owth an observation in which the learned doctor
has censured quite too strongly the joint reference of different
prepositions to the same objective noun: to wit, "Some writers separate the
preposition from its noun, in order to connect different prepositions to
the same noun; as, 'To suppose the zodiac and planets to be efficient _of_,
and antecedent _to_, themselves.' Bentley, Serm. 6. This [construction],
whether in the familiar or the solemn style, is _always inelegant_; and
_should never be admitted_, but in forms of law, and the like; where
fullness and exactness of expression must take _place_ of every other
consideration."--_Lowth's Gram._, p. 96; _Murray's_, i, 200; _Smith's_,
167; _Fisk's_, 141; _Ingersoll's_, 228; _Alger's_, 67; _Picket's_, 207.
Churchill even goes further, both strengthening the censure, and
disallowing the exception: thus, "This, whether in the solemn or in the
familiar style, is _always_ inelegant, and should _never be admitted_. It
is an _awkward shift_ for avoiding the repetition of a word, _which might
be accomplished without it_ by any person who has the least command of
language."--_New Gram._, p. 341. Yet, with all their command of language,
not one of these gentlemen has told us how the foregoing sentence from
Bentley may be _amended_; while many of their number not only venture to
use different prepositions before the same noun, but even to add a phrase
which puts that noun in the nominative case: as, "Thus, the time of the
infinitive may be _before, after_, or _the same as_, the time of the
governing verb, according as the _thing_ signified by the infinitive is
supposed to be _before, after_, or _present with_, the _thing_ denoted by
the governing verb."--_Murray's Gram._, i, 191; _Ingersoll's_, 260; _R. C.
Smith's_, 159.

OBS. 16.--The structure of this example not only contradicts palpably, and
twice over, the doctrine cited above, but one may say of the former part of
it, as Lowth, Murray, and others do, (in no very accurate English,) of the
text 1 Cor., ii, 9: "There seems to be an impropriety in this sentence, in
which the same noun serves in a double capacity, performing at the same
time the _offices both of the nominative and objective cases_."--_Murray's
Gram._, 8vo, p. 224. See also _Lowth's Gram._, p. 73; _Ingersoll's_, 277;
_Fisk's_, 149; _Smith's_, 185. Two other examples, exactly like that which
is so pointedly censured above, are placed by Murray under his thirteenth
r