124 Oa ^e Englijh Conjunction 7 '0 ', 



ivitbjlanding exprefTes almoft the contrary. I appeal, then, to the 

 judgment of every candid man, whether the circumftance 

 of AT raifing an expectation of fomething oppoiite to follow, 

 ought to be confidered as fufficient to found the conclufion, 

 that AT itfelf denotes oppofidon ; and, if- it is not, I know no 

 other ground on which fuch a conclufion is founded. 



WHAT, then, are the views, or confiderations, upon which 

 the words, at the fame time, and notwithjlanding, are ufed in the 

 preceding examples ? When, in contemplating the various qua- 

 lities which conftitute the character of C^SAR, we obferve them 

 to be fuch as, from their nature, are generally conceived not to 

 co-exifl, this view of them leads us to obviate the general pre- 

 judice, by intimating that (in this particular inftance) they ex- 

 ifted at the fame time. When, again, we confider them as na- 

 turally oppojite, or conceive, that the one clafs of them has a 

 natural tendency to oppufe or prevent the exiftence of the other, 

 this view of them leads us to intimate, that (in this inftance) it 

 did not oppofe it ; and it is for that purpofe that we employ the 

 word notwithftanding. In the fame manner precifely, when a 

 Roman viewed thefe qualities as naturally incongruous, he was 

 thereby led to give notice that (in this particular inftance) they 

 were united ; and, for this purpofe, the word AT, i.e. AD, is em- 

 ployed. 



IT mould feem, then, that the conjunction AT is an intima- 

 tion^ not of oppofttion, as is generally fuppofed, but of union ; 

 and that the habit of annexing" an emphatic meaning to it, is 

 fufficient to account for its raifing an expectation, that fome- 

 thing apparently oppofite or incongruous is to be fubjoined. 



ACCORDINGLY, if, in any inftance, we give to AD, even in 

 its undi/guifed form, the emphatic fenfe of even to, a fimilar ex- 

 pectation will be raifed. " AD imperium dictatoris ." 



*' EVEN AT the command of the dictator ." When thefe 



words are heard, we inftantly expect fomething to be added, 

 which but ill accords with our notions of a dictator's authority, 



whether 



