p. 70.

OBS. 14.--The names of things without life, used literally, are always of
the neuter gender: as, "When Cleopatra fled, Antony pursued her in a
five-oared galley; and, coming along side of her _ship_, entered _it_
without being seen by her."--_Goldsmith's Rome_, p. 160. "The _sun_, high
as _it_ is, has _its_ business assigned; and so have the
stars."--_Collier's Antoninus_, p. 138. But inanimate objects are often
represented figuratively as having sex. Things remarkable for power,
greatness, or sublimity, are spoken of as masculine; as, the _sun, time,
death, sleep, fear, anger, winter, war_. Things beautiful, amiable, or
prolific, are spoken of as feminine; as, a _ship_, the _moon_, the _earth,
nature, fortune, knowledge, hope, spring, peace_. Figurative gender is
indicated only by the personal pronouns of the singular number: as, "When
we say of the _sun, He_ is setting; or of a _ship, She_ sails well."--_L.
Murray_. For these two objects, the _sun_ and a _ship_, this phraseology is
so common, that the literal construction quoted above is rarely met with.

OBS. 15.--When any inanimate object or abstract quality is distinctly
personified, and presented to the imagination in the character of a living
and intelligent being, there is necessarily a change of the gender of the
word; for, whenever personality is thus ascribed to what is literally
neuter, there must be an assumption of one or the other sex: as, "_The
Genius of Liberty_ is awakened, and springs up; _she_ sheds her divine
light and creative powers upon the two hemispheres. A great _nation_,
astonished at seeing _herself_ free, stretches _her_ arms from one
extremity of the earth to the other, and embraces the first nation that
became so."--_Abbe Fauchet_. But there is an inferior kind of
personification, or of what is called such, in which, so far as appears,
the gender remains neuter: as, "The following is an instance of
personification and apostrophe united: 'O _thou sword_ of the Lord! how
long will it be ere _thou_ be quiet? put _thyself_ up into _thy_ scabbard,
rest, and be still! How can _it_ be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given _it_
a charge against Askelon, and against the sea-shore? there hath he
appointed _it_.'"--_Murray's Gram._, p. 348. See _Jer._, xlvii, 6.

OBS. 16.--If what is called personification, does not always imply a change
of gender and an ascription of sex, neither does a mere ascription of sex
to what is literally of no sex, n