The delicate ear is much offended by any deviation from this rule: as, in a shocking and vulgar song which it was once our misfortune to hear:--
“There I found the faithless she Frying sausages _for he_.”
As also in the conversation of rustics: as, “It’s all one _to we_.” “Come out _of they ’taters_!” “He went to the Parson’s _with I_.” “_From he to they_ an’t more nor dree mile.”
We had occasion, in the Etymology, to remark on a certain misuse of the preposition, _of_. This, perhaps, is best explained by stating that _of_, in the instances cited, is made to usurp the government of cases which are already under a rightful jurisdiction: as, “_What_ are you got a eating _of_?” “He had been a beating _of his wife_.”
Conjunctions connect similar moods and tenses of verbs, and cases of nouns and pronouns: as, “A coat of arms suspended on a wall is like an executed traitor; it _is hanged, drawn, and quartered_.” “If you continue thus _to drink_ brandy and water _and to smoke_ cigars, you will be like Boreas the North wind, who _takes_ ‘cold without’ wherever he goes, _and_ always ‘_blows_ a cloud’ when it comes in his way.” “Do you think there is any thing between _him and her_?” “Yes; _he and she_ are engaged ones.”
_Note._--To ask whether there is any thing between two persons of opposite sexes, is one way of inquiring whether they are in love with each other. It is not, however, in our opinion, a very happy phrase, inasmuch as whatever intervenes between a couple of fond hearts, must tend to prevent them from coming together. Pyramus and Thisbe, as Ovid informs us, had more between them than they liked--a conjunction disjunctive in the shape of a wall. And by the bye, now that we are speaking of Pyramus and Thisbe, we may as well expend a word or two on a matter which, though of much interest, has never yet been noticed by the learned. Pyramus and Thisbe, it is well known, used to kiss each other through a hole in the wall which separated them. Now we have always been puzzled to imagine how they managed it. We are told by the Poet that they lived--
“Ubi dicitur altam Coctilibus muris cinxisse Semiramis urbem”--
that is to say, where Semiramis is said to have surrounded a lofty city--not with _cock-tail mice_, as Mr. Canning facetiously translated “Coctilibus muris,”--but with _brick walls_. The wall which separated two adjoining houses must have been at least a brick thick; and although it be possible, “with Love’s light wings” to “o’erperch” an exceedingly high wall, it occurs to us that it would be no easy thing for Love’s long lips, let them be as long as you will, to reach through a moderately thick one. We do not know exactly what was the breadth of an Assyrian brick, but supposing it to have been three inches, an inch and a half of lip would have been required on the part of either lover for a kiss which could barely be sworn by;--a sort of presentation salute;--but for one worth giving or taking, we must allow an additional half inch of mouth to the gentleman. After all, their noses must have been so much in the way, that to make the operation at all feasible, either these features must have been particularly flat, or the aperture a very large one; whereas it is well known to have been merely a chink. Common observation on the part of their respective parents would have detected such a gap, and common prudence would have stopped it up. How, then, are we to reconcile Ovid’s story with truth? Now, remember, reader, what has been said about noses and lips. Our deliberate opinion is that Pyramus and Thisbe were _a couple of negroes_. We shall be told that it is one utterly irreconcileable with the description of them given in the Metamorphoses. No matter--