e. The objective case in English usually stands for the Latin
genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative; hence any rule that shall
embrace the whole construction of this one case, will be the sole
counterpart to four fifths of all the rules in any code of Latin syntax.
For I imagine the construction of these four oblique cases, will be found
to occupy at least that proportion of the syntactical rules and notes in
any Latin grammar that can be found. Such rules, however, are often placed
under false or equivocal titles;[328] as if they contained the construction
of the _governing_ words, rather than that of the _governed_. And this
latter error, again, has been transferred to most of our English grammars,
to the exclusion of any rule for the proper construction of participles, of
adverbs, of conjunctions, of prepositions, or of interjections. See the
syntax of Murray and his copyists, whose treatment of these parts of speech
is noticed in the fifth observation above.

OBS. 10.--It is doubtless most convenient, that, in all rules for the
construction of _cases_, nouns and pronouns be taken together; because the
very same doctrines apply equally well to both, and a case is as distinct a
thing in the mind, as a part of speech. This method, therefore, I have
myself pursued; and it has indeed the authority of all grammarians--not
excepting those who violate its principles by adopting two special rules
for the relative pronoun, which are not needed. These special rules, which
I shall notice again hereafter, may be seen in Murray's Rule 6th, which is
double, and contains them both. The most complex rule that I have admitted,
is that which embraces the government of objectives by verbs and
participles. The regimen by verbs, and the regimen by participles, may not
improperly be reckoned distinct principles; but the near alliance of
participles to their verbs, seems to be a sufficient reason for preferring
one rule to two, in this instance.

OBS. 11.--An other common fault in the treatment of this part of grammar,
is the practice of making many of the rules _double_, or even _triple_, in
their form. Of L. Murray's twenty-two rules, for instance, there are six
which severally consist of two distinct paragraphs; and one is composed of
three such parts, with examples under each. Five others, though simple in
their form, are complex in their doctrine, and liable to the objections
which have been urged above against this characteristic