Prepositions are sometimes erroneously called adverbs, when their nouns are understood.  “He rides about;” that is, about the town, country, or some-thing 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.”

Before you proceed to correct the following exercises in false Syntax, you may answer these

QUESTIONS NOT ANSWERED IN PARSING.

Does an adverb ever qualify a noun?—­What parts of speech does it qualify?—­When an adverb qualifies a verb or participle, what does it express?—­When an adverb qualifies an adjective or adverb, what does it generally express?—­Compare some adverbs.—­By what signs may an adverb be known?—­Give examples.—­Repeat some adverbial phrases.—­Name the different classes of adverbs.—­Repeat some of each class.—­Repeat the order of parsing an adverb.—­What rule do you apply in parsing an adverb?

QUESTIONS ON THE NOTES.

Repeat some adverbs that are formed by combining prepositions with adverbs of place.—­Repeat some that are composed of the article a and nouns.—­What part of speech are the words, therefore, consequently, &c.?—­What words are styled adverbial conjunctions?—­Why are they so called?—­Is the same word sometimes used as an adjective, and sometimes as an adverb?—­Give examples.—­What is said of much?—­By what rule can you distinguish an adjective from an adverb?—­Do prepositions ever become adverbs?

* * * * *

    PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES.

As the happiness and increasing prosperity of a people essentially depend on their advancement in science and the arts, and as language, in all its sublime purposes and legitimate bearings, is strictly identified with these, it may naturally be supposed, that that nation which continues, through successive generations, steadily to progress in the former, will not be neglectful of the cultivation and refinement of the latter.  The truth of this remark is illustrated by those who have, for many ages, employed the English language as their medium for the transmission of thought.  Among its refinements may be ranked those procedures by which verbs and nouns have been so modified and contracted as to form what we call adverbs, distributives, conjunctions, and prepositions; for I presume it will be readily conceded, that conciseness, as well as copiousness and perspicuity in language, is the offspring of refinement.  That an immense amount of time and breath is saved by the use of adverbs, the following development will clearly demonstrate.  He who is successful in contracting