“His donation was the more acceptable, that it was given without solicitation.” That the word that is frequently used for because cannot be questioned; thus, “I am glad that you have returned safe,” that is, “because you have returned safe.”
“’T is not that I love you less
Than when before your feet I lay.”—Waller.
Here that is equivalent to because. English writers, however, after a comparative, employ as or because, to denote that the circumstance subjoined was the cause of the preceding one. The use of that in such examples is accounted a Scotticism; it should, therefore, be, “his donation was the more acceptable, as” or “because it was given without solicitation.”
“His arguments on this occasion had, it may be presumed, the greater weight, that he had never himself entered within the walls of a playhouse.”—Stewart’s Life of Robertson.
“A mortification, the more severe, that the joint authority of the archduke and the infanta governed the Austrian Netherlands.”—Thomson’s Continuation of Watson’s History.
These sentences are chargeable with the same error; and, it is not a little remarkable, though the impropriety has been pointed out again and again, that there is scarcely a Scotch writer, not even among those of the highest name, who is not chargeable with the frequent commission of this error.
“On the east and west sides, it (America) is washed by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.”—Robertson. This mode of expression is incorrect; and, though to the geographer intelligible, it strictly conveys a conception not intended by the author. The copulative joins the two sides, which ought to be separated; and combines the two seas, instead of the two facts, implying, that both sides are washed by the same two oceans. It should be rather, “On the east side it is washed by the Atlantic, and on the west (is washed) by the Pacific ocean.”
“Will it be believed, that the four Gospels are as old, or even older than tradition?”—Bolingbroke. Here there is a faulty omission of the particle corresponding to as; for the positive and comparative cannot be followed by the same conjunction. It ought to be, “as old as, or even older than tradition;” or, perhaps, better, “as old as tradition, or even older.”
“The books were to have been sold as this day.” This is a most offensive vulgarism. The conjunction as can have no regimen; nor can it be properly used as equivalent to on. It ought to be, “sold this day,” or “on this day.”