tygz. on personal pronouns, 199 



Some lefser distinctions are omitted to avoid the 

 appearance of unr.ecefsary refinement. The above 

 are all cbvious ; and if a language fhould be found, 

 the gender of whose nouns was only denoted by the 

 pronouns, and in which a distinct and separate word 

 was to be found for each of these variations, — and, 

 were writers always at liberty either to employ the 

 definite or the indefinite genders, as suited the pur- 

 pose they had particularly in view at the time, this 

 1-anguage would pofsefs a variety of phraseology, and 

 a clear, precise, nervous perspicuity of exprefsion 

 with which we are as yet entirely unacquainted. 

 u4n ufiohserved case. 

 Under the head of pronouns of the first and second 

 persons, we had occasion to take notice of one im- 

 j,ortant variation of the pronouns that had escaped 

 the notice of all our grammarians. Another, that is 

 of equal importance, and that has in like manner 

 been hitherto entirely unobserved, occurs under the 

 present head. 



To avoid the appearance of egotism, and in some 

 measure to vary the stile and form of narrative, an 

 author often finds it would be convenient to write in 

 the third person rather than the first, could it be 

 done with the requisite clearnefs and perspicuity. 

 But ifthe writer, in tbese circumstances, fhould chance 

 to mention another person of the same sex with him 

 or herself, (here I want the pronaun indefinite,') the 

 trequent repetition of the same pronoun, as applied 

 to the writer and to the party mentioned, occasions a 

 perplexity and indistinctntfs, that cun be in no other 

 way avoided, but by repeating the noun itself, in place 



