in the street;"--"The treatment you complain of on this occasion;"--"The house that you live in in the summer;"--"Such a dress as she had on in the evening."
OBS. 21.--Some grammarians assume, that, "Two prepositions in immediate succession require a noun to be understood between them; as, 'Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes, From betwixt two aged oaks.'--'The mingling notes came softened from below.'"--Nutting's Gram., p. 105. This author would probably understand here--"From the space betwixt two aged oaks;"--"came softened from the region below us." But he did not consider all the examples that are included in his proposition; nor did he rightly regard even those which he cites. The doctrine will be found a very awkward one in practice; and an other objection to it is, that most of the ellipses which it supposes, are entirely imaginary. If there were truth in his assumption, the compounding of prepositions would be positively precluded. The terms over-against and round-about are sometimes written with the hyphen, and perhaps it would be well if all the complex prepositions were regularly compounded; but, as I before suggested, such is not the present fashion of writing them, and the general usage is not to be controlled by what any individual may think.
OBS. 22.--Instances may, doubtless, occur, in which the object of a preposition is suppressed by ellipsis, when an other preposition follows, so as to bring together two that do not denote a compound relation, and do not, in any wise, form one complex preposition. Of such suppression, the following is an example; and, I think, a double one: "They take pronouns after instead of before them."--Fowler, E. Gram., §521. This may be interpreted to mean, and probably does mean--"They take pronouns after them in stead of taking them before them."
OBS. 23.--In some instances, the words in, on, of, for, to, with, and others commonly reckoned prepositions, are used after infinitives or participles, in a sort of adverbial construction, because they do not govern any objective; yet not exactly in the usual sense of adverbs, because they evidently express the relation between the verb or participle and a nominative or objective going before. Examples: "Houses are built to live in, and not to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had."--Ld. Kames. "These are not mysteries for ordinary readers to be let into."--ADDISON: Joh. Dict., w. Let. "Heaven is worth dying for, though earth is not worth living for."--R. Hall. "What! have ye not houses to eat and to drink in?"--1 Cor., xi, 22. This is a very peculiar idiom of our language; and if we say, "Have ye not houses in which to eat and to drink?" we form an other which is not much less so. Greek: "[Greek: Mæ gar oikias ouk echete eis to esthiein kai pinein];" Latin: "Num enim domos non habetis ad manducandum et bibendum?"--Leusden. "N'avez vous pas des maisons pour manger et pour boire?"--French Bible.[315]
OBS. 24.--In OBS. 10th, of Chapter Fourth, on Adjectives, it was shown that words of place, (such as, above, below, beneath, under, and the like,) are sometimes set before nouns in the character of adjectives, and not of prepositions: as, "In the above list,"--"From the above list."--Bullions', E. Gram., p. 70. To the class of adjectives also, rather than to that of adverbs, may some such words be referred, when, without governing the objective case, they are put after nouns to signify place: as, "The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath."--Prov., xv, 24. "Of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath."--Exod., xx, 4.
"Say first, of God above or man below, What can we reason but from what we know?"--Pope.
LIST OF THE PREPOSITIONS.
The following are the principal prepositions, arranged alphabetically: Aboard, about, above, across, after, against, along, amid or amidst, among or amongst, around, at, athwart;--Bating, before, behind, below, beneath, beside or besides, between or betwixt, beyond, by;--Concerning;--Down, during;--Ere, except, excepting;--For, from;--In, into;--Mid or midst;--Notwithstanding;--Of, off,[316] on, out, over, overthwart;--Past, pending;--Regarding, respecting, round;--Since;--Through, throughout, till, to, touching, toward or towards;--Under, underneath, until, unto, up, upon;--With, within, without.
OBSERVATIONS.
OBS. 1.--Grammarians differ considerably in their tables of the English prepositions. Nor are they all of one opinion, concerning either the characteristics of this part of speech, or the particular instances in which the acknowledged properties of a preposition are to be found. Some teach that, "Every preposition requires an objective case after it."--Lennie, p. 50; Bullion
