by them indifferently. But their most usual method of speech was to employ the past tense itself, without participializing it, or making a participle of it by the addition of ED or EN. So likewise they commonly used their substantives without adjectiving them, or employing those adjectives which (in imitation of some other languages and by adoption from them) we now employ. Take as one instance (you shall have more hereafter) the verb to heave, hea fan. By adding ED to the indicative, they had By changing D to T, mere matter of pro- By adding EN, they had the participle, And these have left Heaved. } Heaft. Heaven. Hove The ship Heaved or Head. heav'd, Heaft, Heft. behind them in our Heaven, Heaven. Hoof, huff, and Hove, stantives, but really the diminutive hovel. Howve or hood, ciples. hov'd, hat, hut. Hoven, Haven, oven. You will observe that this past tense haf, hof, hove, was variously written, as heff, hafe, horve. "Whan Lucifer was Heff in heuen "And ought moste haue stonde in euen." Gower, fol. 92, pag. 2, col. 2. "And Arcite anon his honde up hafe." Knyghtes Tale, fol. 8, pag. 2, col. 1. "Yet hoved ther an hundred in howves of silke "Sergeaunts yt besemed that seruen at the barre.” Vision of P. Ploughman, fol. 4, pag. 1. "Nowe nece myne, ye shul wel understonde, "(Quod he) so as ye women demen al, Troylus, boke 3, fol. 176, pag. 2, col. 2. "Nowe sirs quod this Oswolde the Reue Reues Prol. fol. 15, pag. 2, col. 1. N. B. In some copies, it is written howue. To set his houfe or howue, is equivalent to what the miller says before, "For I woll tell a legende and a lyfe "Both of a carpenter and hys wyfe "Howe that a clerke set a wryghtes cappe." Miller's Tale, fol 12, pag. 1, col. 1. "In this case it shal be very good to make a perfume under neth of the houe of an asse." Byrth of Mankynde, fol. 30, pag. 1. "Also fumigation made of the yes of salt fysshes, or of the haue of a horse." Byrth of Mankynde, fol. 33, pag. 1. Byrth of Mankynde, fol. 54, pag. 2. "Strewe the powder or asshes of a calfes houe burnt." “The stone houed always aboue the water." Historie of Prince Arthur, 1st part chap. 44. "Monkes and chanones and suche other that use grete ouches "of syluer and golde on theyr copes to fastene theyr hodes ayenst "the wynde." Diues and Pauper, 7th comm. chap. 12. If you shall find some difficulties (I cannot think they will be great) to make out to your satisfaction the above derivation; it will be but a wholesome exercise; and I shall not stop now to assist in their elucidation; but will return to the word WRONG. I have called it a past participle. It is not a participle. It is the regular past tense of the verb to wring. But our ancestors used a past tense, where the languages with which we are most acquainted use a participle: and from the grammars of the latter (or distribution of their languages) our present grammatical notions are taken: and I must therefore continue with this word (and others which I shall hereafter bring forward) to consider it and call it a past participle. In English, or Anglo-Saxon (for they are one language) the past tense is formed by a change of the characteristic letter of the verb. By the characteristic letter I mean the vowel or diphthong which in the Anglo-Saxon immediately precedes the infinitive termination an, ean, ian, or gan, gean, gian. To form the past tense of ɲigan, to wring (and so of other verbs,) the characteristic letter I or y was changed to a broad. But, as different persons pronounced differently, and not only pronounced differently, but also used different written characters as representatives of their sounds; this change of the characteristic letter was exhibited either by A broad, or by o, or by u. From Alfred to Shakspeare, both inclusively, o chiefly prevailed in the south, and a broad in the north. During the former part of that period, a great variety of spelling appears both in the same and different writers. Chaucer complains of this. "And for there is so greate diuersyte "In Englyshe, and in writynge of our tonge." Troylus, boke 5, fel. 200, pag. 1, col. 1. But since that time the fashion of writing in many instances has decidedly changed to ou and u; and in some, to oA and oo and AI. But, in our inquiry into the nature of language and the meaning of words, what have we to do with capricious and mutable fashion? Fashion can only help us in our commerce with the world to the rule (a necessary one I grant) of Loquendum ut vulgus. But this same fashion, unless we watch it well, will mislead us widely from the other rule of Sentiendum ut sapientes. F. Heretic! What can you set up, in matter of language, against the decisive authority of such a writer as Horace? "Usus, Quem penes arbitrium est et just et norma loquendi. H. I do not think him any authority whatever upon this occasion. He wrote divinely: and so Vestris danced. But do you think our dear and excellent friend, Mr. Cline, would not give us a much more satisfactory account of the influence and action, the power and properties of the nerves and muscles by which he performed such wonders, than Vestris could? Who, whilst he used them with such excellence, did not perhaps know he had them. In this our inquiry, my dear sir, we are not poets nor dancers, but anatomists. F. Let us return then to our subject. H. To the following verbs, whose characteristic letter is 1, the present fashion (as Dr. Lowth truly informs us) continues still to give the past tense in o. To which he properly adds (though no longer in Genesis xxxi, 36. "Jacob chode with Laban." "And the people chode with Moses." Numb. xx, 3. "And shortly clomben up all thre." Millers Tale, fol. 14, pag. 1, col. 2. ❝Sens in astate thou clomben were so hye." Monkes Tale, fol. 87, pag. 2, col. 1. "The sonne he sayde is clombe up to heuen." Tale of Nonnes Priest, fol. 90, pag. 1, col. 1. |