to, themselves.’  Bentley, Serm. 6.  This [construction], whether in the familiar or the solemn style, is always inelegant; and should never be admitted, but in forms of law, and the like; where fullness and exactness of expression must take place of every other consideration.”—­Lowth’s Gram., p. 96; Murray’s, i, 200; Smith’s, 167; Fisk’s, 141; Ingersoll’s, 228; Alger’s, 67; Picket’s, 207.  Churchill even goes further, both strengthening the censure, and disallowing the exception:  thus, “This, whether in the solemn or in the familiar style, is always inelegant, and should never be admitted.  It is an awkward shift for avoiding the repetition of a word, which might be accomplished without it by any person who has the least command of language.”—­New Gram., p. 341.  Yet, with all their command of language, not one of these gentlemen has told us how the foregoing sentence from Bentley may be amended; while many of their number not only venture to use different prepositions before the same noun, but even to add a phrase which puts that noun in the nominative case:  as, “Thus, the time of the infinitive may be before, after, or the same as, the time of the governing verb, according as the thing signified by the infinitive is supposed to be before, after, or present with, the thing denoted by the governing verb.”—­Murray’s Gram., i, 191; Ingersoll’s, 260; R.  C. Smith’s, 159.

OBS. 16.—­The structure of this example not only contradicts palpably, and twice over, the doctrine cited above, but one may say of the former part of it, as Lowth, Murray, and others do, (in no very accurate English,) of the text 1 Cor., ii, 9:  “There seems to be an impropriety in this sentence, in which the same noun serves in a double capacity, performing at the same time the offices both of the nominative and objective cases.”—­Murray’s Gram., 8vo, p. 224.  See also Lowth’s Gram., p. 73; Ingersoll’s, 277; Fisk’s, 149; Smith’s, 185.  Two other examples, exactly like that which is so pointedly censured above, are placed by Murray under his thirteenth rule for the comma; and these likewise, with all faithfulness, are copied by Ingersoll, Smith, Alger, Kirkham, Comly, Russell, and I know not how many more.  In short, not only does this rule of their punctuation include the construction in question; but the following exception to it, which is remarkable for its various faults, or thorough faultiness, is applicable to no other:  “Sometimes, when the word with which the last preposition agrees, is single, it is better to omit the comma before it:  as, ’Many states were in alliance with, and under the protection of Rome.’”—­Murray’s Gram., p. 272; Smith’s, 190; Ingersoll’s, 284; Kirkham’s, 215; Alger’s,