for... sake (with genitive between).

Now for the comfortless troubles' sake of the needy.-Psalm xii. 5.

But if any man say vnto you, This is offered in sacrifice vnto idoles, eate not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake.-I Cor. x. 28.

For Sabrine bright her only sake.

Ballad Society, vol. i. p. 386.

530. This is the formula throughout the English Bible, and throughout Shakspeare with three exceptions, according to Mrs. Cowden Clarke. In the above examples, troubles', his, conscience are in the genitive case. The s genitival is. not added to conscience, because it ends with a sibilant sound, and where there are two sibilants already, a third could hardly be articulated. The s of the genitive case is, however, often absent where this reason cannot be assigned. Thus:

For his oath sake.-Twelfth Night, iii. 4.

For fashion sake.-As You Like It, iii. 2.

For sport sake.—1 Henry IV, ii. 1.

For their credit sake.-1 Henry IV, ii. 1.

For safety sake.—Id. v. 1.

For your health and your digestion sake.

Troilus and Cressida, ii. 3.

Instead of this genitive the present use of the language substitutes an of-form, which occurs in Shakspeare three times :

for the sake of.

And for the sake of them thou sorrowest for.

Comedy of Errors, i. I. 122.

If for the sake of Merit thou wilt hear mee.

Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 7. 54.

A little Daughter, for the sake of it
Be manly, and take comfort.

Pericles, iii. 1. 21.

531. Through the phrasal prepositions we are able to see how the older prepositions came into their place, and (to speak generally) how the symbolic element sustains itself and preserves itself from the natural decay of inanition. Here is a presentive word enclosed between two prepositions, as if it had been swallowed by them, and were gradually undergoing the process of assimilation. By and bye the substantive becomes obsolete elsewhere, and lives on here as a preposition, with a purely symbolic power.

Thus in despite of becomes first despite of 'despite of all controversy, Measure for Measure, i. 2; 'despite of death,' Richard II, i. 1; and then in a further stage despite stands alone despite his nice fence,' Much Ado, v. 1; 'despite thy victor sword,' Lear, v. 3; and in these latter cases the old substantive despite is as purely a preposition as the French malgré. And it may be added that despite as a substantive is as good as obsolete, except in poetry, but the prepositional use is well established.

2. OF CONJUNCTIONS.

532. Of all the parts of speech the conjunction comes last in the order of nature. The office of the conjunction is to join sentences together, and therefore it presupposes the completion of the simple sentence; and as a consequence it would seem to imply the pre-existence of the other parts of speech, and to be the terminal product of them all. It is essentially a symbolic word, but this does not hinder it from comprising within its vocabulary a great deal of half-assimilated presentive matter. This is a point to which we shall return in the course of the section.

The necessity for conjunctions (other than and, or, also) does not arise until language has advanced to the formation

of compound sentences. Hence the conjunctions are as a whole a comparatively modern formation. Almost all the conjunctions are recent enough for us to know of what they were made. And indeed they may conveniently be arranged according to the parts of speech out of which they have been formed.

533. Of the derival of a conjunction from a preposition we have a ready instance in the old familiar but, at first a preposition, compounded of by and out; in Saxon BUTAN, from BE and UTAN.

Others of the same character are

for.

For thou, for thou didst view,

That death of deaths, companion true.

till.

The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind: but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.-Samuel Johnson, to Lord Chesterfield.

As there are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write, so the heart is a secret even to him (or her) who has it in his own breast.-W. M. Thackeray, Esmond, Bk. II. ch. i.

until.

Shakspeare was quite out of fashion until Steele brought him back into the mode.-W. M. Thackeray, Esmond, Bk. II, ch. x.

No character is natural until it has been proved to be so.-W. S. Macleay, quoted by Professor Rolleston, Forms of Animal Life, p. xxi.

534. Then there are conjunctions formed by the symphytism of a preposition with a noun, as in the Shakspearian belike, which is pure English, or peradventure, which is pure French, or perhaps, which is half French and half Danish.

In Chaucer, Knight's Tale, 2488, we find the full phrase out of which has been made the compressed form

k k

because.

But by the cause that they sholde ryse
Eerly for to seen the grete fight
Vn to hir reste wenten they at night.
Ellesmere MS.

Bot be pe cause þat þei sholde rise
Erly for to seen þe grete fighte
Vnto her reste went þei att nighte.
Lansdowne MS.

In Caxton it appears as by cause :—

Wherfore by cause thys sayd book is ful of holsom wysedom and requysyte vnto euery astate and degree, I haue purposed to enprynte it.The Game of the Chesse, A.D. 1474 (Preface).

Divested of the old preposition, it is provincially used in the short form of cause. I happen to be able to give an authentic instance. In Ipplepen church there is an inscribed floor-stone, to the memory of two infants, who died in 1683

Mourn not for vs dear Relatiues Caus We

So earely left this Vale of Misery.

Blesst Infants soonest to their port arriue,

The aged longer with the stormes do striue.

A conjunction formed from the reference of a preposition to a foregoing adverb is

too . . . to.

I have seen too much of success in life to take off my hat and huzza to it as it passes in its gilt coach.-W. M. Thackeray, Esmond, Bk. I. p. 30.

535. But the great source of conjunctions is the Pronoun. Here the ancient relative pronoun so is one of the most frequent factors, both in its own form and in its compound also; and in as, condensed from also, or rather from EALSWA, i.e. entirely, altogether so, quite in that manner.

In the following line of Chaucer, Prologue 92, we see the second as already mature, while the first is still in the course of formation. We see al and so in various stages of approximation until their final coalition in the form of as.

He was al so fresche as is þe moneþ of Mai.

Lansdowne MS.

536. So and as, severally considered, are adverbial pronouns; and it is by their inherent capacity of standing to each other as antecedent and relative that they together constitute a conjunction.

So... as.

With a depth so great as to make it a day's march from the rear to the van, and a front so narrow as to consist of one gun and one horseman.A. W. Kinglake, Invasion of the Crimea, vol. iii. ch. ix.

As great men flatter themselves, so they are flattered by others, and so robbed of the true judgment of themselves.-R. Sibbs, Soules Conflict, ch. xiv, ed. 1658, p. 201.

The use of as for a conjunction-sole is now disallowed, and is in fact one of our standard vulgarisms. It is seen in the familiar saw, 'Handsome is as handsome does.' Yet this use occurs in the Spectator, No. 508—in the course of a correspondent's letter it is true, but the correspondent is a young lady, and writes like one :

Is it sufferable, that the Fop of whom I complain should say, as he would rather have such-a-one without a Groat, than me with the Indies?

Rich young men become so valuable a prize, that selection is renounced. -John Boyd-Kinnear, Woman's Work, p. 353.

A wise man will make better use of an idle pamphlet, then a fool will do of sacred Scripture. John Milton, Areopagitica.