invisible.' The infinitive occasionally _follows_ THAN _after_ a
comparison; as, 'He desired _nothing more than to know_ his own
imperfections.'"--_Murray's Gram._, 8vo, p. 184; _Fisk's_, 125; _Alger's_,
63; _Merchant's_, 92. See this second example in _Weld's Gram._, p. 167;
_Abridg._, 124. Merchant, not relishing the latter example, changes it
thus: "I wish _nothing more, than to know_ his fate." He puts a comma after
_more_, and probably means, "I wish nothing _else_ than to know his fate."
So does Fisk, in the other version: and probably means, "He desired nothing
_else_ than to know his own imperfections." But Murray, Alger, and Weld,
accord in punctuation, and their meaning seems rather to be, "He desired
nothing _more heartily_ than [_he desired_] to know his own imperfections."
And so is this or a similar text interpreted by both Ingersoll and Weld,
who suppose this infinitive to be "_governed by another verb, understood_:
as, 'He desired nothing _more than to see_ his friends;' that is, 'than he
_desired_ to see,' &c."--_Ingersoll's Gram._, p. 244; _Weld's Abridged_,
124. But obvious as is the _ambiguity_ of this fictitious example, in all
its forms, not one of these five critics perceived the fault at all. Again,
in their remark above cited, Ingersoll, Fisk, and Merchant, put a comma
before the preposition "_after_," and thus make the phrase, "_after a
comparison_," describe the place _of the infinitive_. But Murray and Alger
probably meant that this phrase should denote the place of the conjunction
"_than_." The great "Compiler" seems to me to have misused the phrase "_a
comparison_," for, "_an adjective or adverb of the comparative degree_;"
and the rest, I suppose, have blindly copied him, without thinking or
knowing what he ought to have said, or meant to say. Either this, or a
worse error, is here apparent. Five learned grammarians severally represent
either "_than_" or "_the infinitive_," as being AFTER "a _comparison_;" of
which one is the copula, and the other but the beginning of the latter
term! Palpable as is the _absurdity_, no one of the five perceives it! And,
besides, no one of them says any thing about the _government_ of this
infinitive, except Ingersoll, and he supplies a _verb_. "_Than_ and _as_,"
says Greenleaf, "sometimes _appear to govern_ the infinitive mood; as,
'Nothing makes a man suspect _much more, than_ to know little;' 'An object
so high _as_ to be invisible."--_Gram. Simp._, p. 38.