OBS. 16.—­The doctrine above stated, of ellipses after than and as, proceeds on the supposition that these words are conjunctions, and that they connect, not particular words merely, but sentences, or clauses.  It is the common doctrine of nearly all our grammarians, and is doubtless liable to fewer objections than any other theory that ever has been, or ever can be, devised in lieu of it.  Yet as is not always a conjunction; nor, when it is a conjunction, does it always connect sentences; nor, when it connects sentences, is there always an ellipsis; nor, when there is an ellipsis, is it always quite certain what that ellipsis is.  All these facts have been made plain, by observations that have already been bestowed on the word:  and, according to some grammarians, the same things may severally be affirmed of the word than.  But most authors consider than to be always a conjunction, and generally, if not always, to connect sentences.  Johnson and Webster, in their dictionaries, mark it for an adverb; and the latter says of it, “This word signifies also then, both in English and Dutch.”—­Webster’s Amer.  Dict., 8vo, w.  Than.  But what he means by “also,” I know not; and surely, in no English of this age, is than equivalent to then, or then to than.  The ancient practice of putting then for than, is now entirely obsolete;[434] and, as we have no other term of the same import, most of our expositors merely explain than as “a particle used in comparison.”—­Johnson, Worcester, Maunder.  Some absurdly define it thus:  “THAN, adv.  Placed in comparison.”—­Walker, (Rhym.  Dict.,) Jones, Scott.  According to this definition, than would be a participle!  But, since an express comparison necessarily implies a connexion between different terms, it cannot well be denied that than is a connective word; wherefore, not to detain the reader with any profitless controversy, I shall take it for granted that this word is always a conjunction.  That it always connects sentences, I do not affirm; because there are instances in which it is difficult to suppose it to connect anything more than particular words:  as, “Less judgement than wit is more sail than ballast.”—­Penn’s Maxims.  “With no less eloquence than freedom.  ‘Pari eloquentia ac libertate.’ Tacitus.”—­Walker’s Particles, p. 200.  “Any comparison between these two classes of writers, cannot be other than vague and loose.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 347.  “This far more than compensates all those little negligences.”—­Ib., p. 200.

   “Remember Handel?  Who that was not born
    Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets,
    Or can, the more than Homer of his age?”—­Cowper.