_ for _than_, is now entirely obsolete;[434] and, as we have no other
term of the same import, most of our expositors merely explain _than_ as "a
particle used in comparison."--_Johnson, Worcester, Maunder_. Some absurdly
define it thus: "THAN, _adv_. Placed in comparison."--_Walker_, (Rhym.
Dict.,) _Jones, Scott_. According to this definition, _than_ would be a
_participle_! But, since an express comparison necessarily implies a
connexion between different terms, it cannot well be denied that _than_ is
a connective word; wherefore, not to detain the reader with any profitless
controversy, I shall take it for granted that this word is always a
conjunction. That it always connects sentences, I do not affirm; because
there are instances in which it is difficult to suppose it to connect
anything more than particular words: as, "Less judgement _than_ wit is more
sail _than_ ballast."--_Penn's Maxims_. "With no less eloquence _than_
freedom. 'Pari eloquentia _ac_ libertate.' _Tacitus_."--_Walker's
Particles_, p. 200. "Any comparison between these two classes of writers,
cannot be other _than_ vague and loose."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 347. "This
_far more than_ compensates all those little negligences."--_Ib._, p. 200.

"Remember Handel? Who that was not born
Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets,
Or can, _the more than Homer_ of his age?"--_Cowper_.

OBS. 17.--When any two declinable words are connected by _than_ or _as_,
they are almost always, according to the true idiom of our language, to be
put in the _same case_, whether we suppose an ellipsis in the construction
of the latter, or not; as, "My _Father_ is greater than _I_."--_Bible_.
"What do _ye_ more than _others_?"--_Matt._, v, 47. "More _men_ than
_women_ were there."--_Murray's Gram._, p. 114. "Entreat _him_ as a
_father_, and the younger _men_ as _brethren_."--_1 Tim._, v, 1. "I would
that all _men_ were even as _I_ myself."--_1 Cor._, vii, 7. "Simon, son of
Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?"--_John_, xxi, 15. This last text is
manifestly _ambiguous_; so that some readers will doubt whether it
means--"more than _thou lovest these_," or--"more than _these love me_." Is
not this because there is an _ellipsis_ in the sentence, and such a one as
may be variously conceived and supplied? The original too is ambiguous, but
not for the same reason: "[Greek: Simon Iona, agapas me pleion
touton];"--And so is the Latin of the Vulgate and of Montanus: "Simon Jona,