“As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely dispeople and destroy.”—Bacon. Merely is here used, as it is uniformly by Bacon, and very frequently by Shakspeare, for entirely. In this sense, it is obsolete; and it now signifies purely, simply, only, nothing more than. From inattention to this, the passage, now quoted, has been corrupted in several editions. They have it, “do not merely dispeople, but destroy,” conveying a sentiment very different from what the author intended.
SECTION VI.
THE PREPOSITION.
SOLECISM.
“Who do you speak to?” Here the preposition is joined with the nominative, instead of the objective case. It should be, “whom do you speak to?” or “to whom do you speak?” To who is a solecism.
“He talked to you and I, of this matter, some days ago.” It should be, “to you and me;” that is, “to you and to me.”
“Now Margaret’s curse is fallen upon our heads,
When she exclaim’d on Hastings you and I.”
Shakspeare.
It ought to be, “on Hastings you and me,” the pronouns being under the government of the preposition understood.