The Grammar of English Grammars Part 60

"Preserve, Almighty Providence!

Just what _you gave_ me, competence."--_Swift_.

OBS. 9.--The terms, _solemn style, familiar style, modern style, ancient style, legal style, regal style, nautic style, common style_, and the like, as used in grammar, imply no certain divisions of the language; but are designed merely to distinguish, in a general way, the _occasions_ on which some particular forms of expression may be considered proper, or the _times_ to which they belong. For what is grammatical sometimes, may not be so always. It would not be easy to tell, definitely, in what any one of these styles consists; because they all belong to one language, and the number or nature of the peculiarities of each is not precisely fixed. But whatever is acknowledged to be peculiar to any one, is consequently understood to be improper for any other: or, at least, the same phraseology cannot belong to styles of an opposite character; and words of general use belong to no particular style.[238] For example: "So then it is not of him that _willeth_, nor of him that _runneth_, but of G.o.d that _showeth_ mercy."--_Rom._, ix, 16. If the termination _eth_ is not obsolete, as some say it is, all verbs to which this ending is added, are of the solemn style; for the common or familiar expression would here be this; "So then it is not of him that _wills_, nor of him that _runs_, but of G.o.d that _shows_ mercy." Ben Jonson, in his grammar, endeavoured to arrest this change of _eth_ to _s_; and, according to Lindley Murray, (_Octavo Gram._, p. 90,) Addison also injudiciously disapproved it. In spite of all such objections, however, some future grammarian will probably have to say of the singular ending _eth_, as Lowth and Murray have already said of the plural _en_: "It was laid aside as unnecessary."

OBS. 10.--Of the origin of the personal terminations of English verbs, that eminent etymologist Dr. Alexander Murray, gives the following account: "The readers of our modern tongue may be reminded, that the terminations, _est, eth_, and _s_, in our verbs, as in _layest, layeth_, and _laid'st_, or _laidest_; are the faded _remains of the p.r.o.nouns_ which were formerly joined to the verb itself, and placed the language, in respect of concise expression, on a level with the Greek, Latin, and Sanscrit, its sister dialects."--_History of European Languages_, Vol. i, p. 52. According to this, since other signs of the persons and numbers are now employed with the verb, it is not strange that there should appear a tendency to lay aside such of these endings as are least agreeable and least necessary. Any change of this kind will of course occur first in the familiar style. For example: "Thou _wentest_ in to men uncirc.u.mcised, and _didst eat_ with them."--_Acts_, xi, 3. "These things write I unto thee, that thou _mayst_ know how thou _oughtest_ to behave thyself in the house of G.o.d."--_1 Tim._, iii, 15. These forms, by universal consent, are now of the solemn style; and, consequently, are really good English in no other. For n.o.body, I suppose, will yet pretend that the inflection of our preterits and auxiliaries by _st_ or _est_, is entirely _obsolete_;[239] and surely no person of any literary taste ever uses the foregoing forms familiarly. The termination _est_, however, has _in some instances_ become obsolete; or has faded into _st_ or _t_, even in the solemn style. Thus, (if indeed, such forms ever were in good use,) _diddest_ has become _didst; havest, hast; haddest, hadst; shallest, shalt; willest, wilt_; and _cannest, canst.

Mayest, mightest, couldest, wouldest_, and _shouldest_, are occasionally found in books not ancient; but _mayst, mightst, couldst, wouldst_, and _shouldst_, are abundantly more common, and all are peculiar to the solemn style. _Must, burst, durst, thrust, blest, curst, past, lost, list, crept, kept, girt, built, felt, dwelt, left, bereft_, and many other verbs of similar endings, are seldom, if ever, found enc.u.mbered with an additional _est_. For the rule which requires this ending, has always had many exceptions that have not been noticed by grammarians.[240] Thus Shakspeare wrote even in the present tense, "Do as thou _list_," and not "Do as thou _listest_." Possibly, however, _list_ may here be reckoned of the subjunctive mood; but the following example from Byron is certainly in the indicative:--

"And thou, who never yet of human wrong _Lost_ the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!"--_Harold_, C. iv, st. 132.

OBS. 11.--Any phraseology that is really obsolete, is no longer fit to be imitated even in the solemn style; and what was never good English, is no more to be respected in that style, than in any other. Thus: "Art not thou that Egyptian, _which_ before these days _madest_ an uproar, and _leddest_ out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers?"--_Acts_, xxi, 38. Here, (I think,) the version ought to be, "Art not thou that Egyptian, _who_ a while ago _made_ an uproar, and _led_ out into the wilderness four thousand men, that were murderers?" If so, there is in this no occasion to make a difference between the solemn and the familiar style.

But what is the familiar form of expression for the texts cited before? The fas.h.i.+onable will say, it is this: "_You went_ in to men uncirc.u.mcised, and _did eat_ with them."--"I write these things to _you_, that _you may know_ how _you ought_ to behave _yourself_ in the house of G.o.d." But this is not _literally_ of the singular number: it is no more singular, than _vos_ in Latin, or _vous_ in French, or _we_ used for _I_ in English, is singular.

And if there remains to us any other form, that is both singular and grammatical, it is unquestionably the following: "_Thou went_ in to men uncirc.u.mcised, and _did eat_ with them."--"I write these things to _thee_, that thou _may know_ how _thou ought_ to behave _thyself_ in the house of G.o.d." The acknowledged doctrine of all the teachers of English grammar, that the inflection of our auxiliaries and preterits by _st_ or _est_ is peculiar to "the solemn style," leaves us no other alternative, than either to grant the propriety of here dropping the suffix for the familiar style, or to rob our language of any familiar use of the p.r.o.noun _thou_ forever.

Who, then, are here the neologists, the innovators, the impairers of the language? And which is the greater _innovation_, merely to drop, on familiar occasions, or _when it suits our style_, one obsolescent verbal termination,--a termination often dropped _of old_ as well as now,--or to strike from the conjugations of all our verbs one sixth part of their entire scheme?[241]

"O mother myn, that cleaped _were_ Argyue, Wo worth that day that thou me _bare_ on lyue."--_Chaucer_.

OBS. 12.--The grammatical propriety of distinguis.h.i.+ng from the solemn style both of the forms presented above, must be evident to every one who considers with candour the reasons, a.n.a.logies, and authorities, for this distinction. The support of the latter is very far from resting solely on the practice of a particular sect; though this, if they would forbear to corrupt the p.r.o.noun while they simplify the verb, would deserve much more consideration than has ever been allowed it. Which of these modes of address is the more grammatical, it is useless to dispute; since fas.h.i.+on rules the one, and a scruple of conscience is sometimes alleged for the other. A candid critic will consequently allow all to take their choice. It is enough for him, if he can demonstrate to the candid inquirer, what phraseology is in any view allowable, and what is for any good reason reprehensible. That the use of the plural for the singular is ungrammatical, it is neither discreet nor available to affirm; yet, surely, it did not originate in any regard to grammar rules. Murray the schoolmaster, whose English Grammar appeared some years before that of Lindley Murray, speaks of it as follows: "_Thou_, the second person singular, though _strictly grammatical_, is seldom used, except in addresses to G.o.d, in poetry, and by the people called Quakers. In all other cases, a _fondness for foreign manners_,[242] and the power of custom, have given a sanction to the use of _you_, for the second person singular, though _contrary to grammar_,[243] and attended with this particular inconveniency, that a plural verb must be used to agree with the p.r.o.noun in number, and both applied to a _single person_; as, _you are_, or _you were_,--not _you wast_, or _you was_."--_Third Edition_, Lond., 1793, p.

34. This author everywhere exhibits the auxiliaries, _mayst, mightst, couldst, wouldst_, and _shouldst_, as words of one syllable; and also observes, in a marginal note, "Some writers begin to say, '_Thou may, thou might_,' &c."--_Ib._, p. 36. Examples of this are not very uncommon: "Thou _shall_ want ere I want."--_Old Motto; Scott's Lay_, Note 1st to Canto 3.

"Thyself the mournful tale _shall_ tell."--_Felton's Gram._, p. 20.

"One sole condition would I dare suggest, That _thou would save_ me from my own request."--_Jane Taylor_.

OBS. 13.--In respect to the second person singular, the grammar of Lindley Murray makes no distinction between the solemn and the familiar style; recognizes in no way the fas.h.i.+onable subst.i.tution of _you_ for _thou_; and, so far as I perceive, takes it for granted, that every one who pretends to speak or write grammatically, must always, in addressing an individual, employ the singular p.r.o.noun, and inflect the verb with _st_ or _est_, except in the imperative mood and the subjunctive present. This is the more remarkable, because the author was a valued member of the Society of Friends; and doubtless his own daily practice contradicted his doctrine, as palpably as does that of every other member of the Society. And many a schoolmaster, taking that work for his text-book, or some other as faulty, is now doing precisely the same thing. But what a teacher is he, who dares not justify as a grammarian that which he constantly practices as a man!

What a scholar is he, who can be led by a false criticism or a false custom, to condemn his own usage and that of every body else! What a casuist is he, who dares pretend conscience for practising that which he knows and acknowledges to be wrong! If to speak in the second person singular without inflecting our preterits and auxiliaries, is a censurable corruption of the language, the Friends have no alternative but to relinquish their scruple about the application of _you_ to one person; for none but the adult and learned can ever speak after the manner of ancient books: children and common people can no more be brought to speak agreeably to any antiquated forms of the English language, than according to the imperishable models of Greek and Latin. He who traces the history of our vernacular tongue, will find it has either simplified or entirely dropped several of its ancient terminations; and that the _st_ or _est_ of the second person singular, _never was adopted_ in any thing like the extent to which our modern grammarians have attempted to impose it. "Thus becoming unused to inflections, we lost the perception of their meaning and nature."--_Philological Museum_, i, 669. "You cannot make a whole people all at once talk in a different tongue from that which it has been used to talk in: you cannot force it to unlearn the words it has learnt from its fathers, in order to learn a set of newfangled words out of [a grammar or]

a dictionary."--_Ib._, i, 650. Nor can you, in this instance, restrain our poets from transgressing the doctrine of Lowth and Murray:--

"Come, thou pure Light,--which first in Eden _glowed._ And _threw_ thy splendor round man's calm abode."--_Alonzo Lewis_.

OBS. 14.--That which has pa.s.sed away from familiar practice, may still be right in the solemn style, and may there remain till it becomes obsolete.

But no obsolescent termination has ever yet been recalled into the popular service. This is as true in other languages as in our own: "In almost every word of the Greek," says a learned author, "we meet with contractions and abbreviations; but, I believe, the flexions of no language allow of extension or amplification. In our own we may write _sleeped_ or _slept_, as the metre of a line or the rhythm of a period may require; but by no license may we write _sleepeed._"--_Knight, on the Greek Alphabet_, 4to, p.

107. But, if after contracting _sleeped_ into _slept_, we add an _est_ and make _sleptest_, is there not here an extension of the word from one syllable to two? Is there not an amplification that is at once novel, disagreeable, unauthorized, and unnecessary? Nay, even in the regular and established change, as of _loved_ to _lovedst_, is there not a syllabic increase, which is unpleasant to the ear, and unsuited to familiar speech?

Now, to what extent do these questions apply to the verbs in our language?

Lindley Murray, it is presumed, had no conception of that extent; or of the weight of the objection which is implied in the second. With respect to a vast number of our most common verbs, he himself never knew, nor does the greatest grammarian now living know, in what way he ought to form the simple past tense in the second person singular, otherwise than by the mere uninflected preterit with the p.r.o.noun _thou_. Is _thou sleepedst_ or _thou sleptest, thou leavedst_ or _thou leftest, thou feeledst_ or _thou feltest, thou dealedst_ or _thou dealtest, thou tossedst_ or _thou tostest, thou losedst_ or _thou lostest, thou payedst_ or _thou paidest, thou layedst_ or _thou laidest_, better English than _thou slept, thou left, thou felt, thou dealt, thou tossed, thou lost, thou paid, thou laid?_ And, if so, of the two forms in each instance, which is the right one? and why? The Bible has "_saidst_" and "_layedst_;" Dr. Alexander Murray, "_laid'st_" and "_laidest!_" Since the inflection of our preterits has never been orderly, and is now decaying and waxing old, shall we labour to recall what is so nearly ready to vanish away?

"Tremendous Sea! what time _thou lifted_ up Thy waves on high, and with thy winds and storms Strange pastime _took_, and _shook_ thy mighty sides Indignantly, the pride of navies fell."--_Pollok_, B. vii, l. 611.

OBS. 15.--Whatever difficulty there is in ascertaining the true form of the preterit itself, not only remains, but is augmented, when _st_ or _est_ is to be added for the second person of it. For, since we use sometimes one and sometimes the other of these endings; (as, said_st_, saw_est_, bid_st_, knew_est_, loved_st_, went_est_;) there is yet need of some rule to show which we ought to prefer. The variable formation or orthography of verbs in the simple past tense, has always been one of the greatest difficulties that the learners of our language have had to encounter. At present, there is a strong tendency to terminate as many as we can of them in _ed_, which is the only regular ending. The p.r.o.nunciation of this ending, however, is at least threefold; as in _remembered, repented, relinquished._ Here the added sounds are, first _d_, then _ed_, then _t_; and the effect of adding _st_, whenever the _ed_ is sounded like _t_, will certainly be a perversion of what is established as the true p.r.o.nunciation of the language. For the solemn and the familiar p.r.o.nunciation of _ed_ unquestionably differ. The present tendency to a regular orthography, ought rather to be encouraged than thwarted; but the preferring of _mixed_ to _mixt, whipped_ to _whipt, worked_ to _wrought, kneeled_ to _knelt_, and so forth, does not make _mixedst, whippedst, workedst, kneeledst_, and the like, any more fit for modern English, than are _mixtest, whiptest, wroughtest, kneltest, burntest, dweltest, heldest, giltest_, and many more of the like stamp. And what can be more absurd than for a grammarian to insist upon forming a great parcel of these strange and crabbed words for which he can quote no good authority? Nothing; except it be for a poet or a rhetorician to huddle together great parcels of consonants which no mortal man can utter,[244]

(as _lov'dst, lurk'dst, shrugg'dst_,) and call them "_words_." Example: "The clump of _subtonick_ and _atonick_ elements at the termination of _such words_ as the following, is frequently, to the no small injury of articulation, particularly slighted: couldst, wouldst, hadst, prob'st, _prob'dst_, hurl'st, _hurl'dst_, arm'st, _arm'dst_, want'st, _want'dst_, burn'st, _burn'dst_, bark'st, _bark'dst_, bubbl'st, _bubbl'dst, troubbl'st, troubbl'dst._"--_Kirkham's Elocution_, p. 42. The word _trouble_ may receive the additional sound of _st_, but this gentleman does not here _spell_ so accurately as a great author should. Nor did they who penned the following lines, write here as poets should:--

"Of old thou _build'st_ thy throne on righteousness."

--_Pollok's C. of T._, B. vi, l. 638.

"For though thou _work'dst_ my mother's ill."

--_Byron's Parasina_.

"Thou thyself _doat'dst_ on womankind, admiring."

--_Milton's P. R._, B. ii, l. 175.

"But he, the sev'nth from thee, whom thou _beheldst_."

--_Id., P. L._, B. xi, l. 700.

"Shall build a wondrous ark, as thou _beheldst_."

--_Id., ib._, B. xi, l. 819.

"Thou, who _inform'd'st_ this clay with active fire!"

--_Savage's Poems_, p. 247.

"Thy valiantness was mine, thou _suck'dst_ it from me."

--_Shak., Coriol._, Act iii.

"This cloth thou _dipp'dst_ in blood of my sweet boy."

--_Id., Henry VI_, P. i.

"Great Queen of arms, whose favour Tydeus won; As thou _defend'st_ the sire, defend the son."

--_Pope, Iliad_, B. x, l. 337.

OBS. 16.--Dr. Lowth, whose popular little Grammar was written in or about 1758, made no scruple to hem up both the poets and the Friends at once, by a criticism which I must needs consider more dogmatical than true; and which, from the suppression of what is least objectionable in it, has become, her hands, the source of still greater errors: "_Thou_ in the polite, and even _in the familiar style, is disused_, and the plural _you_ is employed instead of it; we say, _you have_, not _thou hast._ Though in this case, we apply _you_ to a single person, yet the verb too _must agree with it in the plural number_; it must necessarily be, _you have_, not _you hast._ _You was_ is an enormous solecism,[245] and yet authors of the first rank have inadvertently fallen into it. * * * On the contrary, the solemn style admits not of you for a single person. This _hath led_ Mr. Pope into _a great impropriety_ in the beginning of his Messiah:--

'O thou my voice inspire, Who _touch'd_ Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire!'

The solemnity of the style would not admit of _you_ for _thou_, in the p.r.o.noun; nor the measure of the verse _touchedst_, or _didst touch_, in the verb, as it _indispensably ought to be_, in the one or the other of those two forms; _you_, who _touched_, or _thou_, who _touchedst_, or _didst touch._

'Just of _thy_ word, in every thought sincere; Who _knew_ no wish, but what the world might hear.'--Pope.

It ought to be _your_ in the first line, or _knewest_ in the second. In order to avoid this _grammatical inconvenience_, the two distinct forms of _thou_ and _you_, are often used promiscuously by our modern poets, in the same paragraph, and even in the same sentence, very inelegantly and improperly:--

'Now, now, I seize, I clasp _thy_ charms; And now _you burst_, ah cruel! from my arms.'--Pope."

--_Lowth's English Gram._, p. 34.

OBS. 17.--The points of Dr. Lowth's doctrine which are not sufficiently true, are the following: First, it is not true, that _thou_, in the familiar style, is _totally disused_, and the plural _you_ employed universally in its stead; though Churchill, and others, besides the good bishop, seem to represent it so. It is now nearly two hundred years since the rise of the Society of Friends: and, whatever may have been the practice of others before or since, it is certain, that from their rise to the present day, there have been, at every point of time, many thousands who made no use of _you_ for _thou_; and, but for the clumsy forms which most grammarians hold to be indispensable to verbs of the second person singular, the beautiful, distinctive, and poetical words, _thou, thyself, thy, thine_, and _thee_, would certainly be in no danger yet of becoming obsolete. Nor can they, indeed, at any rate, become so, till the fairest branches of the Christian Church shall wither; or, what should seem no gracious omen, her bishops and clergy learn to _pray in the plural number_, for fas.h.i.+on's sake. Secondly, it is not true, that, "_thou_, who _touch'd_," ought _indispensably_ to be, "_thou_, who _touchedst_, or _didst touch_." It is far better to dispense with the inflection, in such a case, than either to impose it, or to resort to the plural p.r.o.noun. The "grammatical inconvenience" of dropping the _st_ or _est_ of a preterit, even in the solemn style, cannot be great, and may be altogether imaginary; that of imposing it, except in solemn prose, is not only real, but is often insuperable. It is not very agreeable, however, to see it added to some verbs, and dropped from others, in the same sentence: as,

"Thou, who _didst call_ the Furies from the abyss, And round Orestes _bade_ them howl and hiss."

--_Byron's Childe Harold_, Canto iv, st. 132.

"Thou _satt'st_ from age to age insatiate, And _drank_ the blood of men, and _gorged_ their flesh."

--_Pollok's Course of Time_, B. vii, l. 700.

OBS. 18.--We see then, that, according to Dr. Lowth and others, _the only good English_ in which one can address an individual on any ordinary occasion, is _you_ with a plural verb; and that, according to Lindley Murray and others, _the only good English_ for the same purpose, is _thou_ with a verb inflected with _st_ or _est_. Both parties to this pointed contradiction, are more or less in the wrong. The respect of the Friends for those systems of grammar which deny them the familiar use of the p.r.o.noun _thou_, is certainly not more remarkable, than the respect of the world for those which condemn the subst.i.tution of the plural _you_. Let grammar be a true record of existing facts, and all such contradictions must vanish. And, certainly, these great masters here contradict each other, in what every one who reads English, ought to know. They agree, however, in requiring, as indispensable to grammar, what is not only inconvenient, but absolutely impossible. For what "the measure of verse _will not admit_," cannot be used in poetry; and what may possibly be crowded into it, will often be far from ornamental. Yet our youth have been taught to spoil the versification of Pope and others, after the following manner: "Who _touch'd_ Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire." Say, "Who _touchedst_ or _didst touch_."--_Murray's Key_, 8vo, p. 180. "For thee that ever _felt_ another's wo." Say, "_Didst feel_."--_Ib._ "Who _knew_ no wish but what the world might hear." Say, "Who _knewest_ or _didst know_."--_Ib._ "Who all my sense _confin'd_." Say, "_Confinedst_ or _didst confine_."--_Ib._, p. 186. "Yet _gave_ me in this dark estate." Say, "_Gavedst_ or _didst give_."--_Ib._ "_Left_ free the human will."--_Pope_.

Murray's criticism extends not to this line, but by the a.n.a.logy we must say, "_Leavedst_ or _leftest_." Now it would be easier to fill a volume with such quotations, and such corrections, than to find sufficient authority to prove one such word as _gavedst, leavedst_, or _leftest_, to be really good English. If Lord Byron is authority for "_work'dst_," he is authority also for dropping the _st_, even where it might be added:--

----"Thou, who with thy frown _Annihilated_ senates."

--_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, Canto iv, st. 83.

OBS. 19.--According to Dr. Lowth, as well as Coar and some others, those preterits in which _ed_ is sounded like _t_, "admit the change of _ed_ into _t_; as, _snacht, checkt, snapt, mixt_, dropping also one of the double letters, _dwelt, past_."--_Lowth's Gram._, p. 46. If this principle were generally adopted, the number of our regular verbs would be greatly diminished, and irregularities would be indefinitely increased. What confusion the practice must make in the language, especially when we come to inflect this part of the verb with _st_ or _est_, has already been suggested. Yet an ingenious and learned writer, an able contributor to the Philological Museum, published at Cambridge, England, in 1832; tracing the history of this cla.s.s of derivatives, and finding that after the _ed_ was contracted in p.r.o.nunciation, several eminent writers, as Spenser, Milton, and others, adopted in most instances a contracted form of orthography; has seriously endeavoured to bring us back to their practice. From these authors, he cites an abundance of such contractions as the following: 1.

"Stowd, hewd, subdewd, joyd, cald, expeld, compeld, spoild, kild, seemd, benumbd, armd, redeemd, staind, shund, paynd, stird, appeard, perceivd, resolvd, obeyd, equald, foyld, hurld, ruind, joynd, scatterd, witherd," and others ending in _d_. 2. "Clapt, whipt, wors.h.i.+pt, lopt, stopt, stampt, pickt, knockt, linkt, puft, stuft, hist, kist, abasht, brusht, astonisht, vanquisht, confest, talkt, twicht," and many others ending in _t_. This scheme divides our regular verbs into three cla.s.ses; leaving but very few of them to be written as they now are. It proceeds upon the principle of accommodating our orthography to the familiar, rather than to the solemn p.r.o.nunciation of the language. "This," as Dr. Johnson observes, "is to measure by a shadow." It is, whatever show of learning or authority may support it, a pernicious innovation. The critic says, "I have not ventured to follow the example of Spenser and Milton throughout, but have merely attempted to revive the old form of the preterit in _t_."--_Phil. Museum_, Vol. i, p. 663. "We ought not however to stop here," he thinks; and suggests that it would be no small improvement, "to write _leveld_ for _levelled, enameld_ for _enamelled, reformd_ for _reformed_," &c.

OBS. 20.--If the multiplication of irregular preterits, as above described, is a grammatical error of great magnitude; the forcing of our old and well-known irregular verbs into regular forms that are seldom if ever used, is an opposite error nearly as great. And, in either case, there is the same embarra.s.sment respecting the formation of the second person. Thus _Cobbett_, in his English Grammar in a Series of Letters, has dogmatically given us a list of _seventy_ verbs, which, he says, are, "by some persons, _erroneously deemed irregular_;" and has included in it the words, _blow, build, cast, cling, creep, freeze, draw, throw_, and the like, to the number of _sixty_; so that he is really right in no more than one seventh part of his catalogue. And, what is more strange, for several of the irregularities which he censures, his own authority may be quoted from the early editions of this very book: as, "For you could have _thrown_ about seeds."--Edition of 1818, p. 13. "For you could have _throwed_ about seeds."--Edition of 1832, p. 13. "A tree is _blown_ down."--Ed. of 1818, p.

27. "A tree is _blowed_ down."--Ed. of 1832, p. 25. "It _froze_ hard last night. Now, what was it that _froze_ so hard?"--Ed. of 1818, p. 38. "It _freezed_ hard last night. Now, what was it that _freezed_ so hard?"--Ed.