that is, about the town, country, or something else.  ‘She was near [the act or misfortune of] falling;’ ’But do not after [that time or event] lay the blame on me.’  ’He came down [the ascent] from the hill;’ ’They lifted him up [the ascent] out of the pit.’  ’The angels above;’—­above us—­’Above these lower heavens, to us invisible, or dimly seen.’”—­Gram., p. 89.  The errors of this passage are almost as numerous as the words; and those to which the doctrine leads are absolutely innumerable.  That up and down, with verbs of motion, imply ascent and descent, as wisely and foolishly imply wisdom and folly, is not to be denied; but the grammatical bathos of coming “down [the ascent] from the hill” of science, should startle those whose faces are directed upward! Downward ascent is a movement worthy only of Kirkham, and his Irish rival, Joseph W. Wright.  The brackets here used are Kirkham’s, not mine.

OBS. 4.—­“Some of the prepositions,” says L. Murray, “have the appearance and effect of conjunctions:  as, ’After their prisons were thrown open,’ &c. ‘Before I die;’ ’They made haste to be prepared against their friends arrived:’  but if the noun time, which is understood, be added, they will lose their conjunctive form:  as, ’After [the time when] their prisons,’ &c.”—­Octavo Gram., p. 119.  Here, after, before, and against, are neither conjunctions nor prepositions, but conjunctive adverbs of time, referring to the verbs which follow them, and also, when the sentences are completed, to others antecedent.  The awkward addition of “the time when,” is a sheer perversion.  If after, before, and the like, can ever be adverbs, they are so here, and not conjunctions, or prepositions.

OBS. 5.—­But the great Compiler proceeds:  “The prepositions, after, before, above, beneath, and several others, sometimes appear to be adverbs, and may be so considered:  as, ’They had their reward soon after;’ ‘He died not long before;’ ‘He dwells above;’ but if the nouns time and place be added, they will lose their adverbial form:  as, ‘He died not long before that time,’ &c.”—­Ib. Now, I say, when any of the foregoing words “appear to be adverbs,” they are adverbs, and, if adverbs, then not prepositions.  But to consider prepositions to be adverbs, as Murray here does, or seems to do; and to suppose “the NOUNS time AND place” to be understood in the several examples here cited, as he also does, or seems to do; are singly such absurdities as no grammarian should fail to detect, and together such a knot of blunders, as ought to be wondered at, even in the Compiler’s humblest copyist.  In the following text, there is neither preposition nor ellipsis: