But even this difference had no other origin than the compiler's carelessness in preparing his octavo book of exercises--the gender being inserted in the duodecimo.

And what then?
Is the syntactical parsing of a noun to be precisely the same as the etymological?
Never.

But Murray, and all who admire and follow his work, are content to parse many words by halves--making, or pretending to make, a necessary distinction, and yet often omitting, in both parts of the exercise, every thing which constitutes the difference.

He should here have said--"_Vice_ is a common noun, of the third person, singular number, neuter gender, and nominative case: and is the subject of _degrades_; according to the rule which says, 'A noun or a pronoun which is the subject of a verb, must be in the nominative case.' Because the meaning is--_vice degrades_." This is the whole description of the word, with its construction; and to say less, is to leave the matter unfinished.
32.

Thirdly--from his "Mode of verbally correcting erroneous sentences:" Take his first example: "The man is prudent which speaks little." (How far silence is prudence, depends upon circumstances: I waive that question.) The learner is here taught to say, "This sentence is incorrect; because _which_ is a pronoun _of the neuter gender, and does not agree in gender_ with its antecedent _man_, which is masculine.