f poetry."--_Adams's Rhetoric_, i, 87. In prose, this
superlative is not now very common; but the poets still occasionally use
it, for the sake of their measure; and it ought to be noticed that the
simple adjective is _not partitive_. If we say, for the first example, "the
_extreme_ of evils;" we make the word a _noun_, and do not convey exactly
the same idea that is there expressed.

OBS. 10.--_Perfect_, if taken in its
strictest sense, must not be compared; but this word, like many others
which mean most in the positive, is often used with a certain latitude of
meaning, which renders its comparison by the adverbs not altogether
inadmissible; nor is it destitute of authority, as I have already shown.
(See Obs. 8th, p. 280.) "From the first rough sketches, to the _more
perfect_ draughts."--_Bolingbroke, on Hist._, p. 152. "The _most
perfect_."--_Adams's Lect. on Rhet._, i, 99 and 136; ii, 17 and 57:
_Blair's Lect._, pp. 20 and 399. "The most _beautiful and perfect_ example
of analysis."--_Lowth's Gram., Pref._, p. 10. "The plainest, _most
perfect_, and most useful manual."--_Bullions's E. Gram., Rev._, p. 7. "Our
sight is the _most perfect_, and the most delightful, of all our
senses."--_Addison, Spect._, No. 411; _Blair's Lect._, pp. 115 and 194;
_Murray's Gram._, i, 322. Here Murray anonymously copied Blair. "And to
render natives _more perfect_ in the knowledge of it."--_Campbell's Rhet._,
p. 171; _Murray's Gram._, p. 366. Here Murray copied Campbell, the most
accurate of all his masters. Whom did he copy when he said, "The phrases,
_more perfect_, and _most perfect_, are improper?"--_Octavo Gram._, p. 168.
But if these are wrong, so is the following sentence: "No poet has ever
attained a _greater perfection_ than Horace."--_Blair's Lect._, p. 398. And
also this: "Why are we brought into the world _less perfect_ in respect to
our nature?"--_West's Letters to a Young Lady_, p. 220.

OBS. 11.--_Right_ and _wrong_ are not often compared by good writers;
though we sometimes see such phrases as _more right_ and _more wrong_, and
such words as _rightest_ and _wrongest_: "'Tis always in the _wrongest_
sense."--_Butler_. "A method of attaining the _rightest_ and greatest
happiness."--PRICE: _Priestley's Gram._, p. 78. "It is no _more right_ to
steal apples, than it is to steal money."--_Webster's New Spelling-Book_,
p. 118. There are equivalent expressions which seem preferable; as, _more
proper, more erroneous, most proper,