called an
_adverb_. Thus, the text, "He hath _not_ grieved me _but_ in part." (_2
Cor._, ii, 5,) might drop the negative _not_, and still convey the same
meaning: "He hath grieved me _but_ in part;" i.e., "_only_ in part." In the
following examples, too, _but_ appears to be an adverb, like _only_:
"Things _but_ slightly connected should not be crowded into one
sentence."--_Murray's Octavo Gram., Index_. "The assertion, however, serves
_but_ to show their ignorance."--_Webster's Essays_, p. 96.

"Reason itself _but_ gives it edge and power."--_Pope_.

"Born _but_ to die, and reasoning _but_ to err."--_Id._

OBS. 29.--In some constructions of the word _but_, there is a remarkable
ambiguity; as, "There _cannot be but one_ capital musical pause in a
line."--_Kames, El. of Crit._, ii, 92. "A line _admits but one_ capital
pause."--_Ibid._ Thus does a great critic, in the same paragraph, palpably
contradict himself, and not perceive it. Both expressions are equivocal. He
ought rather to have said: "A line admits _no more than_ one capital
pause."--"There cannot be _more than_ one capital musical pause in a line."
Some would say--"admits _only_ one"--"there can be _only one_." But here,
too, is some ambiguity; because _only_ may relate either to _one_, or to
the preceding verb. The use of _only_ for _but_ or _except that_, is not
noticed by our lexicographers; nor is it, in my opinion, a practice much to
be commended, though often adopted by men that pretend to write
grammatically: as, "Interrogative pronouns are the same as _relative_, ONLY
their antecedents cannot be determined till the answer is _given to the
question_."--_Comly's Gram._, p. 16. "A diphthong is always long; as,
_Aurum, Caesar_, &c. ONLY _prae_, in composition before a vowel is commonly
short."--_Adam's Gram._, p. 254; _Gould's_, 246.

OBS. 30.--It is said by some grammarians, that, "The adverb _there_ is
often used as an _expletive_, or as a word that adds nothing to the sense;
in which case, it precedes the verb and the nominative; as, '_There_ is a
person at the door.'"--_Murray's Gram._, p. 197; _Ingersoll's_, 205;
_Greenleaf's_, 33; _Nixon's Parser_, p. 53. It is true, that in our
language the word _there_ is thus used idiomatically, as an introductory
term, when we tell what is taking, or has taken, _place_; but still it is a
regular adverb _of place_, and relates to the verb agreeably to the common
rule for adverbs. In some instances it is eve