asks a question. 5. The present tense is that which expresses
what now exists, or is taking place. 6. The third person is that which
denotes the person or thing merely spoken of. 7. The singular number is
that which denotes but one.

_Evil_ is a common adjective, of the positive degree; compared irregularly,
bad, evil, or ill, worse, worst. 1. An adjective is a word added to a noun
or pronoun, and generally expresses quality. 2. A common adjective is any
ordinary epithet, or adjective denoting quality or situation. 3. The
positive degree is that which is expressed by the adjective in its simple
form.

LESSON I.--PARSING.

"My Lord, I do here, in the name of all the learned and polite persons of
the nation, complain to your Lordship, as first minister, that our language
is imperfect; that its daily improvements are by no means in proportion to
its daily corruptions; that the pretenders to polish and refine it, have
chiefly multiplied abuses and absurdities; and that, in many instances, it
offends against every part of grammar."--_Dean Swift, to the Earl of
Oxford_.

"Swift must be allowed to have been a good judge of this matter; to which
he was himself very attentive, both in his own writings, and in his remarks
upon those of his friends: He is one of the most correct, and perhaps [he
is] the best, of our prose writers. Indeed the justness of this complaint,
_as_ far as I can find, _hath_ never yet been questioned; and yet no
effectual method _hath_ hitherto been taken to redress the grievance which
was the object of it."--_Lowth's Gram._, p. iv.

"The only proper use to be made of the blemishes which occur in the
writings of such authors, [as Addison and Swift--authors whose 'faults are
overbalanced by high beauties'--] is, to point out to those who apply
themselves to the study of composition, some of the rules which they ought
to observe for avoiding such errors; and to render them sensible of the
necessity of strict attention to language and style."--_Blair's Rhet._, p.
233.

"Thee, therefore, and with thee myself I weep,
For thee and me I mourn in anguish deep."--_Pope's Homer_.

LESSON II.--PARSING.

"The southern corner of Europe, comprehended between the thirty-sixth and
fortieth degrees of latitude, bordering on Epirus and Macedonia towards the
north, and on other sides surrounded by the sea, was inhabited, above
eighteen centuries before the Christian era, by many small tribes of
hunters a