a refers to an object, necessarily "vague and indeterminate," even in reference to individual identity.

"There was a certain man, in Cesarea, called Cornelius, a centurion of the band, called the Italian band: a devout man," &c. "And a certain Jew, named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus." Surely a is not here used in a vague and indeterminate sense: these expressions. 66 ascertain," as well as any form of words can ascertain, what particular persons are meant.

"And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man, he made a woman, and brought her unto the man."

"Creation surely is the prerogative of a SelfExistent, uncaused Being." Presdt. Maxey's Ser

mon "On the Existence of God."

"For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God.” -Decalogue.

General Washington possessed a clear head and a patriotic heart.

The only possible "vagueness" here, must depend on the question whether Washington possessed his own head and heart, or some body's else.

169. It is impossible that language can make any thing more "definite" than the declaration of the angel to the Shepherds of Bethlehem.

"For unto you is born, this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord: and this shall be a sign unto you, ye shall find the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.

On the 8th of Jan. 1814, a sanguinary battle was fought at New Orleans, in which the British troops were signally defeated.

Any other number may be perfectly definite in reference to identity, as well as extension; as, "Geographers commonly divide the earth into four quarters, Europe, Asia, Africa and America." The week consists of seven days.

170. A is the Saxon ane, an, one: not the letter "n added before a vowel," but dropped before a consonant, "to make the pronunciation more easy.

"To name the God that war ane manifest lee." "Is but ane God makar of euery thing." Gawin Douglas, Translation of Virgil. Prologue to

sixth Booke.

171. Since the Norman conquest the word one, corrupted from the French une, has, in part, usurped the place of the Saxon prime number. The language of the heptarchy has fared better in Scotland, where ane and twa continue to be the words in current use, and, though they are slightly disguised in modern English, they are easily known by their acquaintances.

I shall go in a day or two.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

A stitch in time saves nine.

172. These popular expressions give the meaning of the adjective a, much more clearly than it is explained in English grammars and dictionaries.

Twa, tway, twey, tweyn, and twain, from which we have between, twins, twenty, [i. e. twain-ten,] and other words, are less obvious in our present literature, though they still appear.

"And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile with him twain." "Math. v. 41. "And they shall no more be twain but one flesh."

go

"Yet at leist thare may fall, stop or delay,

In sa grete matteris ane yere or tway."

G. Douglass, Booke 7.