Hiley, Angus, Lynde, Hull, Powers, Spear, Farnum, Fowle, Goldsbury, Perley, Cobb, Badgley, Cooper, Jones, Davis, Beall, Hendrick, Hazen, and Goodenow.”—­School Gram., 1850, p. 178.  But what if all these authors do prefer, “but him,” and “save him,” where ten times as many would say, “but he,” “save he?” Is it therefore difficult to determine which party is right?  Or is it proper for a grammarian to name sundry authorities on both sides, excite doubt in the mind of his reader, and leave the matter unsettled?  “The use of but as a preposition,” he also states, “is discountenanced by G. Brown, Sanborn, Murray, S. Oliver, and several other grammarians. (See also an able article in the Mass.  Common School Journal, Vol. ii, p. 19.)”—­School Gram., p. 178.

OBS. 16.—­Wells passes no censure on the use of nominatives after but and save; does not intimate which case is fittest to follow these words; gives no false syntax under his rule for the regimen of prepositions; but inserts there the following brief remarks and examples: 

“REM. 3.—­The word save is frequently used to perform the office of a preposition; as, ’And all desisted, all save him alone.’—­Wordsworth.”

“REM. 4.—­But is sometimes employed as a preposition, in the sense of except; as, ’The boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled.’—­Hemans.”—­Ib., p. 167.

Now, “BUT,” says Worcester, as well as Tooke and others, was “originally bot, contracted from be out;” and, if this notion of its etymology is just, it must certainly be followed by the nominative case, rather than by the objective; for the imperative be or be out governs no case, admits no additional term but a nominative—­an obvious and important fact, quite overlooked by those who call but a preposition.  According to Allen H. Weld, but and save “are commonly considered prepositions,” but “are more commonly termed conjunctions!” This author repeats Wells’s examples of “save him,” and “but him,” as being right; and mixes them with opposite examples of “save he,” “but he,” “save I,” which he thinks to be more right!—­Weld’s Gram., p. 187.

OBS. 17.—­Professor Fowler, too, an other author remarkable for a facility of embracing incompatibles, contraries, or dubieties, not only condemns as “false syntax” the use of save for an exceptive conjunction. (Sec.587. 28,) but cites approvingly from Latham the following very strange absurdity:  “One and the same word, in one and the same sentence, may be a Conjunction or [a] Preposition, as the case may be:  [as] All fled but John.”—­Fowler’s E. Gram., 8vo, 1850, Sec. 555.  This is equivalent to saying, that “one and the same sentence” may be two different sentences; may, without