PREPOSITIONS.

538. It has been shown (§ 304) that prepositions are employed to mark the relation existing between nouns: as, 'the bee is nestling in the flower;' 'I went from London to Paris.' Hence the preposition stands naturally between the objects specified, and should therefore never occupy the last place in a sentence.

539. In poetry the natural order of words is often inverted for the sake of emphasis, and hence the second of the two objects is frequently placed first. In such cases the preposition will be found at the beginning of a sentence:

In adamantine chains shall Death be bound.-Pope.

540. Since the relative and interrogative pronouns, whatever their case, stand first in their respective clauses, the preposition will frequently be found before such clauses:

They came to a land in which they could recognise nothing.—Macaulay.

In here marks the relation between which and they. 541. In sentences of this nature careless writers

sometimes place the preposition last:

Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.

Shakspere.

Why, then, thou knowest what colour jet is of-Id.

When the relative is omitted, the preposition occupies the last place:

To have no screen between the part he played
And him he played it for.-Shakspere.

i. e. for whom he played it.

542. A sentence being a compound noun, prepositions may govern sentences as well as single words :

Those few good people, who have no other plot in their religion but [to serve God and save their souls], do want such assistance of ghostly counsel as may serve their emergent needs. Jeremy Taylor.

543. Adverbs frequently qualify prepositions, as, out from, away from, down from, &c., and usually stand before the words they qualify. Sometimes, however, the preposition is placed first :

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door.-Poe,

544. Pronominal adverbs are sometimes used instead of the pronouns from which they are derived. The preposition implied in the case-ending is then repeated. Hence such expressions as from thence, 'from that place.' As a general rule the preposition is suffixed to these adverbs as an enclitic:

It then draws near the season

Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.-Shakspere.
Whereon do you look ?—Id.

CONJUNCTIONS.

545. Conjunctions are employed to connect pro

positions:

[Lithe squirrels darted here and there],

And [wild birds filled the echoing air

With songs of liberty].-Longfellow.

[While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performances], and [when he is dead we rate them by his best].-Johnson.

A solitary exception is found in certain constructions with the word and, which occasionally has the force of the preposition with; e.g. 'two and two are four,' i. e. two with two are four.

546. Those words which are identical in each proposition are usually omitted in one. Thus,

The dawn on the mountain was misty, and
The dawn on the mountain was gray,

is written by Scott,

The dawn on the mountain was misty and gray.

547. Sometimes these words are retained in the

first proposition:

Woe came with war, and want with woe.-Scott.

Sometimes in the second:

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.-Gray.

And sometimes in both :

Up rose the sonne, and up rose Emelye.-Chaucer.

548. When the verb is expressed in the last of several propositions connected by the conjunction and, it becomes plural, though the subject of each proposition is singular:

Cold diffidence and age's frost

In the full tide of song were lost.-Scott.

549. But when the propositions are connected by the conjunctions either, or, neither, nor, the number of the verb remains unaltered:

And not an insect's small shrill horn,
Nor matin bird's new voice, was borne
From herb nor thicket.-Byron.

Hence such lines as the following are faulty: Norlight nor darkness bring his pains relief.-Johnson. He comes; nor want nor cold his course delay.-Id. 550. The conjunction but must not be confounded with the adverb or the preposition of the same form: (a) But only (adverb) :

So the loud whirlwind and the torrent's roar
But bind him to his native mountains more.

(b) But=except, without (preposition):

O, who shall say what heroes feel

Goldsmith.

When all but life and honour's lost ?—Moore.

Principal poet but peer (i. e. without equal).

Can I not view a highland brand

Chaucer.

But [it must match the Douglas hand]?-Scott.

i. e. without its matching, except it match.

Abstinence is litel worth, but [it be enforced by patience and by charité].-Chaucer.

(c) But (conjunction) :

In taking revenge, a man is but (adv.) even with
his enemy; but (conj.) in passing it over, he is
superior.-Bacon.

An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;

But he that hath humanity, forwarned,

Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.-Cowper.

A difference of form existed in old English between the conjunction but and the preposition būt:

Bot thy werke schal endure in laude and glorie, but spot or falt (i. e. without spot).-G. Douglas.

INTERJECTIONS.

551. Interjections, being mere involuntary expressions of feeling, have no grammatical connection with the sentences in which they occur:

O then began the tempest to my soul !-Shakspere.

552. The words to which they are apparently attached are elliptical expressions or parts of sentences: Ah me, they little know

How dearly I abide that boast so vain!-Milton.

Me is here a dative. The full form is ah, woe is me!' • or some such phrase: