hem 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