The Grammar of English Grammars Part 70

1. I might be reading, 1. We might be reading, 2. Thou mightst be reading, 2. You might be reading, 3. He might be reading; 3. They might be reading.

PERFECT TENSE.

_Singular_. _Plural_.

1. I may have been reading, 1. We may have been reading, 2. Thou mayst have been reading, 2. You may have been reading, 3. He may have been reading; 3. They may have been reading.

PLUPERFECT TENSE.

_Singular_. _Plural_.

1. I might have been reading, 1. We might have been reading, 2. Thou mightst have been reading, 2. You might have been reading, 3. He might have been reading; 3. They might have been reading.

SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD.

PRESENT TENSE.

_Singular_. _Plural_.

1. If I be reading, 1. If we be reading, 2. If thou be reading, 2. If you be reading, 3. If he be reading; 3. If they be reading.

IMPERFECT TENSE.

_Singular_. _Plural_.

1. If I were reading, 1. If we were reading, 2. If thou were reading, 2. If you were reading, 3. If he were reading; 3. If they were reading.

IMPERATIVE MOOD.

Sing. 2. Be [thou] reading, _or_ Do thou be reading; Plur. 2. Be [ye or you] reading, _or_ Do you be reading.

PARTICIPLES.

1. _The Imperfect_. 2. _The Perfect_. 3. _The Preperfect_.

Being reading. --------- Having been reading.

FAMILIAR FORM WITH 'THOU.'

NOTE.--In the familiar style, the second person singular of this verb, is usually and more properly formed thus: IND. Thou art reading, Thou was reading, Thou hast been reading, Thou had been reading, Thou shall _or_ will be reading, Thou shall _or_ will have been reading. POT. Thou may, can, _or_ must be reading; Thou might, could, would, _or_ should be reading; Thou may, can, _or_ must have been reading; Thou might, could, would, _or_ should have been reading. SUBJ. If thou be reading, If thou were reading. IMP. Be [thou,] reading, _or_ Do thou be reading.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--Those verbs which, in their simple form, imply continuance, do not admit the compound form: thus we say, "I _respect_ him;" but not, "I _am respecting_ him." This compound form seems to imply that kind of action, which is susceptible of intermissions and renewals. Affections of the mind or heart are supposed to last; or, rather, actions of this kind are complete as soon as they exist. Hence, _to love, to hate, to desire, to fear, to forget, to remember_, and many other such verbs, are _incapable_ of this method of conjugation.[265] It is true, we often find in grammars such models, as, "I _was loving_, Thou _wast loving_, He _was loving_," &c.

But this language, to express what the authors intend by it, is not English. "He _was loving_," can only mean, "He was _affectionate_:" in which sense, loving is an adjective, and susceptible of comparison. Who, in common parlance, has ever said, "He _was loving me_," or any thing like it?

Yet some have improperly published various examples, or even whole conjugations, of this spurious sort. See such in _Adam's Gram._, p. 91; _Gould's Adam_, 83; _Bullions's English Gram._, 52; _his a.n.a.lyt. and Pract.

Gram._, 92; _Chandler's New Gram._, 85 and 86; _Clark's_, 80; _Cooper's Plain and Practical_, 70; _Frazee's Improved_, 66 and 69; _S. S. Greene's_, 234; _Guy's_, 25; _Hallock's_, 103; _Hart's_, 88; _Hendrick's_, 38; _Lennie's_, 31; _Lowth's_, 40; _Harrison's_, 34; _Perley's_, 36; _Pinneo's Primary_, 101.

OBS. 2.--Verbs of this form have sometimes a pa.s.sive signification; as, "The books _are now selling_."--_Allen's Gram._, p. 82. "As the money _was paying_ down."--_Ainsworth's Dict., w._ As. "It requires no motion in the organs whilst it _is forming_."--_Murray's Gram._, p. 8. "Those works _are long forming_ which must always last."--_Dr. Chetwood_. "While the work of the temple _was carrying_ on."--_Dr. J. Owen_. "The designs of Providence _are carrying on_."--_Bp. Butler_. "A scheme, which _has been carrying_ on, and _is_ still _carrying_ on."--_Id., a.n.a.logy_, p. 188. "We are permitted to know nothing of what _is transacting_ in the regions above us."--_Dr.

Blair_. "While these things _were transacting_ in Germany."--_Russell's Modern Europe_, Part First, Let. 59. "As he _was carrying_ to execution, he demanded to be heard."--_Goldsmith's Greece_, Vol. i, p. 163. "To declare that the action _was doing_ or done."--_Booth's Introd._, p. 28. "It _is doing_ by thousands now."--_Abbott's Young Christian_, p. 121. "While the experiment _was making_, he was watching every movement."--_Ib._, p. 309.

"A series of communications from heaven, which _had been making_ for fifteen hundred years."--_Ib._, p. 166. "Plutarch's Lives _are re-printing_."--_L. Murray's Gram._, 8vo, p. 64. "My Lives _are reprinting_."--DR. JOHNSON: _Worcester's Univ. and Crit. Dict._, p. xlvi.

"All this _has been transacting_ within 130 miles of London."--BYRON: _Perley's Gram._, p. 37. "When the heart _is corroding_ by vexations."--_Student's Manual_, p. 336. "The padlocks for our lips _are forging_."--WHITTIER: _Liberator_, No. 993. "When his throat _is cutting_."--_Collier's Antoninus_. "While your story _is telling_."--_Adams's Rhet._, i, 425. "But the seeds of it _were sowing_ some time before."--_Bolingbroke, on History_, p. 168. "As soon as it was formed, nay even whilst it _was forming_."--_Ib._, p. 163. "Strange schemes of private ambition _were formed and forming_ there."--_Ib._, p. 291. "Even when it _was making and made_."--_Ib._, 299. "Which have been made and _are making_."--HENRY CLAY: _Liberator_, ix, p. 141. "And they are in measure _sanctified_, or _sanctifying_, by the power thereof."--_Barclay's Works_, i, 537. "Which _is_ now _accomplis.h.i.+ng_ amongst the uncivilized countries of the earth."--_Chalmers, Sermons_, p. 281. "Who _are ruining_, or _ruined_, [in] this way."--_Locke, on Ed._, p. 155. "Whilst they _were undoing_."--_Ibid._ "Whether he was employing fire to consume [something,]

or _was_ himself _consuming_ by fire."--_Crombie, on Etym. and Syntax_, p.

148. "At home, the greatest exertions _are making_ to promote its progress."--_Sheridan's Elocution_, p. iv. "With those [sounds] which _are uttering_."--_Ib._, p. 125. "Orders _are now concerting_ for the dismissal of all officers of the Revenue marine."--_Providence Journal_, Feb. 1, 1850. Expressions of this kind are condemned by some critics, under the notion that the participle in _ing_ must never be pa.s.sive; but the usage is unquestionably of far better authority, and, according to my apprehension, in far better taste, than the more complex phraseology which some late writers adopt in its stead; as, "The books _are_ now _being sold_."--"In all the towns about Cork, the whiskey shops _are being closed_, and soup, coffee, and tea houses [are] _establis.h.i.+ng_ generally."--_Dublin Evening Post_, 1840.

OBS. 3.--The question here is, Which is the most correct expression, "While the bridge _was building_,"--"While the bridge was _a_ building,"--or, "While the bridge _was being built_?" And again, Are they all wrong? If none of these is right, we must reject them all, and say, "While _they were building_ the bridge;"--"While the bridge _was in process of erection_;"--or resort to some other equivalent phrase. Dr. Johnson, after noticing the compound form of active-intransitives, as, "I _am going_"--"She _is dying_,"--"The tempest _is raging_,"--"I _have been walking_," and so forth, adds: "There is another manner of using the active participle, which gives it a _pa.s.sive_ signification:[266] as, The grammar is now printing, _Grammatica jam nunc chartis imprimitur_. The bra.s.s is forging, _aera excuduntur_. This is, in my opinion," says he, "a _vitious_ expression, probably corrupted from a phrase more pure, but now somewhat obsolete: The book is _a_ printing, The bra.s.s is _a_ forging; _a_ being properly _at_, and _printing_ and _forging_ verbal nouns signifying action, according to the a.n.a.logy of this language."--_Gram. in Joh. Dict._, p. 9.

OBS. 4.--_A_ is certainly sometimes a _preposition_; and, as such, it may govern a participle, and that without converting it into a "_verbal noun_."

But that such phraseology ought to be preferred to what is exhibited with so many authorities, in a preceding paragraph, and with an example from Johnson among the rest, I am not prepared to concede. As to the notion of introducing a new and more complex pa.s.sive form of conjugation, as, "The bridge is _being built_," "The bridge _was being built_," and so forth, it is one of the most absurd and monstrous innovations ever thought of. Yet some two or three men, who seem to delight in huge absurdities, declare that this "modern _innovation_ is _likely to supersede_" the simpler mode of expression. Thus, in stead of, "The work _is now publis.h.i.+ng_," they choose to say, "The work is _now being published_."--_Kirkham's Gram._, p.

82. This is certainly no better English than, "The work _was being published, has been being published, had been being published, shall or will be being published, shall or will have been being published_;" and so on, through all the moods and tenses. What a language shall we have when our verbs are thus conjugated!

OBS. 5.--A certain _Irish_ critic, who even outdoes in rashness the above-cited American, having recently arrived in New York, has republished a grammar, in which he not only repudiates the pa.s.sive use of the participle in _ing_, but denies the usual pa.s.sive form of the present tense, "_I am loved, I am smitten_" &c., as taught by Murray and others, to be good English; and tells us that the true form is, "_I am being loved, I am being smitten_," &c. See the 98th and 103d pages of _Joseph W. Wright's Philosophical Grammar_, (_Edition of_ 1838,) _dedicated_ "TO COMMON SENSE!" [267] But both are offset, if not refuted, by the following observations from a source decidedly better: "It has lately become common to use the present participle pa.s.sive [,] to express the suffering of an action as _continuing_, instead of the participle in _-ing_ in the pa.s.sive sense; thus, instead of, 'The house _is building_,' we now very frequently hear, 'The house _is being built_.' This mode of expression, besides being awkward, is incorrect, and _does not express the idea intended_. This will be obvious, I think, from the following considerations.

"1. The expression, '_is being_,' is equivalent to '_is_,' and expresses no more; just as, '_is loving_,' is equivalent to, '_loves_.' Hence, '_is being built_,' is precisely equivalent to, '_is built_.'

"2. '_Built_,' is a perfect participle; and therefore cannot, in any connexion, express an action, or the suffering of an action, _now in progress_. The verb _to be_, signifies _to exist_; '_being_,' therefore, is equivalent to '_existing_.' If then we subst.i.tute the synonyme, the nature of the expression will be obvious; thus, 'the house is _being built_,' is, in other words, 'the house is _existing built_,' or more simply as before, 'the house _is built_;' plainly importing an action not progressing, but now _existing in a finished state_.

"3. If the expression, '_is being built_,' be a correct form of the present indicative pa.s.sive, then it must be equally correct to say in the perfect, '_has been being built_;' in the past perfect, '_had been being built_;' in the present infinitive,'_to be being built_;' in the perfect infinitive,'_to have been being built_;' and in the present participle, '_being being built_;' which all will admit to be expressions as incorrect as they are inelegant, but precisely a.n.a.logous to that which now begins to prevail."--_Bullions's Principles of English Gram._, p. 58.

OBS. 6.--It may be replied, that the verbs _to be_ and _to exist_ are not always synonymous; because the former is often a mere auxiliary, or a mere copula, whereas the latter always means something positive, as _to be in being, to be extant_. Thus we may speak of a thing as _being destroyed_, or may say, it _is annihilated_; but we can by no means speak of it as _existing destroyed_, or say, it _exists annihilated_. The first argument above is also nugatory. These drawbacks, however, do not wholly destroy the force of the foregoing criticism, or at all extenuate the obvious tautology and impropriety of such phrases as, _is being, was being_, &c. The gentlemen who affirm that this new form of conjugation "_is being introduced_ into the language," (since they allow participles to follow possessive p.r.o.nouns) may very fairly be asked, "What evidence have you of _its being being introduced_?" Nor can they, on their own principles, either object to the monstrous phraseology of this question, or tell how to better it![268]

OBS. 7.--D. H. Sanborn, an other recent writer, has very emphatically censured this innovation, as follows: "English and American writers have of late introduced a new kind of phraseology, which has become quite prevalent in the periodical and popular publications of the day. Their intention, doubtless, is, to supersede the use of the verb in the _definite form_, when it has a pa.s.sive signification. They say, 'The s.h.i.+p is _being_ built,'--'time is _being wasted_,"--'the work is _being advanced_,' instead of, 'the s.h.i.+p is _building_, time is _wasting_, the work is _advancing_.'

Such a phraseology is a solecism too palpable to receive any favor; it is at war with the practice of the most distinguished writers in the English language, such as Dr. Johnson and Addison. "When an individual says, 'a house is being burned,' he declares that a house is _existing, burned_, which is impossible; for _being_ means existing, and _burned, consumed by fire_. The house ceases to exist as such, after it is consumed by fire. But when he says, 'a house _is burning_,' we understand that it is _consuming by fire_; instead of inaccuracy, doubt, and ambiguity, we have a form of expression perfectly intelligible, beautiful, definite, and appropriate."--_Sanborn's a.n.a.lytical Gram._, p. 102.

OBS. 8.--Dr. Perley speaks of this usage thus: "An attempt has been made of late to introduce a kind of pa.s.sive participial voice; as, 'The temple is being built.' This ought not to be encouraged. For, besides being an innovation, it is less convenient than the use of the present participle in the pa.s.sive sense. _Being built_ signifies action _finished_; and how can, _Is being built_, signify an _action unfinished?"--Perley's Gram._, p. 37.

OBS. 9.--The question now before us has drawn forth, on either side, a deal of ill scholars.h.i.+p and false logic, of which it would be tedious to give even a synopsis. Concerning the import of some of our most common words and phrases, these ingenious masters,--Bullions, Sanborn, and Perley,--severally a.s.sert some things which seem not to be exactly true. It is remarkable that critics can err in expounding terms so central to the language, and so familiar to all ears, as "_be, being, being built, burned, being burned, is, is burned, to be burned_," and the like. _That to be_ and _to exist_, or their like derivatives, such as _being_ and _existing, is_ and _exists_, cannot always explain each other, is sufficiently shown above; and thereby is refuted Sanborn's chief argument, that, "_is being burned_," involves the contradiction of "_existing, burned_," or "_consumed by fire_." According to his reasoning, as well as that of Bullions, _is burned_ must mean _exists consumed; was burned, existed consumed_; and thus our whole pa.s.sive conjugation would often be found made up of bald absurdities! That this new _unco-pa.s.sive_ form conflicts with the older and better usage of taking the progressive form sometimes pa.s.sively, is doubtless a good argument against the innovation; but that "Johnson and Addison" are fit representatives of the older "practice" in this case, may be doubted. I know not that the latter has anywhere made use of such phraseology; and one or two examples from the former are scarcely an offset to his positive verdict against the usage. See OBS. 3rd, above.

OBS. 10.--As to what is called "_the present_ or _the imperfect participle pa.s.sive_,"--as, "_being burned_," or "_being burnt_,"--if it is rightly interpreted in _any_ of the foregoing citations, it is, beyond question, very improperly _thus_ named. In participles, _ing_ denotes _continuance_: thus _being_ usually means _continuing to be; loving, continuing to love; building, continuing to build_,--or (as taken pa.s.sively) _continuing to be built_: i. e., (in words which express the sense more precisely and certainly,) _continuing to be in process of construction_. What then is "being built," but "_continuing to be built_," the same, or nearly the same, as "_building_" taken pa.s.sively? True it is, that _built_, when alone, being a perfect participle, does not mean "_in process of construction_," but rather, "_constructed_" which intimates _completion_; yet, in the foregoing pa.s.sive phrases, and others like them, as well as in all examples of this unco-pa.s.sive voice, continuance of the pa.s.sive state being first suggested, and cessation of the act being either regarded as future or disregarded, the imperfect participle pa.s.sive is for the most part received as equivalent to the simple imperfect used in a pa.s.sive sense. But Dr. Bullions, who, after making "_is being built_ precisely equivalent to _is built_," cla.s.ses the two participles differently, and both erroneously,--the one as a "_present_ participle," and the other, of late, as a "_past_,"--has also said above, "'_Built_,' is a _perfect_ participle: and THEREFORE cannot, in _any connexion_, express an action, or the suffering of an action, _now in progress_." And Dr. Perley, who also calls the compound of _being_ a "_present_ participle," argues thus: "_Being built_ signifies an _action, finished_; and how can _Is being built_, signify an _action unfinished_?" To expound a _pa.s.sive_ term _actively_, or as "signifying _action_," is, at any rate, a near approach to absurdity; and I shall presently show that the fore-cited notion of "a perfect participle," now half abandoned by Bullions himself, has been the seed of the very worst form of that ridiculous neology which the good Doctor was opposing.

OBS. 11.--These criticisms being based upon the _meaning_ of certain participles, either alone or in phrases, and the particular terms spoken of being chiefly meant to represent _cla.s.ses_, what is said of them may be understood of their _kinds_. Hence the appropriate _naming_ of the kinds, so as to convey no false idea of any participle's import, is justly brought into view; and I may be allowed to say here, that, for the first participle pa.s.sive, which begins with "_being_," the epithet "_Imperfect_" is better than "_Present_," because this compound participle denotes, not always what is _present_, but always _the state_ of something by which an action is, _or was, or will be, undergone or undergoing--a state continuing_, or so regarded, though perhaps the action causative may be ended--or sometimes perhaps imagined only, and not yet really begun. With a marvellous instability of doctrine, for the professed systematizer of different languages and grammars, Dr. Bullions has recently changed his names of the second and third participles, in both voices, from "_Perfect_" and "_Compound Perfect_," to "_Past_" and "_Perfect_." His notion now is, that, "_The Perfect_ participle is always compound; as, _Having finished, Having been finished_."--_Bullions's a.n.a.lyt. and Pract. Grammar_, 1849, p. 77. And what was the "_Perfect_" before, in his several books, is now called the "_Past_;" though, with this change, he has deliberately made an other which is repugnant to it: this participle, being the basis of three tenses always, and of all the tenses sometimes, is now allowed by the Doctor to lend the term "_perfect_" to the three,--"_Present-perfect, Past-perfect, Future-perfect,"_--even when itself is named otherwise!

OBS. 12.--From the erroneous conception, that a perfect participle must, in every connexion, express "_action finished_," _action past_,--or perhaps from only a moiety of this great error,--the notion that such a participle cannot, in connexion with an auxiliary, const.i.tute a pa.s.sive verb of the _present tense_,--J. W. Wright, above-mentioned, has not very unnaturally reasoned, that, "The expression, '_I am loved_,' which Mr. Murray has employed to exhibit the pa.s.sive conjugation of the _present tense_, may much more _feasibly_ represent _past_ than _present_ time."--See _Wright's Philosophical Gram._, p. 99. Accordingly, in his own paradigm of the pa.s.sive verb, he has formed _this_ tense solely from what he calls the participle _present_, thus: "I _am being smitten_, Thou _art being smitten_," &c.--_Ib._, p. 98. His "_Pa.s.sed Tense_," too, for some reason which I do not discover, he distinguishes above the rest by a _double form_, thus: "I _was smitten, or being smitten_; Thou _wast smitten, or being smitten_;" &c.--P. 99. In his opinion, "Few will object to _the propriety of_ the more familiar phraseology, '_I am in the_ ACT,--or, _suffering_ the ACTION _of_ BEING SMITTEN;' and yet," says he, "in substance and effect, it is wholly the same as, '_I am being smitten_,'

which is THE TRUE FORM of the verb in the _present_ tense of the _pa.s.sive voice!_"--_Ibid._ Had we not met with some similar expressions of English or American blunderers, "the _act_ or _action of being smitten_," would be accounted a downright Irish bull; and as to this ultra notion of neologizing all our pa.s.sive verbs, by the addition of "_being_,"--with the author's cool talk of "_the presentation of this theory, and_ [_the_]

_consequent suppression of that hitherto employed_,"--there is a transcendency in it, worthy of the most sublime aspirant among grammatical newfanglers.

OBS. 13.--But, with all its boldness of innovation, Wright's Philosophical Grammar is not a little _self-contradictory_ in its treatment of the pa.s.sive verb. The entire "suppression" of the usual form of its present tense, did not always appear, even to this author, quite so easy and reasonable a matter, as the foregoing citations would seem to represent it.

The pa.s.sive use of the participle in _ing_, he has easily disposed of: despite innumerable authorities for it, one false a.s.sertion, of seven syllables, suffices to make it quite impossible.[269] But the usual pa.s.sive form, which, with some show of truth, is accused of not having always precisely the same meaning as the progressive used pa.s.sively,--that is, of not always denoting _continuance in the state of receiving continued action_,--and which is, for that remarkable reason, judged worthy of _rejection_, is nevertheless admitted to have, in very many instances, a conformity to this idea, and therefore to "belong [thus far] to the present tense."--P. 103. This contradicts to an indefinite extent, the proposition for its rejection. It is observable also, that the same examples, '_I am loved_' and 'I _am smitten_,'--the same "_tolerated, but erroneous forms_,"

(so called on page 103,) that are given as specimens of what he would reject,--though at first p.r.o.nounced "_equivalent_ in grammatical construction," censured for the same pretended error, and proposed to be changed alike to "_the true form_" by the insertion of "_being_,"--are subsequently declared to "belong to" different cla.s.ses and different tenses. "_I am loved_," is referred to that "numerous" cla.s.s of verbs, which "_detail_ ACTION _of prior, but retained, endured, and continued existence_; and therefore, in this sense, _belong to the present tense_."

But "_I am smitten_," is idly reckoned of an opposite cla.s.s, (said by Dr.

Bullions to be "perhaps the greater number,") whose "ACTIONS described are neither _continuous_ in their nature, nor _progressive_ in their duration; but, on the contrary, _completed_ and _perfected_; and [which] are consequently descriptive of _pa.s.sed_ time and ACTION."--_Wright's Gram._, p. 103. Again: "In what instance soever this latter form and signification _can_ be introduced, _their import should be, and, indeed, ought to be, supplied by the perfect tense construction_:--for example, '_I am smitten_,' [should] be, '_I have been smitten_.'"--_Ib._ Here is self-contradiction indefinitely extended _in an other way_. Many a good phrase, if not every one, that the author's first suggestion would turn to the unco-pa.s.sive form, his present "_remedy_" would about as absurdly convert into "the perfect tense."

OBS. 14.--But Wright's inconsistency, about this matter, ends not here: it runs through all he says of it; for, in this instance, error and inconsistency const.i.tute his whole story. In one place, he antic.i.p.ates and answers a question thus: "To what tense do the constructions, 'I am pleased;' 'He is expected;' '_I am smitten_;' 'He is bound;' belong?" "We answer:--_So far as_ these and like constructions are applicable to the delineation of _continuous_ and _retained_ ACTION, they express _present_ time; and must be treated accordingly."--P. 103. This seems to intimate that even, "_I am smitten_," and its likes, as they stand, may have some good claim to be of the present tense; which suggestion is contrary to several others made by the author. To expound this, or any other pa.s.sive term, _pa.s.sively_, never enters his mind: with him, as with sundry others, "ACTION," "_finished_ ACTION," or "_progressive_ ACTION," is all any _pa.s.sive_ verb or participle ever means! No marvel, that awkward perversions of the forms of utterance and the principles of grammar should follow such interpretation. In Wright's syntax a very queer distinction is apparently made between a pa.s.sive verb, and the participle chiefly const.i.tuting it; and here, too, through a fancied ellipsis of "_being_"

before the latter, most, if not all, of his other positions concerning pa.s.sives, are again disastrously overthrown by something worse--a word "_imperceptibly understood_." "'_I am smitten_;' '_I was smitten_;' &c., are," he says, "the _universally acknowledged forms_ of the VERBS in these tenses, in the pa.s.sive voice:--not of the _PARTICIPLE_. In all verbal constructions of the character of which we have hitherto treated, (see page 103) _and, where_ the ACTIONS described are _continuous_ in their _operations_,--the participle BEING is _imperceptibly omitted, by ellipsis_."--P. 144.

OBS. 15.--Dr. Bullions has stated, that, "The present participle active, and the present participle pa.s.sive, are _not counterparts_ to each other in signification; [,] the one signifying the present doing, and the other the present suffering of an action, [;] for the latter _always intimates the present being of an_ ACT, _not in progress, but completed_."--_Prin. of Eng. Gram._, p. 58. In this, he errs no less grossly than in his idea of the "_action_ or the suffering" expressed by "a _perfect_ participle," as cited in OBS. 5th above; namely, that it must have _ceased_. Worse interpretation, or balder absurdity, is scarcely to be met with; and yet the reverend Doctor, great linguist as he should be, was here only trying to think and tell the common import of a very common sort of _English_ participles; such as, "_being loved_" and "_being seen_." In grammar, "_an act_," that has "_present being_," can be nothing else than an act now doing, or "_in progress_;" and if, "_the present being of an_ ACT _not in progress_," were here a possible thought, it surely could not be intimated by any _such_ participle. In Acts, i, 3 and 4, it is stated, that our Saviour showed himself to the apostles, "alive after his pa.s.sion, by many infallible proofs, _being seen_ of them forty days, and _speaking_ of the things _pertaining_ to the kingdom of G.o.d; and, _being a.s.sembled_ together with them commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem." Now, of these misnamed "_present_ participles," we have here one "_active_," one "_pa.s.sive_," and two others--(one in each form--) that are _neuter_; but _no present time_, except what is in the indefinite date of "_pertaining_."

The events are past, and were so in the days of St. Luke. Yet each of the participles denotes _continuance_: not, indeed, in or to the _present time_, but _for a time_. "_Being seen_" means _continuing to be seen_; and, in this instance, the period of the continuance was "forty days" of time past. But, according to the above-cited "_principle of English Grammar_,"

so long and so widely inculcated by "the Rev. Peter Bullions, D. D., Professor of Languages," &c.,--a central principle of interpretation, presumed by him to hold "_always_"--this participle must intimate "_the present being of an act, not in progress, but completed_;"--that is, "_the present being of" the apostles' act in formerly seeing the risen Saviour_!

OBS. 16.--This grammarian has lately taken a deal of needless pains to sustain, by a studied division of verbs into two cla.s.ses, similar to those which are mentioned in OBS. 13th above, a part of the philosophy of J. W.