generally by condition, circumstance, relation, or employment. Most adjectives are of participial formation, as derived from other tongues, though they may not obviously be so, in the language in which they are at present employed; as, Latin dependens, French dependant, English dependent, depending. Here the word dependent is in reality the same as depending; but, coming to us as a derivative from Latin, is slightly disguised. "She was then sad, dejected, and sorrowful; but now contented and happy." The words in italic are all adjectives, referring to the pronoun she. They are at the same time all participles, whether they directly appear so or not. Sad is sadded or made gloomy: sorrowful is sorrow-filled; and happy is happied, or made joyous. 298. Participles in ing, describe things as being engaged in some present action. If put before the noun, they denote the more general, permanent, or essential qualities of the thing, and when placed after it, allude to particular time, or, which is the same, to some accompanying state of things. This principle, however, admits great variety in practice, without any change of its nature. In what condition, circumstance, or situation, is the brig? It was lying in port last week, but is now cruising at sea, where it will be detained for some time, unless it should become damaged or e aky. "Now gliding, remote, on the verge of the sky, 299. This brings us to the great stumbling block of the grammarians, in trying to get round which, they appear to have bewildered themselves in the intricacy of their own principles. Thus the most philosophic and judicious grammarian, "beyond all comparison," reasons on this subject. "The participle is distinguished from the adjective, by the former's expressing the idea of time, and the latter's denoting only a quality. The phrases, "loving to give as well as to receive," "moving in haste," "heated with liquor," contain participles giving the idea of time; but the epithets contained in the expressions, "a loving child," "a moving spectacle," "a heated imagination," mark simply the qualities referred to, without any regard to time; and may properly be called participial adjectives. "Participles not only convey the notion of time, but they also signify actions, and govern the cases of nouns and pronouns, in the same manner as verbs do; and therefore should be comprehended in the general name of verbs. That they are mere modes of the verb, is manifest, if our definition of a verb be admitted: for they signify being, doing, or suffering, with the designation of time superadded. But if the essence of the verb be made to consist in affirmation or assertion, not only the participle will be excluded from its place in the verb, but the infinitive itself also; which certain ancient grammarians of great authority held to be alone the genuine verb, simple and unconnected with persons and circumstan ces. The following phrases, even when considered in themselves, show that participles include the idea of time: "The letter being written, or having been written;" "Charles being writing, having written, or having been writing. But when arranged in an entire sentence, which they must be to make a complete sense, they show it still more evidently: as, "Charles having written the letter, sealed and despatched it." The participle does indeed associate with different tenses of the verb: as "I am writing," "I was writing," "I shall be writing;" but this forms no just objection to its denoting time. If the time of it is often relative time, this circumstance, far from disproving, supports our position." The mistake has uniformly been in attaching the participle to the verb, because it has relation to time: for, unfortunately for the cause of learning, it is the long standing error, to consider time or tense as belonging exclusively to verbs. In the changing condition of all earthly things, what description of sublunary quality, relation, or circumstance, would for ever stand good? The man who was living, and prosperous, and well, and obsequiously obeyed, day before yesterday, is dead and buried today; and will be soon forgotten on earth. He who was "heated with liquor" is melancholy in prison, where he is confined, for his crimes: the loving child" has become a misanthropic, decrepid, old man: the "moving spectacle" is no longer seen; and the "heated imagination" is sobered by experience. The broad error that participles are to be classed with verbs, because they are associated with the ideas of time, deserves serious attention. On this subject, we may profit by our standing counsellor, Lord Bacon, to whom allusion was early made; "In setting down the definitions of our words, and terms, that others may know how we accept and understand them, and whether they concur with us, Tense means time. What does time itself mean? Doct. Johnson says it is the " measure of duration." One thing still remains; which is, to define the definition. The measure of duration is the computation of periodical changes in material bodies. What would the year be, if the earth performed no annual circuit; and where day and night, without the rotation by which they are produced? And if no day, then, certainly, not weeks nor hours, which are made of days. If there was no visible mooning, moneth, or month, that lunar or calendar reckoning could never have entered the mind of man. Without the guiding chronometers, made by the Almighty Hand, dials, clocks, and all the time keepers contrived by human skill, would soon cease: for what would twelve o'clock be, without a natural midnight or meridian sun? And what is eternity but unmeasured time? How can grammar with its subtleties, furnish ideas of that progressive duration, of which the mind of man could "take no note ?" 301. All actions, conditions, and qualities; the earth and all the things of earth, stand in some relative order of temporal succession, with reference to other things. The murders committed, seventy years ago, by savages of the wilderness on the frontier at Albany, were when the earth was backward in its course, by seventy periods, from where it is now. She who was then a child, is now in second infancy, leaning on the arm of her grandson. While this same globe has been rolling its last fifty rounds, a Corsican boy has become dictator of Rome; republican successor of Louis XIV; chieftain of an empire, and distributor of crowns to trembling kings; lonesome sovereign of Elba; second emperor of the French; sailor on a British deck; a prisoner and a corpse, on a distant island of the southern hemisphere. Such is time or tense, in relation to sublunary conditions, qualities, and objects. The pronouns, lately in the first and second persons, are now third; for those whom they represented no longer speak or are spo-ken to. Could not these lessons teach the schools that the idea of time was blended with any thing in the concerns of man, except verbal action? 302. These relative transitions, of things and of the dependent lords of earth, are the foundation of all which can really exist in language, concerning time; the clew to guide us through the subtleties of Greek and the labyrinthian contradictions of English. A single rule which nature and common reason have furnished; simple in its principle, as broad and useful in its application; and seemingly overlooked by the ornaments of our race, because that in the rich stores of their learning, it appeared too trifling to be noticed, or fit only for the gleaners who might follow them. "On Linden, when the sun was low, But Linden saw an other sight! Campbell. Was low, when the Ammer mountains had intercepted its setting rays. Lay, when the sun was low. Bloodless, before the slaughtered victims of ambition made it bloody. Untrodden, at sun-set, when it had recently fallen and before the hostile armies had entered the field Dark, by contrast with the snow, and darker by association of circumstances, on the evening preceding the battle. Was, during the same portentous eve. The next verse explains its own tenses. |
