A Pronoun is a word standing instead of a Noun, as its Substitute or
Representative.
In the Pronoun are to be considered the Person, Number, Gender and Case.
There are Three Persons which may be the Subject of any discourse: first,
the Person who speaks may speak of himself; secondly, he may speak of the
Person to whom he addresses himself; thirdly, he may speak of some other
Person.
These are called, respectively, the First, Second, and Third, Persons:
and are expressed by the Pronouns _I_, _Thou_, _He_.
As the Speakers, the Persons spoken to, and the Persons spoken of, may
be many, so each of these Persons hath the Plural Number; _We_, _Ye_,
_They_.
The Persons speaking and spoken to are supposed to be present, from which
and other circumstances their Sex is commonly known, and needs not to
be marked by a distinction of Gender in their Pronouns: but the Person
spoken of being absent and in many respects unknown, it is necessary
that it should be marked by a distinction of Gender; at least when some
particular Person is spoken of, who ought to be more distinctly marked:
accordingly the Pronoun Singular of the Third Person hath the Three
Genders, _He_, _She_, _It_.
Pronouns have Three Cases; the Nominative; the Genitive, or Possessive;
like Nouns; and moreover a Case, which follows the Verb Active, or the
Preposition, expressing the Object of an Action, or of a Relation. It
answers to the Oblique Cases in Latin; and may be properly enough called
the Objective Case.