Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

* Of these preterites, the latter is now more generally used. Our translators of the Bible used the former.

† A. Murray has rejected sung as the preterite, and L. Murray has rejected sang. Each preterite, however, rests on good authority.

The same observation may be made respecting sank and sunk. + Sitten, though formerly in use, is now obsolescent. Laudable attempts, however, have been made to restore it. "To have sitten on the heads of the apostles."-Middleton.

Soon after the termination of this business, the parliament, which had now sitten three years, &c."-Belsham's Hist.

"And he would gladly, for the sake of dispatch, have called together the same parliament, which had sitten under his father." Hume, vol. VI. p. 199.

Respecting the preterites which have a or u, as slang, or slung, sank, or sunk, it would be better were the former only to be used, as the preterite and participle would thus be discriminated.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

* Pope has used the regular form of the preterite :

"In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease,

Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase."
Essay on Crit.

Horsley, with one or two other writers, have employed the regular participle.

Washen seems obsolescent, if not obsolete. The compound unwashen occurs in our translation of the Bible.

[blocks in formation]

THESE, as Lowth observes, are generally not only defective but also irregular, and are chiefly auxiliary

[blocks in formation]

* Pope, and our translators of the Bible, have used winded as the preterite. The other form, however, is in far more general

use.

Wrote, as the participle, is generally disused, and likewise writ. The latter was used as a preterite by Pope, Swift, and other writers of the same period.

+ Wit is now confined to the phrase to wit, or namely. It is an abbreviation from the Anglo-Saxon verb piran, to know.

[blocks in formation]

* This verb, as an auxiliary, is inflexible; thus we say, "he will go," and "he wills to go."

† This verb, which signifies " to think," or " to imagine," is now obsolete.

‡ This verb is now used as significant of present duty. It was originally the preterite, and the perfect participle of the verb to owe; and is corruptedly used in Scotland still to express a past debt. "Apprehending the occasion, I will add a continuance to that happy motion, and besides give you some tribute of the love and duty I long have ought you."-Spelman.

"This blood, which men by treason sought

That followed, sir, which to myself I ought." --Dryden.

It is now used in the present tense only; and, when past duty or obligation is to be signified, we note, as I formerly mentioned, the past time by the preterite tense of the subsequent verb; thus, "I ought to read," "I ought to have read." The classical scholar knows that the reverse takes place in Latin. Debeo legere, debui legere. Cicero, however, though very rarely indeed, uses the preterite of the infinitive, after the preterite tense of this verb.

Murray has told us, that must and ought have both a present and past signification, and, in proof of this, he adduces the following examples:-" I must own, that I am to blame." "He must have been mistaken." "Speaking things, which they ought not." "These ought ye to have done." This is truly a strange, and, I verily believe, a singular opinion. Its inaccuracy is so manifest, that every reader of discernment must intuitively perceive it. The opinion itself, indeed, is not more surprising, than the ground, on which it is maintained by the author. It surely requires but a moderate portion of sagacity to perceive, that the past time, in the second and fourth examples, is not denoted by must and ought, but by the expressions, "have been," and "have done." In Latin, as I have just observed, necessity and duty are expressed as either

« FöregåendeFortsätt »