; found in the _imperative_ mood,
present tense, _second_ person, and singular number:" and, if he meant to
parse the word _syntactically_, he should have added: "and agrees with its
nominative _thou_ understood; according to the rule which says, 'Every
finite verb must agree with its subject or nominative, in person and
number.' Because the meaning is--_Bless thou_ the Lord." This is the whole
story. But, in the form above, several things are false; many,
superfluous; some, deficient; several, misplaced; nothing, right. Not much
better are the models furnished by _Kirkham, Smith, Lennie, Bullions_, and
other late authors.

[62] Of Dr. Bullions's forms of parsing, as exhibited in his English
Grammar, which is a modification of Lennie's Grammar, it is difficult to
say, whether they are most remarkable for their deficiencies, their
redundancies, or their contrariety to other teachings of the same author or
authors. Both Lennie and Bullions adopt the rule, that, "An _ellipsis_ is
_not allowable_ when it would obscure the sentence, weaken its force, or be
attended with an impropriety."--_L._, p. 91; _B._, p. 130. And the latter
strengthens this doctrine with several additional observations, the first
of which reads thus: "In general, _no word should be omitted_ that is
necessary to the _full and correct construction_, or even _harmony_ of a
sentence."--_Bullions, E. Gr._, 130. Now the parsing above alluded to, has
been thought particularly commendable for its _brevity_--a quality
certainly desirable, so far as it consists with the end of parsing, or with
the more needful properties of a good style, clearness, accuracy, ease, and
elegance. But, if the foregoing rule and observation are true, the models
furnished by these writers are not commendably brief, but miserably
defective. Their brevity is, in fact, such as renders them all _bad
English_; and not only so, it makes them obviously inadequate to their
purpose, as bringing into use but a part of the principles which the
learner had studied. It consists only in the omission of what ought to have
been inserted. For example, this short line, "_I lean upon the Lord_," is
parsed by both of these gentlemen thus: "_I, the first personal_ pronoun,
masculine, or feminine, singular, _the_ nominative--_lean_, a verb,
_neuter_, first person singular, present, indicative--_upon_, a
preposition--_the_, an article, the definite--_Lord_, a noun, masculine,
singular, the objective, (govern