Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/239

 and in the proper names, Thomas à Becket, Thomas à Kempis, Anthony à Wood, where it means at or of.

"Bot certainly the daisit blude now on dayis    Waxis dolf and dull throw myne unwieldy age."--Douglas.

OBS. 22.--As a preposition, a has now most generally become a prefix, or what the grammarians call an inseparable preposition; as in abed, in bed; aboard, on board; abroad, at large; afire, on fire; afore, in front; afoul, in contact; aloft, on high; aloud, with loudness; amain, at main strength; amidst, in the midst; akin, of kin; ajar, unfastened; ahead, onward; afield, to the field; alee, to the leeward; anew, of new, with renewal. "A-nights, he was in the practice of sleeping, &c.; but a-days he kept looking on the barren ocean, shedding tears."--''Dr. Murray's Hist. of Europ. Lang.'', Vol. ii, p. 162. Compounds of this kind, in most instances, follow verbs, and are consequently reckoned adverbs; as, To go astray,--To turn aside,--To soar aloft,--To fall asleep. But sometimes the antecedent term is a noun or a pronoun, and then they are as clearly adjectives; as, "Imagination is like to work better upon sleeping men, than men awake."--Lord Bacon. "Man alive, did you ever make a hornet afraid, or catch a weasel asleep?" And sometimes the compound governs a noun or a pronoun after it, and then it is a preposition; as, "A bridge is laid across a river."--Webster's Dict., "To break his bridge athwart the Hellespont."--Bacon's Essays.

"Where Ufens glides along the lowly lands,    Or the black water of Pomptina stands."--Dryden.

OBS. 23.--In several phrases, not yet to be accounted obsolete, this old preposition à still retains its place as a separate word; and none have been more perplexing to superficial grammarians, than those which are formed by using it before participles in ing; in which instances, the participles are in fact governed by it: for nothing is more common in our language, than for participles of this form to be governed by prepositions. For example, "You have set the cask a leaking," and, "You have set the cask to leaking," are exactly equivalent, both in meaning and construction. "Forty and six years was this temple in building."--John, ii, 20. Building is not here a noun, but a participle; and in is here better than a, only because the phrase, a building, might be taken for an article and a noun, meaning an edifice.[137] Yet, in almost all cases, other prepositions are, I think, to be preferred to à, if others equivalent to it can be found. Examples: "Lastly, they go about to apologize for the long time their book hath been a coming out:" i.e., in coming out.--Barclay's Works, Vol. iii, p. 179. "And, for want of reason, he falls a railing:" i.e., to railing.--Ib., iii, 357. "That the soul should be this moment busy a thinking:" i.e., at or in thinking.--Locke's Essay, p. 78. "Which, once set a going, continue in the same steps:" i.e., to going.--Ib., p. 284. "Those who contend for four per cent, have set men's mouths a watering for money:" i.e., to watering.-LOCKE: in Johnson's Dict. "An other falls a ringing a Pescennius Niger:" i.e., to ringing.--ADDISON: ib. "At least to set others a thinking upon the subject:" i.e., to thinking.--''Johnson's Gram. Com.'', p. 300. "Every one that could reach it, cut off a piece, and fell a eating:" i.e., to eating.--Newspaper. "To go a mothering,[138] is to visit parents on Midlent Sunday."--Webster's Dict., w. Mothering. "Which we may find when we come a fishing here."--Wotton. "They go a begging to a bankrupt's door."--Dryden. "A hunting Chloë went."--Prior. "They burst out a laughing."--M. Edgeworth. In the last six sen-