“Numes signifying duration, extension, quantity, quality, and valuation, are in the objective case without a governing word.”—­Frazee’s Gram., p. 154. Bullions, too, has a similar rule.  To estimate these rules aright, one should observe how often the nouns in question are found with a governing word.  Weld, of late, contradicts himself by admitting the ellipsis; and then, inconsistently with his admission, most absurdly denies the frequent use of the preposition with nouns of time, quantity, &c.  “Before words of this description, the ellipsis of a preposition is obvious.  But it is seldom proper to use the preposition before such words.”—­Weld’s “Abridged Edition," p. 118.

[366] Professor Fowler absurdly says, “Nigh, near, next, like, when followed by the objective case, may be regarded either as Prepositions or as Adjectives, to being understood.”—­Fowler’s E. Gram., 8vo, 1850, Sec.458, Note 7.  Now, “to being understood,” it is plain that no one of these words can be accounted a preposition, but by supposing the preposition to be complex, and to be partly suppressed.  This can be nothing better than an idle whim; and, since the classification of words as parts of speech, is always positive and exclusive, to refer any particular word indecisively to “either” of two classes, is certainly no better teaching, than to say, “I do not know of which sort it is; call it what you please!” With decision prompt enough, but with too little regard to analogy or consistency, Latham and Child say, “The adjective like governs a case, and it is the only adjective that does so.”—­Elementary Gram., p. 155.  In teaching thus, they seem to ignore these facts:  that near, nigh, or opposite, might just as well be said to be an adjective governing a case; and that the use of to or unto after like has been common enough to prove the ellipsis.  The Bible has many examples; as, “Who is like to thee in Israel?”—­1 Samuel, xxvi, 15.  “Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first.”—­Exodus, xxxiv, 1; and Deut., x, 1.  But their great inconsistency here is, that they call the case after like “a dative”—­a case unknown to their etymology!  See Gram. of E. Gram., p. 259.  In grammar, a solitary exception or instance can scarcely be a true one.

[367] The following examples may illustrate these points:  “These verbs, and all others like to them, were like TIMAO.”—­Dr. Murray’s Hist. of Europ.  Lang., Vol. ii, p. 128.  “The old German, and even the modern German, are much liker to the Visigothic than they are to the dialect of the Edda.”—­Ib., i, 330.  “Proximus finem, nighest the end.”—­Ib., ii, 150.  “Let us now come nearer to our own language.”—­Dr. Blair’s Rhet., p. 85.  “This looks very like a paradox.”—­BEATTIE:  Murray’s Gram., Vol. i, p. 113.  “He was near [to] falling.”—­Ib., p. 116.  Murray, who puts near into his list of prepositions, gives this example to show how “prepositions become adverbs!” “There was none ever before like unto it.”—­Stone, on Masonry, p. 5.