The English Verb has only one voice, namely, the Active. Dr. Lowth, and most other grammarians, have assigned it two voices, Active and Passive. Lowth has, in this instance, not only

indeed, an argument against the expediency of the application, but not against the practicability of the principle in question. Besides, it may be asked, why does the author confine his love of simplification to cases? Why not extend it to tenses also? Why maintain, that inflexion only makes a case, and that a Tense is formed without inflexion? Why dismiss one encumbrance, and admit another?

The author observes, that "from grammarians, who form "their ideas, and make their decisions, respecting this part of 66 grammar, on the principles and construction of languages, "which in these points do not suit the peculiar nature of our own, "but differ considerably from it, we may naturally expect gram"matical schemes, that are neither perspicuous nor consistent, “and which will tend more to perplex, than inform the learner." Had I been reprehending the author's own practice, I should have employed nearly the same language. How these observations, certainly judicious and correct, can be reconciled with the doctrine of the writer himself, I am utterly at a loss to conceive. His ideas of consistency and simplicity, are to me incomprehensible. He rejects prepositional cases for the sake of simplicity, and he admits various moods and tenses, equally foreign to the genius of our language, in order to avoid perplexity. Surely this is not a "consistent scheme." Nay, he tells us, "that on the principle of imitating other languages, in names "and forms, (I beseech the reader to mark the words,) without "a correspondence in nature and idiom, we might adopt a "number of declensions, as well as a variety of cases for English "Substantives: but," he adds, "this variety does not at all "correspond with the idiom of our language." observation, argument surely becomes unnecessary."

66

After this

violated the simplicity of our language, but has also advanced an opinion inconsistent with his own principles. For, if he has justly excluded from the number of cases in Nouns, and Moods,

If the

I have here, the reader will perceive, assailed the author's doctrine merely on the ground of inconsistency. It is liable, however, to objections of a more serious nature; and were I not apprehensive, that I have already exhausted the patience of the reader, I should now proceed to state these objections. There is one observation, however, which I feel it necessary to make. The author remarks, that to take the Tenses, as they are commonly received, and endeavour to ascertain their nature and their differences, "is a much more useful exercise, as well as a 66 more proper, for a work of this kind, than to raise, as "might be easily raised, new theories on the subject." author by this intends to insinuate, that our doctrine is new, he errs egregiously. For Wallis, one of the oldest, and certainly one of the best of our English grammarians, duly attentive to the simplicity of that language, whose grammar he was exhibiting, assigned only two tenses to the English Verb. He says, Nos duo tantum habemus tempora, Præsens et Præteritum; and on this simple principle his explanation of the verb proceeds. In the preface to his grammar, he censures his few predecessors for violating the simplicity of the English language, by the introduction of names and rules foreign to the English idiom. Cur hujus modi, casuum, generum, modorum, temporumque fictam et in eptam plane congeriem introducamus citra omnem necessitatem, aut in ipsa lingua fundamentum, nulla ratio suadet. And so little was he aware, that the introduction of technical names for things, which have no existence, facilitates the acquisition of any art or science, that he affirms it, in regard to the subject before us, to be the cause of great confusion and perplexity. Quee (inutilia præcepta) a lingua nostra sunt prorsus aliena, adeoque confusionem potius et obscuritatem pariunt quam explicationi in serviunt,

in Verbs, those, which are not formed by inflexion, but by the addition of Prepositions and Auxiliary Verbs, there is equal reason for rejecting a Passive Voice, if it be not formed by variety of termination. Were I to ask him, why he denies from a king to be an Ablative Case, or I may love to be the Potential Mood, he would answer, and very truly, that those only can be justly regarded as cases or moods, which, by a different form of the Noun or Verb, express a different relation, or a different mode. of existence. If this answer be

satisfactory, there can be no good reason for assigning to our language a Passive Voice, when that voice is formed, not by inflexion, but by an Auxiliary Verb. Doceor is truly a Passive Voice; but I am taught cannot, without impropriety, be considered as such. Besides, as it is justly observed by Dr. Ash, our author, when he parses the clause "I am well pleased", tells us, that am is the Indicative Mood, present tense, of the verb to be, and pleased, the Passive Participle of the verb to please. Now, in parsing, every word should be considered as a distinct part of speech; whether, therefore, we admit pleased to be a Passive Participle or not (for this point I shall afterwards examine) it is obvious, that on the principle now laid down and acknowledged by Dr. Lowth, am pleased is not a present Passive, nor has the author himself parsed it in this manner. Into such inconsistencies do our grammarians run, from a

propensity to force the grammar of our language into a conformity with the structure of Greek and Latin.

The same reasoning will also account for my assigning to English Verbs no more than two tenses and one mood. For, if we consider the matter, not metaphysically, but grammatically, and regard those only as Moods, which are diversified by inflexion (and, as Lowth himself observes, as far as grammar is concerned, there can be no others) we find, that our language has only one Mood, and two Tenses.

This doctrine, in respect to the Cases, is very generally admitted. For, though the Greeks and Romans expressed the different relations by variety of inflexion, which they termed Cases, it does not follow, that we are to acknowledge the same number of cases as they had, when these relations are expressed in English, not by inflexions, but by prepositions, or words, significant of these relations. The Latins would not have acknowledged absque fructu without fruit, as forming a seventh case, though they acknowledged fructu, by fruit, as making an Ablative or sixth case. And why? because the latter only was formed by inflexion. For this reason, I consider giving the name of Dative Case to the combination of words to a king, or of Ablative Case to the expression from a king, to be a palpable impropriety. Our language

K