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On thy guiltless bosom folded,
Motionless thine arms recline;
As if innocence had moulded
What seem'd nearest to divine.

O'er thy cheek, so sweetly blooming,
Not a passion marks its path;
There no grief sits darkly glooming;
Burns not there the flush of wrath.

But the time is onward stealing,
When the fiercest shall control, —
When the tide of stormy feeling
Shall distract and rend thy soul!
Then these features, now displaying
Nothing but the calm of peace,
Other eyes shall see portraying
Passions that with years increase.

On these cheeks shall anger burning
Track its fiery path along;
Here shall vengeance, darkly spurning,
Blacken at the bitter wrong.

Love and hate, by turns possessing,
Shall the tortured heart reveal;

Raging sorrow, past repressing,

Then shall show how thou canst feel.

O'er these cheeks, that now are lying
Smooth as marble cherubim,
All the furies shall be flying,-

Fierce convulsing heart and limb.

Care may trace its deep indentings,
Where no line is pencill'd now;
Vain remorse, and late repentings,
Deeply mark this glossy brow.
And this arm, that now is curling,
Fair as lillies ere they fade;
In the battle may be whirling

Fierce and fast the deadly blade.
Rolling years shall render hoary

Every lock that age hath spared; Then, how like a by-gone story,

All that thou hast borne or dared!

Time shall leave its withering traces

On this face where roses bloom,
Whelm thy hopes, and steal thy graces—
All thy toil but earn a tomb!

J. B.

ON THE

ETYMOLOGY OF THE ENGLISH VERB.

PART II.

In pursuing our inquiry, it only remains to notice the grammatical inflections to which our verbs are subject.

The English language cannot, strictly speaking, be said to have more than two kinds of verbs,*-the transitive and intransitive. We reject the distinction of passive verbs as a mere adoption in complaisance to the learned languages. What are called neuter verbs, we prefer to designate intransitives; for, although to be, to walk, to sit, are certainly neither active nor passive, and in that sense neuter; adopting but two classes of verbs, we could not employ this term indeed, we consider it would be better if the verbs so ordinarily denominated were otherwise distinguished, as we have observed pupils who, familiar with the term as applied to nouns denoting inanimate objects, have been somewhat perplexed at observing verbs so denominated which described states of being and ordinary actions of life. By transitive, is meant such as affirm an action which passes over to or affects some object; by intransitive, such as denote actions or states of being confined to the subject itself.

There is another classification of verbs indicative of their modes of inflection, namely, regular, irregular, and defective.

It is usual to divide our verbs into three classes, the active, passive, and neuter. This division was doubtless borrowed from the learned languages; but had our grammarians paid less deference to these, and more to the Saxon, from which we have already shown the great bulk of our language is derived, they would have been less reluctant to retain a needless term, which, having retained, it became necessary to seek something which it should denote. Mr. Tyrwhitt, in his Essay on the English Language in the Time of Chaucer, remarks, "The auxiliary, to ben, was also a complete verb, and being prefixed to the participle of the past time, with the help of the other auxiliary verbs, supplied the place of the whole passive voice, for which the Saxon language had no other form of expression."--Bosworth reasons admirably on this subject, in his Elements of Anglo-Saxon Grammar:-"What is generally termed the passive voice, has no existence in the Anglo-Saxon any more than in the modern English language. In every instance, it is formed by the neuter verb and the perfect participle. In parsing, every word should be considered a distinct part of speech; we do not call to a king' a dative case in English, because it is not formed by inflection, but by the auxiliary words to a.' If these cases be rejected, by common consent, from English nouns, why may not the passive voice, and all the moods and tenses formed by auxiliaries?"

Ed in the past tense is the termination of our regular verbs: those which deviate from this general rule are denominated irregular; and, although we have nearly 5000 verbs, it is pleasing to observe, that the irregular class does not comprehend 200. Those which are deficient in some of their moods and tenses, are properly called defective.

Mr. Murray, in his excellent Grammar, has supplied an admirable list both of the irregular and defective verbs, distinguishing those which are used both in a regular and irregu lar form; which list he has followed by some useful remarks on those preterits which are to be preferred, as well as those which, although to be found in old authors, are now obsolete.*

On account of the numerous inflections to which verbs are subject, the distinctions of conjugations, moods, tenses, numbers, and persons, have been adopted.

The peculiar simplicity of English verbs relieves the inquirer from the perplexity of numerous conjugations, or modes of declining.

The leading powers of the soul (says Harris,)† are those of perception and volition. All speech or discourse is a publishing some part of our soul, either a certain perception or a certain volition. Hence, according as we exhibit it, either in a different part or after a different manner, arises the variety of modes or moods.

These moods have been multiplied and named according to the diversified taste of grammarians; and, as it respects our own language, according to the devotedness of the writers to the languages of Greece and Rome.

Mr. White, in his Essay on the English Verb, published about sixty years since, maintains we have ten moods,-the indicative, the subjunctive, elective, potential, determinative, obligative, compulsive, imperative, infinitive, and the participle. On this principle, it would have been easy to have increased their number, although it is difficult to give any solid reason why they should be so multiplied.

The fact is, we have no other mode of distinguishing any number of moods we may think fit to adopt, than that which is furnished by our numerous auxiliaries. If it be contended that we lose in conciseness and neatness of expression, because we have no terminational distinctions, it must be allowed that we gain in accuracy of representation; because, our auxiliaries being numerous and diversified, we easily express those delicate shades of meaning, which it would require endless and perplexing terminations to denote.

Perhaps in no part of Murray's compilation has he shown * See Eng. Gr. 27th edit. pp. 112-117. † Hermes, bk. i. ch. 8.

more judgment than in his selection and arrangement of moods. He appears, in this respect, neither redundant nor defective: he enumerates five, the indicative, imperative, potential, subjunctive, and infinitive. The indicative is placed first in all Grammars, on account of its importance: Scaliger calls it, "solus modus aptus scientiis, et solus pater veritatis;" and Harris finely philosophises on it. "It is this (says he*) which publishes our sublimest perceptions; which exhibits the soul in her purest energies, superior to the imperfections of desires and wants; which includes the whole of time, and its minutest distinctions; which, in its various past tenses, is employed by history, to preserve to us the remembrance of former events. In its future, is used by prophecy, or (in default of this) by wise foresight, to instruct and forewarn us as to that which is coming; but, above all, in its present tense serves philosophy and the sciences, by just demonstrations, to establish necessary truth; that truth which, from its nature, only exists in the present; which knows no distinctions either of past or future time, but is every where, and always invariably one."

The imperative is a favourite mood of man, at least in one of its uses, as may be seen from the term by which he has distinguished it; for its nature is much more comprehensive than its name indicates. It is used for entreating as well as for commanding: it is not, therefore, correctly named. Placed supreme in this lower world, or, as he has been sometimes called, "lord of the creation," to him was given the subordination of inferior creatures. The well-being of society producing distinctions of rank, and our individual peace and security requiring that we should surrender a portion of our liberty in return for the enjoyment of such advantages; the very distinctions of nature, in parent and child, giving authority and producing dependence; and the errors of man entailing endless afflictions and miseries, render this mood as useful as it is often pleasing; for, without grammatical variation, but purely by the diversified modulations of the voice, in obedience to the eloquence of nature, it not only expresses the mandate of authority, but the exhortations of friendship, the entreaties of charity, and the petitions of misery and distress. If it occasionally displays man in all his pomp and worldly dignity, it more frequently presents him in all his wretchedness and humiliation.

The potential and subjunctive moods are only conversant about contingencies, of which we cannot say with certainty that they will happen or not. They have, therefore, been called the moods of conjecture; exhibiting man in his doubts and

*Hermes, book i. c. 8.

difficulties, exposing his ignorance and his weakness, and not unfrequently made the vehicle of his pride and boast.

The subjunctive is the only mood in our language about which there is any doubt. Persons in general need not feel surprised nor discouraged that they should not thoroughly understand its application, seeing it forms one of those grammatical difficulties which has never been satisfactorily elucidated. Unlike our moods in general, a part of it being denoted by a terminational difference, errors in its use are at once exposed, and the diversity of practice with regard to it, even among the learned, cannot but perplex the less informed inquirer.

*

Murray has very carefully examined the conflicting opinions and practice of grammarians, particularly those of Priestley, Johnson, and Lowth, adopting those of the latter, in which determination he was evidently strengthened by the practice of the translators of the Holy Scriptures, in which are confessedly found the finest specimens of the genuine English style extant. The result of his observations he thus expresses, "It appears, that with respect to what is termed the present tense of any verb, when the circumstances of contingency and futurity concur, it is proper to vary the terminations of the second and third persons singular; that without the concurrence of these circumstances, the terminations should not be altered; and that the verb, and the auxiliaries of the three past tenses, and the auxiliaries of the first future, undergo no alterations whatever; except the imperfect of the verb to be, which, in cases denoting contingency, is varied in all the persons of the singular number."

It only remains that, on the subject of moods, we should notice the infinitive, so called from its indefinite and general nature. This was the favourite mood of the stoics, wherein they considered the genuine verb as alone displayed in its simplicity.

Some grammarians, observing that an infinitive supplied the place of a nominative case to the verb, and occasionally followed it instead of an objective case, pronounced it very sig nificantly a verbal noun, or the verb's noun; and they considered themselves strengthened in their opinions by its application in the Greek language with the prepositive article. There is doubtless much truth in this opinion; but, as Dr. Crombie has justly remarked,+ "to proscribe terms which have been long familiar to us, and, by immemorial possession, have gained an establishment, is always a difficult, and frequently an ungracious, task. Its usual name will therefore be retain

Eng. Gr. pages 201-2.

+ Etymology, page 137.

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