Birmingham.
[Footnote 1: Read ἢ for καὶ.]
_"Contents dies"--Love's Labour's Lost, Act V. Sc. 2._ (Vol. viii., pp.
120. 169.).--I must be permitted, with all due courtesy, to correct MR.
ARROWSMITH'S assertion respecting this phrase; because, from its dogmatic
tone, it is calculated to mislead readers, and perhaps editors. He
maintains that this is a good concord, and pronounces Johnson and Collier
(myself, of course, included) to be "unacquainted with the usage of their
own tongue, and the universal language of thought," for not discerning it.
Now it may, perhaps, surprise MR. ARROWSMITH to be told that he has
proved nothing--that not a single one of his instances is relevant. In
this passage the verb is _neuter_ or _active_; in all of his quotations
it is the verb _substantive_ we meet. Surely one so well versed, as we
must suppose him to be, in general grammar, requires not to be told that
this verb takes the same case after as before it, and that the governing
case often follows. Indeed, he has recognised this principle by giving
"This is the contents thereof" as one of his instances of "contents"
governing a singular verb. Let him then produce an _exact_ parallel to
"contents dies," or even such a structure as this, "the contents _is_
lies and calumnies," and then we may hearken to him. Till that has been
done, my interpretation is the only one that gives sense to the passage
without altering the text.