"As

verbs, are incapable of this method of conjugation.* 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 Adan's Gram., p. 91; Gould's Adam, 83; Bullions's English Gram., 52; his Analyt, 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 passive signification; as, "The books are now selling."-Alen'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., Analogy, 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. 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. 61. "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 accomplishing amongst the uncivilized countries of the earth."-Chalmers, Sermons, p. 281. 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 passive; 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] establishing generally."-Dublin Evening Post, 1840.

46

"Who

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.”—“ Shɔ 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 passive signification: as, The grammar is now printing, Grammatica jam nunc chartis imprimitur. The

The text in Acts, xxii, 20th, "I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death," ought rather to be, "I als stood by, and consented to his death;" but the present reading is, thus far, a literal version from the Greek, though the verb "kept," that follows, is not. Montanus renders it literally: "Et ipse eram astans, et consentiens interemptioni ejus, et custodiens vestimenta interficientium illum." Beza makes it better Latin thus: "Ego quoque alstabam, et unà assentiebar cædi ipsius, et custodiebam pallia eorum qui interimebant eum." Other examples of a questionable or improper use of the progressive form may occasionally be found in good authors; as, “A promising boy of six years of age, was missing by his parents."-Whittier, Stranger in Lowell, p. 109. Missing, wanting, and willing, after the verb to be, are commonly reckoned participial adjectives; but here "was missing" is made a passive verb, equivalent to was missed, which, perhaps, would better express the meaning. To miss, to perceive the absence of, is such an act of the mind, as seems unsuited to the compound form, to be missing; and, if we cannot say, "The mother was missing her son," I think we ought not to use the same form passively, as above.

Some gram narians, contrary to the common opinion, suppose the verbs here spoken of, to have, not a passive, but a nout signification. Thus, Joseph Guy, Jun., of London: "Active verbs often take a neuter sense; as, A house is building; here, is building is used in a neuter signification, because it has no object after it. By this rule are explained such sentences as, Application is wanting; The grammar is printing; The lottery is drawing; It is flying, &c."-Guy's English Gram., p. 21. "Neuter," here, as in many other places, is meant to include the active-intransitives. " Is flying" is of this class; and "is wanting," corresponding to the Latin caret, appears to be neuter; but the rest seem rather to be passives. Tried, however, by the usual criterion,-the naming of the "agent," which, it is said, "a verb passive necessarily implies,"-what may at first seem progressive passives, may not always be found such. Most verbs signifying action," says Dr. Johnson, may likewise signify condition, or habit, and become neuters, [i. e. active-intransitives;] as, I love, I am in love; 1

brass is forging, Era 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 brass is a forging; a being properly at, and printing and forging verbal nouns signifying action, according to the analogy 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 passive 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 publishing," 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 passive use of the participle in ing, but denies the usual passive 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!"* 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 passive [,] to express the suffering of an action as continuing, instead of the participle in -ing in the passive 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 substitute 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 passive, 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 inclegant, but precisely analogous 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 pronouns) 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!f

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 strike, I am now striking."-Gram. before Quarto Dict., p. 7. So sell, form, make, and many others, usually transitive, have sometimes an active-intransitive sense which nearly approaches the passive, and of which are selling, is forming, are making, and the like, may be only equivalent expressions. For example: "It is cold, and ice forms rapidly-is forming rapidly-or is formed rapidly."-Here, with little difference of meaning, is the appearance of both voices, the Active and the Passive; while "is forming," which some will have for an example of "the Middle voice," may be referred to either. If the following passive construction is right, is wanting or are wanting may be a verb of three or four different sorts: "Reflections that may drive away despair, cannot be wanting by him, who considers," &c.—Johnson's Rambler, No. 129: Wright's Gram., p. 196. * Dr. Bullions, in his grammar of 1849, says, "Nobody would think of saying, He is being loved'— This result is being desired. "Analyt. and Pract. Gram., p. 237. But, according to J. W. Wright, whose superiority in grammar has sixty-two titled vouchers, this unheard-of barbarism is, for the present passive, precisely and solely what one ought to say! Nor is it, in fact, any more barbarous, or more foreign from usage, than the spurious example which the Doctor himself takes for a model in the active voice: "I am loving, Thon art loving, &c.; I have been loving, Thou hast been loving, &~"—A. and P. Gr., p. 92. So: "James is loving me.' -Ib., p. 235.

"

+ The predicate in the form, The house is being built,' would be, according to our view, 'BEING BEING built,' which is manifestly an absurd tautology."—Mulligan's Gram., 1852, p. 151.

intention, doubtless, is, to supersede the use of the verb in the definite form, when it has a passive signification. They say, 'The ship is being built,'-'time is being wasted,'-'the work is being advanced,' instead of, the ship 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 Analytical Gram., p. 102.

OBS. 8.-Dr. Perley speaks of this usage thus: "An attempt has been made of late to introduce a kind of passive 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 passive 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 scholarship 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 assert 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 passive conjugation would often be found made up of bald absurdities! That this new unco-passive form conflicts with the older and better usage of taking the progressive form sometimes passively, 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.-13 to what is called "the present or the imperfect participle passive," 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 be ing usually means continuing to be; loving, continuing to love; building, continuing to build,—or (as taken passively) 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 passively? 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 passive phrases, and others like them, as well as in all examples of this unco-passive voice, continuance of the passive state being first suggested, and cessation of the act being either regarded as future or disregarded, the imperfect participle passive is for the most part received as equivalent to the simple imperfect used in a passive sense. But Dr. Bullions, who, after making "is being built precisely equivalent to is built," classes 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 parti ciple; 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 passive 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 partici ple," 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 classes, 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 passive, 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 Analyt, 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, constitute a passive 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 passive 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 passive 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 "Passed 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 passive 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 passive 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.

OES. 13.-But, with all its boldness of innovation, Wright's Philosophical Grammar is not a little self-contradictory in its treatment of the passive vcrb. 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 passive use of the participle in ing, he has easily disposed of: despite innumerable authorities for it, one false assertion, of seven syllables, suffices to make it quite impossible.* But the usual passive form, which, with some show of truth, is accused of not having always precisely the same meaning as the progressive used passively, 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 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 pronounced "equivalent in grammatical con struction," censured for the same pretended error, and proposed to be changed alike to "the trai form" by the insertion of "being,"-are subsequently declared to "belong to" different classes and different tenses. "I am loved," is referred to that "numerous" class of verbs, which "detad 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 class, (said by Dr. Bul lions 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 passed time and ACTION." - Wright's Gram., p. 103. Again: "In what instance soever this latter form and signification can be introduced, their im、 port 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 ex tended in an other way. Many a good phrase, if not every one, that the author's first suggestion would turn to the unco-passive 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 constitute his whole story. In one place, he anticipates 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 passive term, passively, never enters his mind: with him, as with sundry others, ACTION," "finished ACTION," or "progressive ACTION," is all any passive 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 ap

"Suppose a criminal to be enduring the operation of binding :-Shall we say, with Mr. Murray,The criminal is binding? If so, HE MUST BE BINDING SOMETHING,—a circumstance, in effect, quite opposed to the fact presented. Shall we then say, as he does, in the present tense conjugation of his passive verb, The crim. inal is bound? If so, the action of binding, which the criminal is suffering, will be represented as completed, -a position which the action its self will palpably deny." See Wright's Phil. Grain., p. 192. It is folly for a man to puzzle himself or others thus, with fictitious examples, imagined on purpose to make good usage seem wrong. There is bad grammar enough, for all useful purposes, in the actual writings of valued authors; but who can show, by any proofs, that the English language, as heretofore written, is so miserably inadequate to our wants, that we need use the strange neologism, "The criminal is being bound," or any thing similar?

666

parently made between a passive verb, and the participle chiefly constituting it; and here, too, through a fancied ellipsis of "being" before the latter, most, if not all, of his other positions concerning passives, 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 passive 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.

66

OBS. 15.-Dr. Bullions has stated, that, "The present participle active, and the present participle passive, 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. În Acts, i, 3 and 4, it is stated, that our Saviour showed himself to the apostles, "alive after his passion, by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: and, being assembled together with them commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem." Now, of these misnamed "present participles," we have here one "active," one "passive," 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 continuante: not, indeed, in or to the present time, but for a time. "Being seen" means continuing to be sem; 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!

OB3. 16.-This grammarian has lately taken a deal of needless pains to sustain, by a studied division of verbs into two classes, similar to those which are mentioned in Ors. 13th above, a part of the philosophy of J. W. Wright, concerning our usual form of passives in the present tense. But, as he now will have it, that the two voices sometimes tally as counterparts, it is plain that he adheres but partially to his former erroneous conception of a perfect or "past" participle, and the terms which hold it "in any connexion." The awkward substitutes proposed by the Irish critic, he does not indeed countenance; but argues against them still, and, in some respects, very justly. The doctrine now common to these authors, on this point, is the highly important one, that, in respect to half our verbs, what we commonly take for the passive present, is not such—that, in "the second class, (perhaps the greater number,) the present-passive implies that the act expressed by the active voice has ceased. Thus, 'The house is built.'*** Strictly speaking, then," says the Doctor, "the PAST PARTICIPLE with the verb TO BE is not the present tense in the passive voice of verbs thus used; that is, this form does not express passively the doing of the act."-Bullions's Analyt, and Pract. Grammar, Ed. of 1849, p. 235. Thus far these two authors agree; except that Wright seems to have avoided the incongruity of calling that "the present-passive" which he denies to be such. But the Doctor, approving none of this practitioner's "remedies," and being less solicitous to provide other treatment than expulsion for the thousands of present passives which both deem spurious, adds, as from the chair, this verdict: "These verbs either have no present-passive, or it is made by annexing the participle in ing, in its passive sense, to the verb to be; as, 'The house is building.' "—Ib., p. 236.

OBS. 17.-It would seem, that Dr. Bullions thinks, and in reality Wright also, that nothing can be a present passive, but what "expresses passively the DOING of the act." This is about as wise, as to try to imagine every active verb to express actively the receiving of an act! It borders exceedingly hard upon absurdity; it very much resembles the nonsense of "expressing receptively the giving of something!" Besides, the word "DOING," being used substantively, does not determine well what is here meant; which is, I suppose, continuance, or an unfinished state of the act received an idea which seems adapted to the participle in ing, but which it is certainly no fault of a participle ending in d, t, or n, not to suggest. To "express passively the doing of the act," if the language means any thing rational, may be, simply to say, that the act is or was done. For "doings" are, as often as any-wise, "things done," as buildings are fabrics built; and "is built," and " am smitten," the gentlemen's choice examples of false passives, and of "actions finished," -though neither of them necessarily intimates either continuance or cessation of the act suffered, or, if it did, would be the less or the more passive or present,-may, in such a sense, 66 express the doing of the act," if any passives can:-nay, the "finished act" has such completion as may be stated with degrees of progress or of frequency; as, "The house is partly built."-"I am oftener smitten." There is, undoubtedly, some difference between the assertions, "The house is building,"—and, "The house is partly built;" though, for practical purposes, perhaps, we need