the former error, that of position, was bad enough, it was one of syntax; the latter error, that of substituting one part of speech for another, is still worse. I have spoken of your "decided weak "point": I will now give another example, a very remarkable one, for it is an example of using an adjective instead of an adverb, in a sentence in which you are speaking of using an adverb instead of an adjective. You say, "The fact seems to be, "that in this case I was using the verb 'read' in

a colloquial and scarcely legitimate sense, and "that the adverb seems necessary, because the "verb is not a strict neuter-substantive." We may properly speak of a word as being not strictly a neuter-substantive; but we cannot properly speak of a substantive as being "strict". So much for the grammar of the sentence; now for its meaning. Your sentence is an explanation of your use of the word "oddly", in the phrase, "would "read rather oddly"; and oddly enough you have explained it: "would read" is the conditional form of the verb; and how can that ever be either a neuter-substantive, or a substantive of any other kind?

In your former essay you prepared us to expect many strange things; I suppose we are to receive

this as one of them. You told us, "Plenty more "might be said about grammar; plenty that would "astonish some teachers of it. I may say some'thing of this another time." Take all the credit you like; you have well earned it; for you have more than redeemed your promise; you have astonished other persons besides teachers of gram

mar.

Again, you say, "The whole number is divided "into two classes: the first class, and the last "class. To the former of these belong three: to "the latter, one". That is, "To the former of "these belong three; to the latter [belong] one"; one belong! When, in the latter part of a compound sentence, we change the nominative, we must likewise change the verb, that it may agree with its nominative. The error is repeated in the very next sentence. You say, "There are three "that are ranged under the description 'first': "and one that is ranged under the description 666 "last"." That is, "There are three that are

ranged under the description 'first'; and [there are] one that is ranged under the description ""last"." There are one! The sentence cannot be correctly analysed in any other way. It is true that we understand what you mean; just as we under

stand the meaning of the childish prattle of our little ones; but, because your sentence is not unintelligible, it is not, on that account, the less incorrect.

An esteemed friend of mine, Colonel Shaw of Ayr Castle, in reviewing your first essay on the Queen's English, thus wrote concerning a similar error of yours:-"We find this teacher playing "with the inaccuracy (so he calls it) of saying, "Twice one are two', and 'Three times three are "nine.' In order to prove the grammatical incor"rectness of these two assertions, the clever Dean "alters the form of the expression, and, 'presto!' "the juggle is concluded. What we want,' says "the Dean, 'being simply this, that three taken "three times makes up, is equal to, nine.' Now, admitting this to be correct, Mr. Dean,-admitting three not to be plural any more than one ; “which is just what you should prove, but is also 'just what you do not attempt to prove; never"theless, admitting your improved premises; yet, "when we say, in another mode, what you 'want' "us to say, if that other mode has a plural 'nominative, the verb must also be plural; and, “we say, 'three times' must be plural, and so must "even 'three'. For example, I might say of a

Iman and his wife,

they twain are one flesh'; "but you, Mr. Dean, might reply to me, as you are "in fact now doing,—'What we want to say is "simply this,-this man is, and that woman is, "'one flesh,—makes up, is equal to, one flesh'. 'All very good! But as long as we speak of "them as 'twain', we must, in order to be gram"matical, employ the word 'are' respecting them.”

It appears to me that, before you have finished a sentence, you have forgotten how you began it. You say, "We call a 'cup-board' a 'cubbard', a "half-penny' a 'haepenny', and so of many "other compound words". Had you begun your sentence thus, We speak of a "cup-board" as a cubbard", of a "half-penny" as a “haepenny”, it would have been correct to say, "and so of "many other compound words"; because the clause would mean, "and so [we speak] of many "other compound words"; but having begun the sentence with, "We call ", it is sheer nonsense to finish it with," and so of"; for it is saying, "and "so [we call] of many other compound words ".

Elsewhere you say, " Call a spade 'a spade', not “an oblong instrument of manual husbandry; let "home be 'home', not a residence; a place 'a "place', not a locality; and so of the rest.'

What is your meaning in this last clause? The sentence is undoubtedly faulty, whether the words "and so of" are considered in connexion with the first clause, or in connexion with the following one. In the former case we must say, "and "[speak] so of the rest"; and in the latter case we must say, "and [let us speak] so of the rest". In neither case can we use the word "call", with which you have begun your sentence.

Here is another specimen of your Queen's 'English', or rather, of the Dean's English; a specimen in which the verbs, past and present, are in a most delightful state of confusion. You are speaking of your previous essay, and of the reasons you had for writing it; and you say, "If I 'had believed the Queen's English to have been

rightly laid down by the dictionaries and the "professors of rhetoric, I need not have troubled myself to write about it. It was exactly because "I did not believe this, but found both of them in many cases going astray, that I ventured to put "in my plea."

Now, "I need not" is present, not past; and it is of the past that you are speaking; you should therefore have said, "I needed not", or, "I should not "have needed". And the verb "troubled", which