e,"--"_No_ better,"--"_No_ greater,"--"_No_ sooner." When _no_ is
set before a noun, it is clearly an _adjective_, corresponding to the Latin
_nullus_; as, "_No_ clouds, _no_ vapours intervene."--_Dyer_. Dr. Johnson,
with no great accuracy, remarks, "It seems an _adjective_ in these phrases,
_no_ longer, _no_ more, _no_ where; though sometimes it may be so
commodiously changed to _not_, that it seems an adverb; as, 'The days are
yet _no_ shorter.'"--_Quarto Dict._ And his first example of what he calls
the "_adverb_ NO" is this: "'Our courteous Antony, Whom ne'er the word of
_no_ woman heard speak.' SHAKSPEARE."--_Ibid._ Dr. Webster says, "When it
precedes _where_, as in _no where_, it may be considered as adverbial,
though originally an adjective."--_Octavo Dict._ The truth is, that _no_ is
an adverb, whenever it relates to an adjective; an adjective, whenever it
relates to a noun; and a noun, whenever it takes the relation of a case.
Thus, in what Johnson cites from Shakspeare, it is a noun, and not an
adverb; for the meaning is, that a woman never heard Antony speak the word
_of no_--that is, _of negation_. And there ought to be a comma after this
word, to make the text intelligible. To read it thus: "_the word of no
woman_," makes _no_ an adjective. So, to say, "There are _no abler critics_
than these," is a very different thing from saying, "There are _critics no
abler_ than these;" because _no_ is an adjective in the former sentence,
and an adverb in the latter. _Somewhere, nowhere, anywhere, else-where_,
and _everywhere_, are adverbs of place, each of which is composed of the
noun _where_ and an _adjective_; and it is absurd to write a part of them
as compound words, and the rest as phrases, as many authors do.

OBS. 13.--In some languages, the more negatives one crowds into a sentence,
the stronger is the negation; and this appears to have been formerly the
case in English, or in what was anciently the language of Britain: as, "He
_never_ yet _no_ vilanie _ne_ sayde in alle his lif unto _no_ manere
wight."--_Chaucer_. "_Ne_ I _ne_ wol _non_ reherce, yef that I may."--_Id._
"Give _not_ me counsel; _nor_ let _no_ comforter delight mine
ear."--_Shakspeare_. "She _cannot_ love, _nor_ take _no_ shape _nor_
project of affection."--_Id._ Among people of education, this manner of
expression has now become wholly obsolete; though it still prevails, to
some extent, in the conversation of the vulgar. It is to be observed,
ho