reement with it, in the third person singular,
is not an exception to Rule 14th, but a construction in which the verb may
be parsed by that rule. For any one thing merely spoken of, is of the third
person singular, whatever may be the nature of its parts. Not every phrase
or sentence, however, is fit to be made the subject of a verb;--that is, if
its own import, and not the mere expression, is the thing whereof we
affirm. Thus Dr. Ash's example for this very construction, "a _sentence_
made the subject of a verb," is, I think, a palpable solecism: "The King
and Queen appearing in public _was_ the cause of my going."--_Ash's Gram._,
p. 52. What is here before the verb _was_, is _no_ "_sentence_;" but a mere
phrase, and such a one as we should expect to see used independently, if
any regard were had to its own import. The Doctor would tell us what "was
_the cause_ of his going:" and here he has two nominatives, which are
equivalent to the plural _they_; q.d., "_They_ appearing in public _was_
the cause." But such a construction is not English. It is an other sample
of the false illustration which grammar receives from those who _invent_
the proof-texts which they ought to _quote_.

OBS. 14.--One of Murray's examples of what he erroneously terms
"_nominative sentences_," i.e., "sentences or clauses constituting the
subject of an affirmation," is the following: "A desire to excel others in
learning and virtue [,] _is_ commendable."--_Gram._, 8vo, p. 144. Here the
verb _is_ agrees regularly with the noun _desire_, and with that only; the
whole text being merely a simple sentence, and totally irrelevant to the
doctrine which it accompanies.[388] But the great "Compiler" supposes the
adjuncts of this noun to be parts of the nominative, and imagines the verb
to agree with all that precedes it. Yet, soon after, he expends upon the
ninth rule of Webster's Philosophical Grammar a whole page of useless
criticism, to show that the adjuncts of a noun are not to be taken as parts
of the nominative; and that, when objectives are thus subjoined, "the
assertion grammatically respects the first nouns only."--_Ib._, p. 148. I
say _useless_, because the truth of the doctrine is so very plain. Some,
however, may imagine an example like the following to be an exception to
it; but I do not, because I think the true nominative suppressed:

"By force they could not introduce these gods;
For _ten to one_ in former days _was_ odds."--_Dryden