error, be understood in two different senses; may be rightly taken, resolved, and parsed in two different ways!  Nay, it is equivalent to a denial of the old logical position, that “It is impossible for a thing to be and not be at the same time;” for it supposes “but,” in the instance given, to be at once both a conjunction and not a conjunction, both a preposition and not a preposition, “as the case may be!” It is true, that “one and the same word” may sometimes be differently parsed by different grammarians, and possibly even an adept may doubt who or what is right.  But what ambiguity of construction, or what diversity of interpretation, proceeding from the same hand, can these admissions be supposed to warrant?  The foregoing citation is a boyish attempt to justify different modes of parsing the same expression, on the ground that the expression itself is equivocal.  “All fled but John,” is thought to mean equally well, “All fled but he,” and, “All fled but him;” while these latter expressions are erroneously presumed to be alike good English, and to have a difference of meaning corresponding to their difference of construction.  Now, what is equivocal, or ambiguous, being therefore erroneous, is to be corrected, rather than parsed in any way.  But I deny both the ambiguity and the difference of meaning which these critics profess to find among the said phrases. “John fled not, but all the rest fled,” is virtually what is told us in each of them; but, in the form, “All fled but him,” it is told ungrammatically; in the other two, correctly.

OBS. 18.—­In Latin, cum with an ablative, sometimes has, or is supposed to have, the force of the conjunction et with a nominative; as, “Dux cum aliquot principibus capiuntur.”—­LIVY:  W.  Allen’s Gram., p. 131.  In imitation of this construction, some English writers have substituted with for and, and varied the verb accordingly; as, “A long course of time, with a variety of accidents and circumstances, are requisite to produce those revolutions.”—­HUME:  Allen’s Gram., p. 131; Ware’s, 12; Priestley’s, 186.  This phraseology, though censured by Allen, was expressly approved by Priestley, who introduced the present example, as his proof text under the following observation:  “It is not necessary that the two subjects of an affirmation should stand in the very same construction, to require the verb to be in the plural number.  If one of them be made to depend upon the other by a connecting particle, it may, in some cases, have the same force, as if it were independent of it.”—­Priestley’s Gram., p. 186.  Lindley Murray, on the contrary, condemns this doctrine, and after citing the same example with others, says:  “It is however, proper to observe that these modes of expression do not appear to be warranted by the just principles of construction.”—­