erly called active
participles, from which they are certainly as fairly distinguished by the
construction, as they can be by any means whatever. And this complete
distinction the author considers at least an elegance, if not an absolute
requisite, in English composition. And he immediately adds: "When this
construction produces _ambiguity_, the expression _must be
varied_."--_Ib._, p. 171. This suggestion is left without illustration; but
it doubtless refers to one of Murray's remarks, in which it is said: "A
phrase in which the article precedes the _present participle_ and the
possessive preposition follows it, will not, in every instance, convey the
same meaning as would be conveyed by the participle without the article and
preposition. 'He expressed the pleasure he had _in the hearing of_ the
philosopher,' is _capable of a different sense_ from, 'He expressed the
pleasure he had _in hearing_ the philosopher.'"--_Murray's Octavo Gram._,
p. 193; _R. C. Smith's Gram._, 161; _Ingersoll's_, 199; and others. Here
may be seen a manifest difference between the verbal or participial noun,
and the participle or gerund; but Murray, in both instances, absurdly calls
the word _hearing_ a "present participle;" and, having robbed the former
sentence of a needful comma, still more absurdly supposes it ambiguous:
whereas the phrase, "in the hearing _of the philosopher_," means only, "in
the _philosopher's_ hearing;" and not, "in hearing the philosopher," or,
"in hearing _of_ the philosopher." But the true question is, would it be
right to say, "He expressed the pleasure he had in the _philosopher's_
hearing _him_?" For here it would be _equivocal_ to say, "in the
philosopher's hearing _of_ him;" and some aver, that _of_ would be wrong,
in any such instance, even if the sense were clear. But let us recur to the
mixed example from Allen, and compare it with his own doctrines. To say,
"from _our_ having received _of_ the words through a French medium," would
certainly be no elegance; and if it be not an ambiguity, it is something
worse. The expression, then, "must be varied." But varied how? Is it right
without the _of_, though contrary to the author's rule for elegance?

OBS. 28.--The observations which have been made on this point, under the
rule for the possessive case, while they show, to some extent, the
inconsistencies in doctrine, and the improprieties of practice, into which
the difficulties of the mixed participle have betrayed s