"Rather let such poor souls as you and I
Say that the holidays are drawing nigh."—Swift.
OBS. 16.—The doctrine above stated, of ellipses after than and as, proceeds on the supposition that these words are conjunctions, and that they connect, not particular words merely, but sentences, or clauses. It is the common doctrine of nearly all our grammarians, and is doubtless liable to fewer objections than any other theory that ever has been, or ever can be, devised in lieu of it. Yet as is not always a conjunction; nor, when it is a conjunction, does it always connect sentences; nor, when it connects sentences, is there always an ellipsis; nor, when there is an ellipsis, is it always quite certain what that ellipsis is. All these facts have been made plain, by observations that have already been bestowed on the word: and, according to some grammarians, the same things may severally be affirmed of the word than. But most authors consider than to be always a conjunction, and generally, if not always, to connect sentences. Johnson and Webster, in their dictionaries, mark it for an adverb; and the latter says of it, "This word signifies also then, both in English and Dutch."—Webster's Amer. Dict., 8vo, w. Than. But what he means by "also," I know not; and surely, in no English of this age, is than equivalent to then, or then to than. The ancient practice of putting then for than, is now entirely obsolete;[434] and, as we have no other term of the same import, most of our expositors merely explain than as "a particle used in comparison."—Johnson, Worcester, Maunder. Some absurdly define it thus: "THAN, adv. Placed in comparison."—Walker, (Rhym. Dict.,) Jones, Scott. According to this definition, than would be a participle! But, since an express comparison necessarily implies a connexion between different terms, it cannot well be denied that than is a connective word; wherefore, not to detain the reader with any profitless controversy, I shall take it for granted that this word is always a conjunction. That it always connects sentences, I do not affirm; because there are instances in which it is difficult to suppose it to connect anything more than particular words: as, "Less judgement than wit is more sail than ballast."—Penn's Maxims. "With no less eloquence than freedom. 'Pari eloquentiâ ac libertate.' Tacitus."—Walker's Particles, p. 200. "Any comparison between these two classes of writers, cannot be other than vague and loose."—Blair's Rhet., p. 347. "This far more than compensates all those little negligences."—Ib., p. 200.
"Remember Handel? Who that was not born
Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets,
Or can, the more than Homer of his age?"—Cowper.
OBS. 17.—When any two declinable words are connected by than or as, they are almost always, according to the true idiom of our language, to be put in the same case, whether we suppose an ellipsis in the construction of the latter, or not; as, "My Father is greater than I."—Bible. "What do ye more than others?"—Matt., v, 47. "More men than women were there."—Murray's Gram., p. 114. "Entreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren."—1 Tim., v, 1. "I would that all men were even as I myself."—1 Cor., vii, 7. "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?"—John, xxi, 15. This last text is manifestly ambiguous; so that some readers will doubt whether it means—"more than thou lovest these," or—"more than these love me." Is not this because there is an ellipsis in the sentence, and such a one as may be variously conceived and supplied? The original too is ambiguous, but not for the same reason: "[Greek: Simon Iona, agapas me pleion touton];"—And so is the Latin of the Vulgate and of Montanus: "Simon Jona, diligis me plus his?" Wherefore Beza expressed it differently: "Simon fili Jonæ, diligis me plus quâm hi?" The French Bible has it: "Simon, fils de Jona, m'aimes-tu plus que ne font ceux-ci?" And the expression in English should rather have been, "Lovest thou me more than do these?"
OBS. 18.—The comparative degree, in Greek, is said to govern the genitive case; in Latin, the ablative: that is, the genitive or the ablative is sometimes put after this degree without any connecting particle corresponding to than, and without producing a compound sentence. We have examples in the phrases, "[Greek: pleion touton]" and "plus his," above. Of such a construction our language admits no real example; that is, no exact parallel. But we have an imitation of it in the phrase than whom, as in this hackneyed example from Milton:
"Which, when Beëlzebub perceived, than whom,
Satan except, none higher sat," &c.—Paradise Lost, B. ii, l. 300.
The objective, whom, is here preferred to the nominative, who, because the Latin ablative is commonly rendered by the former case, rather than by the latter: but this phrase is no more explicable according to the usual principles of English grammar, than the error of putting the objective case for a version of the ablative absolute. If the imitation is to be judged allowable, it is to us a figure of syntax—an obvious example of Enallagè, and of that form of Enallagè, which is commonly called Antiptosis, or the putting of one case for an other.
OBS. 19.—This use of whom after than has greatly puzzled and misled our grammarians; many of whom have thence concluded that than must needs be, at least in this instance, a preposition,[435] and some have extended the principle beyond this, so as to include than which, than whose with its following noun, and other nominatives which they will have to be objectives; as, "I should seem guilty of ingratitude, than which nothing is more shameful." See Russell's Gram., p. 104. "Washington, than whose fame naught earthly can be purer."—Peirce's Gram., p. 204. "You have given him more than I. You have sent her as much as he."—Buchanan's Eng. Syntax, p. 116. These last two sentences are erroneously called by their author, "false syntax;" not indeed with a notion that than and as are prepositions, but on the false supposition that the preposition to must necessarily be understood between them and the pronouns, as it is between the preceding verbs and the pronouns him and her. But, in fact, "You have given him more than I," is perfectly good English; the last clause of which plainly means—"more than I have given him." And, "You have sent her as much as he," will of course be understood to mean—"as much as he has sent her;" but here, because the auxiliary implied is different from the one expressed, it might have been as well to have inserted it: thus, "You have sent her as much as he has." "She reviles you as much as he," is also good English, though found, with the foregoing, among Buchanan's examples of "false syntax."
OBS. 20.—Murray's twentieth Rule of syntax avers, that, "When the qualities of different things are compared, the latter noun or pronoun is not governed by the conjunction than or as, but agrees with the verb," &c.—Octavo Gram., p. 214; Russell's Gram., 103; Bacon's, 51; Alger's, 71; Smith's, 179; Fisk's, 138. To this rule, the great Compiler and most of his followers say, that than whom "is an exception." or "seems to form an exception;" to which they add, that, "the phrase is, however, avoided by the best modern writers."—Murray, i, 215. This latter assertion Russell conceives to be untrue: the former he adopts; and, calling than whom "an exception to the general rule," says of it, (with no great consistency,) "Here the conjunction than has certainly the force of a preposition, and supplies its place by governing the relative."—Russell's Abridgement of Murray's Gram., p. 104. But this is hardly an instance to which one would apply the maxim elsewhere adopted by Murray: "Exceptio probat regulam."—Octavo Gram., p. 205. To ascribe to a conjunction the governing power of a preposition, is a very wide step, and quite too much like straddling the line which separates these parts of speech one from the other.
OBS. 21.—Churchill says, "If there be no ellipsis to supply, as sometimes happens when a pronoun relative occurs after than; the relative is to be put in the objective case absolute: as, 'Alfred, than whom a greater king never reigned, deserves to be held up as a model to all future sovereigns.'"—New Gram., p. 153. Among his Notes, he has one with reference to this "objective case absolute," as follows: "It is not governed by the conjunction, for on no other occasion does a conjunction govern any case; or by any word understood, for we can insert no word, or words, that will reconcile the phrase with any other rule of grammar: and if we employ a pronoun personal instead of the relative, as he, which will admit of being resolved elliptically, it must be put in the nominative case."—Ib., p. 352. Against this gentleman's doctrine, one may very well argue, as he himself does against that of Murray, Russell, and others; that on no other occasion do we speak of putting "the objective case absolute;" and if, agreeably to the analogy of our own tongue, our distinguished authors would condescend to say than who,[436] surely nobody would think of calling this an instance of the nominative case absolute,—except perhaps one swaggering new theorist, that most pedantic of all scoffers, Oliver B. Peirce.