Of two prepositions coming together between the same terms of
relation, and sometimes connected in the same construction, I have given
several plain examples in this chapter, and in the tenth chapter of
Etymology, a very great number, all from sources sufficiently respectable.
But, in many of our English grammars, there is a stereotyped remark on this
point, originally written by Priestley, which it is proper here to cite, as
an other specimen of the Doctor's hastiness, and of the blind confidence of
certain compilers and copyists: "Two different prepositions _must be
improper_ in the same construction, and in the same sentence: [as,] _The
combat_ between _thirty Britons_, against _twenty English_. Smollett's
Voltaire, Vol. 2, p. 292."--_Priestley's Gram._, p. 156. Lindley Murray and
others have the same remark, with the example altered thus: "The combat
_between_ thirty _French against_ twenty English."--_Murray's Gram._, 8vo,
p. 200; _Smith's New Gram._, 167: _Fisk's_, 142; _Ingersoll's_, 228. W.
Allen has it thus: "Two different prepositions in the _same construction_
are improper; as, a combat _between twenty_ French _against thirty_
English."--_Elements of E. Gram._, p. 179. He gives the odds to the latter
party. Hiley, with no expense of thought, first takes from Murray, as he
from Priestley, the useless remark, "Different relations, and different
senses, must be expressed by different prepositions;" and then adds, "_One
relation_ must not, _therefore_, be expressed by two different prepositions
in the same clause; thus, 'The combat _between thirty_ French _against
thirty_ English,' should be, 'The combat _between thirty_ French _and
thirty_ English.'"--_Hiley's E. Gram._, p 97. It is manifest that the error
of this example is not in the use of _two prepositions_, nor is there any
truth or fitness in the note or notes made on it by all these critics; for
had they said, "The combat _of_ thirty French _against_ twenty English,"
there would still be two prepositions, but where would be the impropriety,
or where the sameness of construction, which they speak of? _Between_ is
incompatible with _against_, only because it requires two parties or things
for its own regimen; as, "The combat _between_ thirty _Frenchmen and_
twenty _Englishmen_." This is what Smollett should have written, to make
sense with the word "_between_."

OBS. 15.--With like implicitness, Hiley excepted, these grammarians and
others have adopted from L