Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/680

 go." And again it is plain, that and here connects nothing but the two pronouns; for no one will say, that, "He and I must go together" is a compound sentence, capable of being resolved into two simple sentences; and if, "He and I must go," is compound because it is equivalent to, "He must go, and I must go;" so is, "We must go," for the same reason, though it has but one nominative and one verb. "He and I were present," is rightly given by Hiley as an example of two pronouns connected together by and. (See his Gram., p. 105.) But, of verbs connected to each other, he absurdly supposes the following to be examples: "He spake, and it was done."—"I know it, and I can prove it."—"Do you say so, and can you prove it?"—Ib. Here and connects sentences, and not particular words.

OBS. 5.—Two or three conjunctions sometimes come together; as, "What rests, but that the mortal sentence pass?"—Milton. "Nor yet that he should offer himself often."—Heb., ix, 25. These may be severally parsed as "connecting what precedes and what follows," and the observant reader will not fail to notice, that such combinations of connecting particles are sometimes required by the sense; but, since nothing that is needless, is really proper, conjunctions should not be unnecessarily accumulated: as, "But AND if that evil servant say in his heart," &c.—Matt., xxiv, 48. Greek, "[Greek: Ean de eipæ o kakos donlos ekeinos,]" &c. Here is no and. "But AND if she depart."—1 Cor., vii, 11. This is almost a literal rendering of the Greek, "[Greek: Ean de kai choristhæ.]"—yet either but or and is certainly useless. "In several cases," says Priestley, "we content ourselves, now, with fewer conjunctive particles than our ancestors did [say used]. Example: 'So AS that his doctrines were embraced by great numbers.' Universal Hist., Vol. 29, p. 501. So that would have been much easier, and better."—Priestley's Gram., p. 139. Some of the poets have often used the word that as an expletive, to fill the measure of their verse; as, "When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept."—Shakspeare.

"If that he be a dog, beware his fangs."—Id.

"That made him pine away and moulder,   As though that he had been no soldier."—Butler's Poems, p. 164.

OBS. 6.—W. Allen remarks, that, "And is sometimes introduced to engage our attention to a following word or phrase; as, 'Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer.' [Pope.] 'I see thee fall, and by Achilles' hand.' [Id.]"—Allen's E. Gram., p. 184. The like idiom, he says, occurs in these passages of Latin: "'Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit.' Virg. 'Mors et fugacem persequitur virum.' Hor."—Allen's Gram., p. 184. But it seems to me, that and and et are here regular connectives. The former implies a repetition of the preceding verb: as, "Part pays, and justly pays, the deserving steer."—"I see thee fall, and fall by Achilles' hand." The latter refers back to what was said before: thus, "Perhaps it will also hereafter delight you to recount these evils."—"And death pursues the man that flees." In the following text, the conjunction is more like an expletive; but even here it suggests an extension of the discourse then in progress: "Lord, and what shall this man do?"—John, xxi, 21. "[Greek: Kurie, outos de ti;]"—"Domine, hic autem quid?"—Beza.

OBS. 7.—The conjunction as often unites words that are in apposition, or in the same case; as, "He offered himself AS a journeyman."—"I assume it AS a fact."—Webster's Essays, p. 94. "In an other example of the same kind, the earth, AS a common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father's unkindness."—''Kames, El. of Crit.'', Vol ii, p. 168. "And then to offer himself up AS a sacrifice and propitiation for them."—Scougal, p. 99. So, likewise, when an intransitive verb takes the same case after as before it, by Rule 6th; as, "Johnson soon after engaged AS usher in a school."—L. Murray. "He was employed AS usher." In all these examples, the case that follows as, is determined by that which precedes. If after the verb "engaged" we supply himself, usher becomes objective, and is in apposition with the pronoun, and not in agreement with Johnson: "He engaged himself as usher." One late writer, ignorant or regardless of the analogy of General Grammar, imagines this case to be an "objective governed by the conjunction as," according to the following rule: "The conjunction as, when it takes the meaning of for, or in the character of, governs the objective case; as, Addison, as a writer of prose, is highly distinguished."—J. M. Putnam's Gram., p. 113. S. W. Clark, in his grammar published in 1848, sets as in his list of prepositions, with this example: "'That England can spare from her service such men as HIM.'—Lord Brougham."—Clark's Practical Gram., p. 92. And again: "When the second term of a Comparison of equality is a Noun, or Pronoun, the Preposition AS is commonly used. Example—'He hath died to redeem such a rebel as ME.'—Wesley." Undoubtedly, Wesley and Brougham here erroneously supposed the as to connect words only, and consequently to require them to be in the same case, agreeably to OBS. 1st, above; but a moment's reflection on the sense, should convince any one, that the construction requires the nominative forms he and I, with the verbs is and am understood.

OBS. 8.—The conjunction as may also be used between an adjective or a participle and the noun to which the adjective or participle relates; as, "It does not appear that brutes have the least reflex sense of actions AS distinguished from events; or that will and design, which constitute the very nature of actions AS such, are at all an object of their perception."—Butler's Analogy, p. 277.

OBS. 9.—As frequently has the force of a relative pronoun, and when it evidently sustains the relation of a case, it ought to be called, and generally is called, a pronoun, rather than a conjunction; as, "Avoid such as are vicious,"—Anon. "But as many as received him," &c.—John, i, 12. "We have reduced the terms into as small a number as was consistent with perspicuity and distinction."—Brightland's Gram., p. ix. Here as represents a noun, and while it serves to connect