As I have made _ye_ one, Lords, one remain; So I grow stronger _you_ more honour gain. _Henry VIII._ 4, 2. What gain _you_ by forbidding it to teaze _ye_, It now can neither trouble you nor please _ye_. DRYDEN." In German and the Danish the _pronomen reverentiae_ is got at by a change, not of number, but of person--in other words, the pronoun of the _third_ person is used instead of that of the _second_; just as if, in the English, we said _will they walk_=_will you walk_, _will ye walk_, _wilt thou walk_. s. 504. _Dativus ethicus._--In the phrase Rob me the exchequer.--_Henry IV._ the _me_ is expletive, and is equivalent to _for me_. This expletive use of the dative is conveniently called the _dativus ethicus_. It occurs more frequently in the Latin than in the {410} English, and more frequently in the Greek than in the Latin. s. 505. _The reflected personal pronoun._--In the English language there is no equivalent to the Latin _se_, the German _sich_, and the Scandinavian _sik_, and _sig_. It follows from this that the word _self_ is used to a greater extent than would otherwise be the case. _I strike me_ is awkward, but not ambiguous. _Thou strikest thee_ is awkward, but not ambiguous. _He strikes him_ is ambiguous; inasmuch as _him_ may mean either the _person who strikes_ or some one else. In order to be clear we add the word _self_ when the idea is reflective. _He strikes himself_ is, at once, idiomatic, and unequivocal. So it is with the plural persons. _We strike us_ is awkward, but not ambiguous. _Ye strike you_ is the same. _They strike them_ is ambiguous. This shows the value of a reflective pronoun for the third person. As a general rule, therefore, whenever we use a verb reflectively we use the word _self_ in combination with the personal pronoun. Yet this was not always the case. The use of the simple personal pronoun was current in Anglo-Saxon, and that, not only for the two first persons, but for the third as well. The exceptions to this rule are either poetical expressions, or imperative moods. He sat _him_ down at a pillar's base.--BYRON. Sit thee down. s. 506. _Reflective neuters._--In the phrase _I strike me_ the verb _strike_ is transitive; in other words, the word _me_ expresses the object of an action, and the meaning is different from the meaning of the simple expression _I strike_. In the phrase _I fear me_ (used by Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chancellors), the verb _fear_ is intransitive or neuter; in other words, the word _me_ (unless, indeed, _fear_ mean _terrify_) {411} expresses no object of any action at all; whilst the meaning is the same as in the simple expression _I fear_. Here the reflective pronoun appears out of place, _i. e._, after a neuter or intransitive verb.