’Seasons return, but not to me returns
    Day, or the sweet approach of ev’n or morn,
    Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
    Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.’
       Milton, P. L., B. iii, l. 40.—­“Burn’s Gr., p. 108.

OBS. 18.—­T.  O. Churchill, whose Grammar first appeared in London in 1823, treats this matter thus:  “As or answers to either, nor, a compound of not or [ne or] by contraction, answers to neither, a similar compound of not either [ne either].  The latter however does not constitute that double use of the negative, in which one, agreeably to the principles of philosophical grammar, destroys the other; for a part of the first word, neither, cannot be understood before the second, nor:  and for the same reason a part of it could not be understood before or, which is sometimes improperly used in the second clause; while the whole of it, neither, would be obviously improper before or.  On the other hand, when not is used in the first clause, nor is improper in the second; since it would involve the impropriety of understanding not before a compound of not [or ne] with or.  ’I shall not attempt to convince, nor to persuade you.—­What will you not attempt?—­To convince, nor to persuade you.’  The impropriety of nor in this answer is clear:  but the answer should certainly repeat the words not heard, or not understood.”—­Churchill’s New Gram., p. 330.

OBS. 19.—­“It is probable, that the use of nor after not has been introduced, in consequence of such improprieties as the following:  ’The injustice of inflicting death for crimes, when not of the most heinous nature, or attended with extenuating circumstances.’  Here it is obviously not the intention of the writer, to understand the negative in the last clause:  and, if this were good English, it would be not merely allowable to employ nor after not, to show the subsequent clause to be negative as well as the preceding, but it would always be necessary.  In fact, however, the sentence quoted is faulty, in not repeating the adverb when in the last clause; ‘or when attended:’  which would preclude the negative from being understood in it; for, if an adverb, conjunction, or auxiliary verb, preceding a negative, be understood in the succeeding clause, the negative is understood also; if it be repeated, the negative must be repeated likewise, or the clause becomes affirmative.”—­Ib., p. 330.