Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/604

 can, save he and I."--Byron's Werner. "There is none justified, but he that is in measure sanctified."--Isaac Penington. Save, as a conjunction, is nearly obsolete.

OBS. 14.--In Rev., ii, 17th, we read, "Which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it;" and again, xiii, 17th, "That no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark." The following text is inaccurate, but not in the construction of the nominative they: "All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given."--Matt., xix, 11. The version ought to have been, "Not all men can receive this saying, but they only to whom it is given:" i.e., "they only can receive it, to whom there is given power to receive it." Of but with a nominative, examples may be multiplied indefinitely. The following are as good as any: "There is no God but He."--Sale's Koran, p. 27. "The former none but He could execute."--Maturin's Sermons, p. 317. "There was nobody at home but I."--Walker's Particles, p. 95. "A fact, of which as none but he could be conscious, [so] none but he could be the publisher of it."--Pope's Works, Vol. iii, p. 117. "Few but they who are involved in the vices, are involved in the irreligion of the times."--Brown's Estimate, i, 101.

"I claim my right. No Grecian prince but I   Has power this bow to grant, or to deny." --Pope, Odys., B. xxi, l. 272.

"Thus she, and none but she, the insulting rage   Of heretics oppos'd from age to age." --Dryden's Poems, p. 98.

In opposition to all these authorities, and many more that might be added, we have, with now and then a text of false syntax, the absurd opinion of perhaps a score or two of our grammarians; one of whom imagines he has found in the following couplet from Swift, an example to the purpose; but he forgets that the verb let governs the objective case:

"Let none but him who rules the thunder,   Attempt to part these twain asunder." --Perley's Gram., p. 62.

OBS. 15.--It is truly a wonder, that so many professed critics should not see the absurdity of taking but and save for "prepositions," when this can be done only by condemning the current usage of nearly all good authors, as well as the common opinion of most grammarians; and the greater is the wonder, because they seem to do it innocently, or to teach it childishly, as not knowing that they cannot justify both sides, when the question lies between opposite and contradictory principles. By this sort of simplicity, which approves of errors, if much practised, and of opposites, or essential contraries, when authorities may be found for them, no work, perhaps, is more strikingly characterized, than the popular School Grammar of W. H. Wells. This author says, "The use of but as a preposition is approved by J. E. Worcester, John Walker, R. C. Smith, Picket, Hiley, Angus, Lynde, Hull, Powers, Spear, Farnum, Fowle, Goldsbury, Perley, Cobb, Badgley, Cooper, Jones, Davis, Beall, Hendrick, Hazen, and Goodenow."--School Gram., 1850, p. 178. But what if all these authors do prefer, "but him," and "save him," where ten times as many would say, "but he," "save he?" Is it therefore difficult to determine which party is right? Or is it proper for a grammarian to name sundry authorities on both sides, excite doubt in the mind of his reader, and leave the matter unsettled? "The use of but as a preposition," he also states, "is discountenanced by G. Brown, Sanborn, Murray, S. Oliver, and several other grammarians. (See also an able article in the Mass. Common School Journal, Vol. ii, p. 19.)"--School Gram., p. 178.

OBS. 16.--Wells passes no censure on the use of nominatives after but and save; does not intimate which case is fittest to follow these words; gives no false syntax under his rule for the regimen of prepositions; but inserts there the following brief remarks and examples:

"REM. 3.--The word save is frequently used to perform the office of a preposition; as, 'And all desisted, all save him alone.'--Wordsworth."

"REM. 4.--But is sometimes employed as a preposition, in the sense of except; as, 'The boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled.'--Hemans."--Ib., p. 167.

Now, "BUT," says Worcester, as well as Tooke and others, was "originally bot, contracted from be out;" and, if this notion of its etymology is just, it must certainly be followed by the nominative case, rather than by the objective; for the imperative be or be out governs no case, admits no additional term but a nominative--an obvious and important fact, quite overlooked by those who call but a preposition. According to Allen H. Weld, but and save "are commonly considered prepositions," but "are more commonly termed conjunctions!" This author repeats Wells's examples of "save him," and "but him," as being right; and mixes them with opposite examples of "save he," "but he," "save I," which he thinks to be more right!--Weld's Gram., p. 187.

OBS. 17.--Professor Fowler, too, an other author remarkable for a facility of embracing incompatibles, contraries, or dubieties, not only condemns as "false syntax" the use of save for an exceptive conjunction. (§587. ¶28,) but cites approvingly from Latham the following very strange absurdity: "One and the same word, in one and the same sentence, may be a Conjunction or [a] Preposition, as the case may be: [as] All fled but John."--Fowler's E. Gram., 8vo, 1850, § 555. This is equivalent to saying, that "one and the same sentence" may be two different sentences; may, without error, be understood in two different senses; may be rightly taken, resolved, and parsed in two different ways! Nay, it is equivalent to a denial of the old logical position, that "It is impossible for a thing to be and not be at the same time;" for it supposes "but," in the