jargon of the schools. They must have contented themselves with simply asserting an existence, leaving its substratum and its modes to be explained by future philosophers. The fact is, that being and life are generally denominated by words expressive of posture and situation. Exist is a compound of the Latin er, out, and sisto or sto, I stand. We have adopted our word state directly from status, while the French estre, to be, and estat, state, are formed from esse and existere, both signifying to be. The Latin vivere, and its English to live, express the existence of animated objects, or of such as are supposed to be so, from the criterions referred to by common observers,-motion, and the necessity of nourishment, or food. It is hence that the compounds, in both languages, are indicative of activity and briskness, as well as of the means by which existence is prolonged. Quick is opposed to dead: it also denotes agility of motion, and motion opposed to rest. Being, when opposed to nonentity, is not necessarily connected with life. It marks only that the object to which it refers is to be found in nature, without asserting or denying its animation. We have now to speak of those added syllables, which form the scanty Conjugations of the English Verb:

OF VERBAL AFFIXES.

Adjectives express those qualities of a substance which are inherent in its frame; for, indeed, the collection of those qualities constitutes all that we know of its existence. Verbs are also qualities, for they are not self-existent, but they are not necessarily and continually connected with our conception of the being. Actions exist in time: they have a beginning and an end: they may be now; they may have been yesterday; or they may be to-morrow. In some languages, (and partially in our own,) the time of the action is specified by means of affixes. They are what we call the TENSES (times) of the verb. The manner, or mode, in which the verb is enunciated is also expressed either by other words, or by affixed particles, and these are its MOODS, of which we shall have afterwards more particularly to speak. The verb also varies with the presence or absence of the agent: these changes of form are its PERSONS. It has likewise a singular and a plural, according as the agents are one or many. In languages where all those variations are marked by prefixes, or by terminations, the laws of union are its CONJUGATION. When they are formed by words that are not so united to the verb, the term conjugation (Latin conjugo, I join together,) is improperly applied; and these modifying words require to be severally considered and separated in the analysis of the Syntax.

h

The affixes of the English regular verbs are few, and, even of those few, the greater part are mere grammatical orthographies, the remnants of an older syntax, but either unnecessary, or unattended to, in modern construction. Of the terminations which once marked the persons, only two remain,—the second person (with thou,) and the third; as "Thou lovest," and "He loves, or loveth.” "These," says Dr. Murray, "are the faded remains of the pronouns 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. These pronouns, as is evident from the Visigothic, and a comparison of the other existing monuments, were affixed as follow:--The example here chosen is LAG, lay.

"LAGAMA and LAGA, I lay,-LAGA-SA-THWA, thou layest,-LAGA-THWA, or LAGATHA, he or she layeth,-LAGAMANSA, LAGAMATHA, and LAGAMASA we lay,-LAGATHWANSA and LAGATHWANTHA, you lay,-LAGAHWONDA, or LAGONDA, they lay.

"The two preterites of LAG, viz. LELOG and YALAGIDA, received the same additions; but the necessity of shortening the verbs, so augmented, gradually reduced the pronouns into mere terminations, the exact sense of which was not known by those who used them. When it was found difficult to pronounce them at the end of certain verbs, or tenses of verbs, they were dropt. In the plural they were grossly corrupted, and, in the end, like many other original properties of the old language, utterly removed, and their place supplied by the use of the separate pronouns, which formerly had not been named, except in cases of special emphasis. In the example quoted, LAGA, LAGAST, LAGATHLAGAM, LAGIATH, and LAGANDA, were changed, in several stages of corruption, into I lay, thou layest, he lays; we lay, you lay, they lay. In Latin, in which LAG is retained in many forms and senses, particularly in the sense of read or speak what is written; and in Greek, in which the same word signifies to utter, or say, the pronouns are affixed in the following manner :—

I, thou, he, &c. gather, collect, read.
I,thou, he, &c. place, put, lay, express

Visigothic.{ lag-ya, yais, eith ; yam, yeith, I, thou, he, &c. place, put, lay.

yanda :

Saxon. lag-e, ast, ath; on, on, on:

German. leg-e, est, te; en, en, en:

I, thou, he, &c. lay, put.

I, thou, he, &c. lay.

Sanscrit. lag-ami, asi, ati; āmah, atha, anti: I, thou, he, &c. cling."

Dr. Murray's object is to prove that all these languages, as well as the old

British, Celtic, and Persic, are sprung from one common stock; and certainly this display of the pronouns is much in favour of his theory.

When any action is said to be performed, it is a natural question at what time it is done, whether before or at the moment the account is given, or if the performance is merely announced as to happen at a future period. The learned languages have occasioned much abstruse discussion relative to the tenses, or times of verbs. Happily ours is free from this embarrassment. When the action is finished, or supposed to be so, from its having been in execution previous to the time in which it is mentioned, the mark of its existence is affixed by the terminations ED or En. I love is present; I loved is past, and may be finished, or not, as the other parts of the sentence express. In either case, the verb is rather indicative of the action's being doing, or done, than the time when, but indeed the ideas are undistinguishable. When doing, it must be present; when done, it must be past, respecting some period alluded to; and hence time is, by implication, included in the signification of the verb. En and ed are not to be distinguished, except, perhaps, in the degree of modification in which they are applied. The past tense, and the past participle, are the same word, only in the former we attend to the action, and in the latter to its effect upon the object. Ed is used both in the past tense and the participle, but en seldom appears except in the latter. We say, "He proved the fact," and "The fact was proved;" "He weaved the web," and "The web was woven."

The termination ed in the participle appears to lose its active meaning, and designates a quality, or adjective, of the nature of the verb. It expresses something that has been subjected to exertion, and is the result of its power. A wounded man is he who has received a wound. An ascertained fact is one which has been determined by proof: it is a fact of a particular kind,—one that has been demonstrated. Adjectives are formed in this manner from nouns not generally considered as verbal, as diseased, from disease. There is a class of words in ID, from the Latin idus, as putrid, from putridus; morbid, from morbidus; and fervid, from fervidus. These are usually denominated adjectives; but there is no distinction between them and the participles above mentioned. Classes of words run into one another, and change their appearance as we shift our station.

The Latin ens, (equivalent to the Greek rò v,) signifies being; the it, or thing, which exists. Hence it was used to form the present participle in that language, as docens and amans, which express existing, or being, in the state of a teacher, or a lover. Our words in ENT or ANT, and ENCE or ANCE, are from this source. Both denote being or state, the former being applied to constitute

adjectives, and the latter substantives. Thus abundant is the quality of existing in abundance, which is the name given to such a state of existence. The Romans expressed the abstract verbal noun by the addition of tia to the present participle (or the derived adjective), in ans or ens. In our adoption of Latin words, we have translated tia by CE or cy; and hence we have substance, from substantia; prudence, from prudentia; constancy, from constantia; with many others. The present participle, in Saxon, was formed by ande, ende, or onde; and, by cutting off the final e, it acquired a substantive signification, and extended the idea to the agent, as in alysende, freeing, and alysend, a redeemer; freonde, loving, or friendly; and freond, a lover, or a friend. From this comes our affix END; for many of our nouns, with that termination, were originally Saxon participles. Friend and fiend literally denote a lover and an enemy, from freon, to love, and feon, to hate; and thus, having synonymes in the language, they are retained for the purpose of marking a peculiar variety in love and in hatred.

Present participles are formed by the addition of ING in English, and ung in German, both equivalent to the Latin ens and the Saxon ende. Words with this affix are rather improperly said to be in the present tense. They may be either past or present, for they express solely the existence of the quality or action. Loving, hating, destroying, &c. are unfinished actions: they may be now, or they may have been long ago. The name of the state itself, when considered as a noun, and not as a quality, is expressed by io (once ion,) in Latin, by ung in Saxon and German; by ing in Dutch, and by ION in English. The syllables ing and ion are, therefore, the same, and indeed they are often used for one another. Hearing and learning are nouns, as well as verbal adjectives. "During the action," and "during the acting," (notwithstanding the metaphysical distinction of grammarians are synonymous) phrases, as long as the word acting is viewed generally, and not considered as the quality of a particular noun: but more of this subject hereafter.

To do and To be express ACTION and existence in general; and the nature of the act, or state, can be known only from the verbal noun or participle, to which each respectively may be joined. Every active verb (as it is termed) is despoiled of its variable affixes of activity, as well as of person, when it is conjugated with the auxiliary To do, and appears in the simple state of an infinitive, as in

DID (doed) is believed to have been once do do, marking by repetition that the act is finished, and hence the ED. These two forms of conjugation have exactly the same original signification; but, (as happens in all cases where we have two words, or phrases, that are etymologically equivalent,) either one becomes obsolete, or custom gradually produces a shade of distinction. Accordingly, the prefixing of the auxiliary do is understood to make the expression more determinately energetic. Wherever it is not recognized as producing that effect, it is a mere expletive, from its adding a word to the sentence without any additional idea. The minor poets frequently write do, does, and did, for no other purpose than to make up the requisite number of feet, a practice thus satirized by Pope :

"While expletives their feeble aid do join,

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line."

There is a third manner of conjugating the active verb, by means of the auxiliary To be. Thus,

In the preceding form, the participle loving is considered more as relative to the action itself than as pointing to the object; and hence the state, or exertion, seems to be continuous. "I crossed the street yesterday" is simply the relation of a past event; but "I was crossing the street yesterday" is a suspension of the action, and the natural inquiry is, what happened while you were so doing? The classical reader will readily discover an affinity between this mode of speech and the middle voice of the Greeks.

It is this state of unfinished action which is understood in such phrases as The house is building," and "The house was building," in which the action