EXAMPLES.
1. "All were well _but_ the _stranger_." "I saw nobody but the
_stranger_." "All had returned but he." "None but the _brave_ deserve
the fair." "The thing they can't _but_ purpose, they postpone." "This
life, at best, is _but_ a dream." "It affords _but_ a scanty measure of
enjoyment." "If he _but_ touch the hills, they will smoke." "Man is
_but_ a reed, floating on the current of time."
2. "Notwithstanding his poverty, he is content."
3. "Open your hand _wide_." "The apples boil _soft_." "The purest clay
is that which burns _white_." "Drink _deep_, or taste not the Pierian
spring."
4. "_What though_ the swelling surge thou see?" &c. "_What if_ the foot,
ordain'd the dust to tread?" &c.
REMARKS.--According to the principle of analysis assumed by many of our
most critical philologists, _but_ is _always_ a disjunctive conjunction;
and agreeably to the same authorities, to construe it, in any case, as a
preposition, would lead to error. See false Syntax under Rule 35. They
maintain, that its legitimate and undeviating office is, to join on a
member of a sentence which _expresses opposition of meaning_, and
thereby forms an exception to, or takes from the universality of, the
proposition contained in the preceding member of the sentence.
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