How to parse. ...

Par. I57-I59.] "IT" AND "THIERE."

109

of toasted cheese. As soon as I perceived it, the delicious
smell attracting me, I was on the point of rushing in to
taste it; but I thought it my duty to come and bring you
word first."
I57 "My dear daughter," replied the old mouse, " it is most
fortunate that you did not enter that trap (for it was a
trap) which you thought a cottage. If you had entered,
you would have been taught by your death a lesson that
you have now learned very cheaply. When young mice
grow old, they find that many things that seemed made
for them were made for quite a different purpose -a
truth that, I trust, you will never forget."
"It" as Antecedent.
158 I. "It" is still clearly used for the Antecedent
of the Relative Pronoun in questions: —
(1) " Who was it (i.e., the person) that you saw? "
It is also thus used in the Bible, where we could
hardly use "it":(2) "Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab and
wounded the dragon?"
Similarly in Shakespeare: -
(3) "There was it for which my sinews shall be
stretched upon him," i.e. "the thing for which
I will attack him."
I59 II. We do not now like to put "it" in an
emphatic position. The word seems too light to
bear, as it were, the weight that would sometimes
fall on it, if placed in the usual position of the