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remarks from D'Orsey. We have made a few alterations to adapt these remarks more perfectly to our purpose and to our opinions.

Place an emphasis on shall second and third, and will first person, and determination is expressed on the part of the speaker. For example, I WILL go, with emphasis on will expresses the determination of the speaker to go. You SHALL go, he SHALL go, they SHALL go, with emphasis on SHALL express positive command, or intention, on the part of the speaker, to force compliance. Mistakes, in the use of shall and will, are more likely to be made in asking questions than in declarative propositions. "A Scotchman says, WILL I do it? WILL we go? that is, AM I WILLING to do it? ARE WE WILLING to go? Such questions are obviously absurd, as no one can answer except the speaker. The forms should be, Shall I do it? shall we go? thus asking permission," or whether it is incumbent on the party represented by the first person in the one case to do it, in the other to go. We can call to mind at present but one case in which the auxiliary will can, with propriety, be employed with the first persons in an interrogative proposition. This is when the interrogative form is employed to express negation in an emphatic or impassioned manner. For example, suppose I am solicited to assist in some undertaking which appears to me dishonorable. The party soliciting inquires, WILL you assist us in this undertaking? "WILL Iassist in such a base undertaking? No." Here I use will, either taking it up and repeating it from the question addressed to me; or I may intend to propound the question to my own conscience, Am Fwilling, can I possibly have a will to assist, &c? Except in such extraordinary cases, we presume, will should never be employed with the first persons in an interrogative proposition. "SHALL you go? means, Do you intend to go?" (rather, we say, Is it incumbent on you to go?) "whereas, WILL you go? implies that the person asking is anxious you should go. SHALL they go? has" (may have) "for reply, Yes, if you give them leave. Will they go? may be answered, I cannot tell; ask them. Will sometimes expresses a simple question as to what may happen, thus, Will it rain? WILL the dog come out of his kennel? means, Do you think he will? SHALL the dog come out? means, WILL you let him?" or Do you require that he shall? or think it necessary that he should?

(25) Much of what has been said of shall and will applies with equal force to should and would, and may assist the learner in determining which is proper to be employed in any particular case.]

859. COMPOUND TENSES FORMED WITH THE AUXILIARY HAVE. -(1) We next present the compound tenses formed by means of the auxiliary HAVE. These are:

I. (2) The PERFECT TENSE, formed by combining the indefinite

(25) What is remarked in reference to should and would ?]

$59. (1) Which compound tenses are next to be presented? (2) How is the perfect

tense of HAVE with a PERFECT PARTICIPLE. (3) This tense is used to express an action or event that is perfected or finished. (4) That the action or event is past, is generally implied by the fact that it is finished, but this form gives no direct indication of time. (5) Examples: "Persius has given us a very humorous account of a young fellow," &c.-Addison. "A friend of mine whom I have formerly mentioned."-Idem. "Cicero has written orations." "Moses has told us many important facts in his writings."

II. (6) The PAST PERFECT TENSE, formed by combining the past tense of the verb HAVE with a PERFECT PARTICIPLE. (7) This tense is used in a proposition expressing an action or event perfected or finished at a past time. (8) This is usually connected with another proposition expressing some other action or event, which determines the past time intended. (9) Example: John HAD FINISHED his letter, when his father arrived.*

III. (10) The FUTURE PERFECT TENSE formed by combining the future tense of HAVE with the PERFECT PARTICIPLE. (11) This tense is used to express that of two future actions or events, one will be completed prior to the occurrence of the other. (12) Ex

* This form is often used to express a condition on which the assertion in another proposition depends. The proposition in which it is used thus, is generally preceded by the conditional sign IF. But the if is sometimes omitted. Example: "HAD I but SERVED my God with half the zeal."—Shak., instead of the fuller expression, if I HAD but SERVED.

This form is also used for would have, or should have, as in John 11: 32, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother HAD not DIED.'

In the following passages from Sterne and Byron, quoted by D'Orsey, (see D'Orsey's English grammar, Part I., p. 92,) we have both these uses exemplified. "HAD I MET it in the plains of Hindostan I HAD REVERENCED it." -Sterne.

"Oh! HAD my fate BEEN JOINED with thine,

As once this pledge appeared the token;
These follies HAD not then BEEN mine-

My early vows HAD not BEEN BROKEN."-Byron.

tense formed? (3) What is this tense used to express? (4) What further is generally implied by this tense? (5) Repeat examples.

(6) How is the past perfect formed? (7) In what kind of proposition is it employed? (8) With what is this proposition generally connected? Ans. "With another proposition," &c., as above. (9) Example.

(10) How is the future perfect tense formed? (11) What is it used to express? (12) Give example. State exception with example.

ample: When you shall have completed your task, I will permit you to play. We sometimes by this tense express the completion of an action at a present time; as, Your brother will have finished his task by this time.

(13) REMARK.-We cannot readily imagine a case in which WILL could be employed with propriety with the first person in this tense; and SHALL, on the contrary, is very seldom employed in the second and third persons. We now exhibit the conjugation of these three.

tenses.

(14) To WRITE. PERFECT TENSE. PREDICATE, HAVING WRITTEN.

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We shall have written,
You will or shall have written,
They will or shall have written.

To have written.

COMPOUND PARTICIPLE. Having written.

(17) Let it be remembered that have itself has all these tenses, formed by the combination of its indefinite, past and future tenses, with its perfect participle, thus: perfect, I have had; past perfect, I had had; future perfect, I shall have had.

EXERCISES I., II., &c.-Let a given number of propositions with

(18) Repeat the remark.

(14) Repeat the perfect tense. (15) Repeat the past perfect tense. (16) Repeat the future perfect tense.

(17) What remark is made in reference to the compound tenses of HAVE itself?

verbs in the perfect, past perfect, and future perfect tenses, be formed by the pupil, till he is found perfectly familiar with the formation and use of these tenses. Let the reason be given for using the particular tense employed; viz.: because he intended to express completed action, action completed at a past time, or to be completed at a future time, according as the case may chance to be.

From the combination of the indefinite tense of have with the perfect participle, we might call this form, with propriety, the indefinite perfect-that is, a form indefinite as regards time, and perfect or perfected as regards the condition of the action. But since this form, as we think, gives no direct indication of time, but simply indicates that what is predicated by the verb is completed, we omit the epithet indefinite as superfluous. Some grammarians have called this form the present perfect. Holding, as these grammarians do, that what we have called the indefinite tense is a present tense, the name present perfect is appropriately given by them to the form under consideration. Similar reasons to those which we have given for rejecting the name Present Tense as an improper designation of what we have called the Indefinite Tense, lead us in like manner to reject the name of Present Perfect. We question the accuracy of the common assertion of grammarians that this tense always "represents an action or event as perfect or completed in present time, expressed or implied; that is, in a period of which the present forms a part." We admit that when" an action or event completed in” “a period of time of which the present forms a part" is to be expressed, this tense is almost universally employed, if the period of time is mentioned. (We have noticed some exceptions at the end of Note, § 50.) But we do not admit that present time is necessarily and always implied, if not expressed, when this tense is used. Is there any reference to present time in the following examples? "I have been young, and now am old." "And where the Atlantic rolls, wide continents have bloomed."-Byron. "Privileges have been granted to legislators in all ages."--Lord Mansfield. "Many, who have been saluted with the huzzas of a crowd one day, have received their execrations the next; and many who, by the popularity of their times, have been held up as spotless patriots, have, nevertheless, appeared upon the historian's page, when truth has triumphed over delusion, the assassins of liberty."-Idem. In fact, we can discover no example to justify the assertion that this tense, of itself, necessarily or directly, indicates any connection with the present period of time, or any other period. When no period of time is expressed in the proposition in which this tense is used, a past time-a time before the present moment, but otherwise indefinite-is, as we think, generally

understood by inference from the completed condition of the action or event. When a period of time is expressed in the proposition, it must be such as is described above-one "of which the present forms a part." It can never, we believe, be used with propriety, when a period of time definitely past is expressed. Such expressions as, I have written to my friend yesterday, are rejected as inaccurate by all the grammarians. Our definition of this tense-perfect, as to condition of the action, indefinite as to time-will, if we mistake not, be found much more conformable to the actual usage of the language than the one commonly given, which seems to be more appropriate to the Greek perfect tense than to ours. The grammarians have taken much trouble to reconcile the actual use of this tense with their definition. Their success, in our opinion, has not equalled their ingenuity and their industry. Perhaps the misapprehension (such we certainly think it) in reference to the use of this form has originated, partly in recognising what we call the indefinite tense as a present tense, and partly in an unthinking application of what has been taught, in reference to the Greek perfect tense, to the English perfect tense.

We may notice one example-we presume more might be foundin which this tense is employed, in speaking of a future event: “The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice." Now certainly the future time is not here indicated by the form of the verb, but by the conjunctive adverb of time TILL, and the connection with another proposition explicitly declaring a future event; still it will be hard to account for such employment of this form, if we adopt the definition of its use commonly given by grammarians.

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Substantially the same views which we have given above were presented to the public sixty years ago by the late Dr. Noah Webster.

We quote from his Dissertations on the English Language, published in Boston, 1789: "I have loved, or moved, expresses an action performed and completed, generally within a period of time not far distant; but leaves the particular point of time wholly indefinite or undetermined. On the other hand, I loved is necessarily employed when a particular period or point of time is specified. Thus, it is correct to say, I read a book yesterday, last week, ten years ago, &c.; but it is not grammatical to say, I have read a book yesterday, last week, &c."

Had the doctor perceived, when he wrote this, that the so called present tense is altogether indefinite, it would have contributed to the clearness and precision of his views in reference to the perfect tense.

Dr. Crombie, in speaking of what he calls the present tense, uses the following language: "The first (the form I write) is indefinite as to time and action. If I say, I write, it is impossible to ascertain by the mere expression

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