I  shall  only  add  on  this  subject  that  the  use  of  impersonal
verbs  was  much  more  frequent  with  us  formerly  than  it  is


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    RHETORIC.  231

now.  Thus,  it  p/eascth  me,  if  grieveth  me,  it  repenteth  me,  were
a  sort  of  impersoiials,  for  which  we  should  now  say  I  please,
r grieve,  I  repent.  Mcthin/is  and  mcthought  at  present,  as  me-
seemeth  and  meseemed  anciently,  are,  as  Johnson  justly  sup-
poses, remains  of  the  same  practice.*  It  would  not  be  easy
to  conjecture  what  hath  misled  some  writers  so  far  as  to
make  them  adopt  the  imcouth  term  metlwiights,  in  contempt
alike  of  usage  and  of  analogy,  and  even  without  any  colour-
able pretext  that  1  can  think  of,  for  thoughts  is  no  part  of  the
verb  at  all.
I  shall  now  consider  another  suspected  idiom  in  English,
which  is  the  indefinite  use  sometimes  made  of  the  pronoun
it,  when  applied  in  the  several  ways  following:  first,  to  per-
sons as  well  as  to  things  ;  second,  to  the  first  person  and  the
second,  as  well  as  to  the  third ;  and,  thirdly,  to  a  plural  as
well  as  to  a  singular.  Concerning  the  second  application
and  the  third,  Dr.  Johnson  says  in  his  Dictionary,  "  This
mode  of  speech,  though  used  by  good  authors,  and  supported
by  the  il  y  a  of  the  French,  has  yet  an  appearance  of  barba-
rism." Dr.  Lowth  doubts  only  of  the  third  application.
