ne_ of] falling;' 'But do not
_after_ [that _time_ or _event_] lay the blame on me.' 'He came _down_ [the
_ascent_] from the hill;' 'They lifted him _up_ [the _ascent_] out of the
pit.' 'The angels _above_;'--above _us_--'Above these lower _heavens_, to
us invisible, or dimly seen.'"--_Gram._, p. 89. The errors of this passage
are almost as numerous as the words; and those to which the doctrine leads
are absolutely innumerable. That _up_ and _down_, with verbs of motion,
imply ascent and descent, as _wisely_ and _foolishly_ imply wisdom and
folly, is not to be denied; but the grammatical bathos of coming "_down
[the ascent] from the hill" of science_, should startle those whose faces
are directed upward! _Downward ascent_ is a movement worthy only of
Kirkham, and his Irish rival, Joseph W. Wright. The _brackets_ here used
are Kirkham's, not mine.

OBS. 4.--"Some of the _prepositions_," says L. Murray, "have the
_appearance and effect_ of conjunctions: as, '_After_ their prisons were
thrown open,' &c. '_Before_ I die;' 'They made haste to be prepared
_against_ their friends arrived:' but if the noun _time_, which is
_understood_, be added, they will lose their _conjunctive form_: as, 'After
[_the time when_] their prisons,' &c."--_Octavo Gram._, p. 119. Here,
_after, before_, and _against_, are neither conjunctions nor prepositions,
but conjunctive _adverbs of time_, referring to the verbs which follow
them, and also, when the sentences are completed, to others antecedent. The
awkward addition of "_the time when_," is a sheer perversion. If _after,
before_, and the like, can ever be adverbs, they are so here, and not
conjunctions, or prepositions.

OBS. 5.--But the great Compiler proceeds: "The _prepositions, after,
before, above, beneath_, and several others, sometimes _appear to be
adverbs_, and may be _so considered_: as, 'They had their reward soon
_after_;' 'He died not long _before_;' 'He dwells _above_;' but if the
nouns _time_ and _place_ be added, they will lose their adverbial form: as,
'He died not long _before that time_,' &c."--_Ib._ Now, I say, when any of
the foregoing words "_appear_ to be adverbs," they _are_ adverbs, and, if
adverbs, then not prepositions. But to consider prepositions to be adverbs,
as Murray here does, or seems to do; and to suppose "the NOUNS _time_ AND
_place_" to be understood in the several examples here cited, as he also
does, or seems to do; are singly such absurdities as no gram