ed_ by _to_, and not by
the preceding verb, noun, or adjective, is plain from the following note,
which he gives in his margin: "The Scholar will best understand this, by
being told that _infinite_ or _invariable Verbs_, having neither Number,
Person, nor Nominative Word belonging to them, are known or _governed by
the Preposition_ TO coming before them. The Sign _to_ is often understood;
as, Bid Robert and his company (_to_) tarry."--_Fisher's New Gram._, p. 95.

OBS. 9.--The forms of parsing, and also the rules, which are given in the
early English grammars, are so very defective, that it is often impossible
to say positively, what their authors did, or did not, intend to teach. Dr.
Lowth's specimen of "grammatical resolution" contains four infinitives. In
his explanation of the first, the preposition and the verb are parsed
separately, as above; except that he says nothing about government. In his
account of the other three, the two words are taken together, and called a
"_verb_, in the infinitive _mode_." But as he elsewhere calls the particle
_to_ a preposition, and nowhere speaks of any thing else as governing the
infinitive, it seems fair to infer, that he conceived the verb to be the
regimen of this preposition.[404] If such was his idea, we have the learned
Doctor's authority in opposition to that of his professed admirers and
copyists. Of these, Lindley Murray is doubtless the most famous. But
Murray's twelfth rule of syntax, while it expressly calls _to_ before the
infinitive a _preposition_, absurdly takes away from it this regimen, and
leaves us a preposition that _governs nothing_, and has apparently nothing
to do with the _relation_ of the terms between which it occurs.

OBS. 10.--Many later grammarians, perceiving the absurdity of calling _to_
before the infinitive a _preposition_ without supposing it to govern the
verb, have studiously avoided this name; and have either made the "_little
word_" a supernumerary part of speech, or treated it as no part of speech
at all. Among these, if I mistake not, are Allen, Lennie, Bullions, Alger,
Guy, Churchill, Hiley, Nutting, Mulligan, Spencer, and Wells. Except Comly,
the numerous modifiers of Murray's Grammar are none of them more
consistent, on this point, than was Murray himself. Such of them as do not
follow him literally, either deny, or forbear to affirm, that _to_ before a
verb is a _preposition_; and consequently either tell us not what it is, or
tell us f