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.

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.

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

whether be signified, I write now, I write daily, or, I am a writer in general.” -Crombie's Eng. Grammar, London, 1809, p. 167.

Strange, that after this, he should persist in calling this form a present tense, and should, in consequence, involve himself in a mist, when he comes to speak of the perfect tense. We quote part of his remarks on the perfect tense, accompanied by our commentary in parentheses:

“I have written, expresses an action completed," (so far sound,) “in a time supposed to be continued to the present, or an action, whose consequences extend to the present time." (Does not agree with all the facts; unsound, expressed in this unmodified manner.) "As a tense, it derives its character from the tense I have," (excellent,) "significant of present time;" (all wrong, and wholly inconsistent with his own assertion above, that this tense "is indefinite as to time and action ;") while the perfection of the action is denoted by the perfect participle." (All right.)—Crombie's Eng. Gram., p. 169.

This perfect tense seems to have been little, if at all used with its present significance in the Anglo-Saxon. Where we employ the perfect, the AngloSaxons employed the past tense. The reader may find many examples to illustrate this point in the Anglo-Saxon version of John, ch. 17. This chapter abounds with instances of the use of the perfect tense in the original Greek, and in our authorised version. They are all rendered in the AngloSaxon version by the past tense. Wiclif, in 1380, used the perfect as we do at present. It may be here noticed that in Latin, also, the past and perfect are expressed by the same form.

pro

We are not prepared to trace the introduction and extension of the use of this form in our language. It is likely that it was first employed only in the case of active or transitive verbs, followed by a passive object, to which the participle was attached as a modification. Thus, at first, it is bable that the words, I have written a letter, meant the same as, I have a letter written; I possess a letter in the written state. In the progress of the language, the original connection of the participle with the object must, on this supposition, have been gradually overlooked or forgotten, and the form have come insensibly to express, as it now does, the predication of HAVING WRITTEN (in the present sense of these words), and this modified by the ob ject-a etter, instead of expressing the predication of having or possessing a letter-and the letter modified by the word written. This step being made, the insensible extension of the use of this form to neuter verbs was easy. Before this step, the use of the verb indicating possession, in connection with a perfect participle would have appeared absurd. It would have been, for instance, in such an expression as, The man has gone, to assert possession, where there is nothing possessed.

In corroboration of the views now expressed, we adduce the fact that many of our neuter verbs are still, as the French express it, conjugated with the verb to be as well as with the verb to have. For example, we say both He is gone and He has gone, is come and has come, is arrived and has arrived,

is fallen and has fallen, is descended and has descended, &c. In French, most neuter verbs are conjugated to this day with être. The same remark applies to other languages. Is it not likely that all our neuter verbs were originally compounded with the verb to be, and that the usage in regard of the more numerous class of active verbs was insensibly extended to them, after the proper and original force of the verb Have in these active compounds had ceased to be recognised?

§ 60. COMPOUND TENSES FORMED WITH THE AUXILIARY Do.— We next proceed to exhibit the compound tenses,* formed by the help of the auxiliary Do.

(1) Do is a very energetic little word, and the compound tenses formed by combining its indefinite and past tenses with an infinitive are used, as the indefinite and past tenses of the verb whose infinitive is thus combined; 1st, To express either strong assertion, or contradiction of an assertion, or the answer to a question; 2d, In asking a question; and 3d, In negative propositions. A form with do is also sometimes used in imperative propositions. (2) These forms are employed for the purposes mentioned instead of the indefinite and past tenses of all the verbs in the language which have infinitives, except the auxiliaries, to be, and to have. Shall, will, may, can, must, ought, it will be recollected, have no infinitives. (3) The verb do itself has these compound tenses formed by the combination of its indefinite and past tenses with its own infinitive; thus, He DOES DO SO; He DID DO SO; DOES he Do so? DID he DO so (4) The learner ought to guard against combining Do with HAVE. (5) He does have, and He did have, Does he have, and He don't have, &c., are incorrect forms of expression, and yet often used in some parts of the United States. † (6) No person accustomed to use the English language from childhood is in danger of combining do with be. *Perhaps we should rather call these forms modes.

†This form of expression is unphilosophical-incongruous as regards meaning—since the verb HAVE does not express energy, but mere passive possession. When we wish to express active or energetic having, we employ the verbs to possess, or to hold. And with both these, Do can with propriety be combined. But it is sufficient to condemn these combinations of do with have, that they are unsanctioned by respectable usage. No correct writer

§ 60. (1) What is said of DO, and for what purposes are the compound tenses formed by It used? (2) For what tenses are these forms employed? (3) What is said of the compound tenses of do itself? (4) Repeat the caution to the learner. (5) What is said of such expressions as, He does have, he did have, &c.? (6) Repeat remark about do and be.