to them. They correspond with the terminations required by the nouns whose places they supply.

"The substantive pronouns are more numerous in English, than in any other of the polished languages, either ancient or modern. The Greeks and Latins have only three such pronouns; those of the first and second persons, I, thou; and the reflected pronoun of the third person, sef, including all genders. The French, the Spani ards, and the Italians, have four; I, thou, denoting the first and second persons; and, as they have no neuter genders, be, denoting the male, and she, the female of the third person. The English have the pronouns of the first and second persons, I, thou; but preserving here, as in the case of nouns, a strict accommodation to the genders of nature, they present, in the third person, he, to denote the male, she to denote the female, and a fifth, it, to denote every substance of no gender, or of which the gender is unknown. The pronoun it is perhaps the most general word in the language, being employed to supply the place of all substantives, and even of things without names. There is not a thing in language, or in nature, which it may not represent.

"In respect of the pronouns of the first and second persons, the merit of polished tongues is nearly equal. In the ancient languages, it is seldom necessary to produce them, as they are readily suggested by the correspondent termination of the verb. In the modern languages, this liberty can seldom be indulged without ambiguity or affectation, because the terminations of their verbs are not sufficiently varied, to distinguish with certainty one pronoun from another. In denoting the pronoun of the third

person there is the greatest difference, and the merits of different languages are most discernible.

"Both the Greek and Latin languages are well provided with words for this purpose; 8705 Exenos, duros, ille, iste, hic, ipse, is; which are all adjectives, and have all the varieties of gender, both in the singular and plural numbers. Both the French and the Italians have two pronouns of the third person, and these in the plural have likewise their varieties of gender. Our own language is here not a little defective, owing to its rigid attachment to the simplicity of nature, which is the leading principle of its structure. We have no adjective pronoun of the third person; and even the little variety we have in the singu lar number is diminished in the plural.

"Though we possess three pronouns, he, she, it, to express the third person in the singular number, yet, unless the subject of discourse be a male or a female, or some inanimate substance personified, we are not at liberty to denote that subject by any other word than it; and as the far greater part of the occasions on which the third person must be employed, refer to other things than males, or females, or personifications, we are in a great measure restricted, even in the singular number, to the use of it alone. We are still more embar rassed in the plural number, for be, she, it, have no other plural for them all than they, which also is destitute of all variety of gender.

"The ambiguity resulting from the nakedness of our language, in respect of the pronouns of the third person, is the chief defect, perhaps, to which it is obnoxious. Open only the works of any of the principal writers of the latter part

of the seventeenth century, particularly the history of lord Clarendon, or the prose compositions of Milton, and they will be found in many places scarcely intelligible, because the authors were obliged, from a deficiency of pronouns of the third person, to refer the same relative to different antecedents in the same sentence. Similar inaccuracies, though less frequent, still appear in the writings of our purest and most elegant authors. Indeed, any person in the least accustomed to correct composition, must be sensible that errors of this sort are the most difficult to be avoided in our language.

:

"A singularity respecting the inflections of personal pronouns must not pass unnoticed. They have almost all three cases, a nominative, a genitive, and an accusative: I, mine, me; thou, thine, thee; he, his, him. Some gram. marians, however, contend, that mine, thine, are not genitives, but pronominal adjectives employed instead of my, thy but one of two things must be admitted; either that they are real genitives, as our best grammarians make them, or that they are used in a manner different from these adjectives, and without being conjoined with their substantives. For in the following sentence, my cannot be substituted in the place of mine: This book is mine.' The nominative of the pronoun almost always appears before the verb, and the accusative after it; and as no other of our substantives have accusatives, the syntax of the pronouns is the only case in which we discern the tendency of our language, to adopt the analogies of the ancient languages, by assigning to the active verb the government of an accusa

tive case.

"I have now finished the discussion of nouns, and their dependents, articles, adjectives, participles, and pronouns, which denote the first great branch of our knowledge; the names and the nature of the substantives which exist in matter or in the mind. I proceed to the discussion of verb, and its dependent adverb; which denote the second great branch of our knowledge, the actions and energies, with their modifications, which substances exert in respect of themselves, or of one another.

"The radical characteristic of the verb is action or energy. I read, run, walk, eat, drink, sit, sleep, are all expressions, deciara. tive of some operation or exertion performed by the creature or thing that is the nominative to the verb. Every action implies existence, and the activity or patience of some agent; and hence the common definition of the verb, that it signifies to be, to do, or to suffer. It is the most intricate of all the parts of speech; and this intricacy results unavoidably from the combination of ideas it is employed to express, Let us consider the various circumstances which must be communicated by the word denoting an action. The chief of these refer to time and manner.

"In relating an action, it is not sufficient for the purposes of communication to signify barely its existence; it is commonly requisite to be more particular, and to notify whether it is finished, is finishing, or will be finished. Hence arises the necessity that the verb, along with the signification of action, should likewise express time. But the manner also of the execution of the action is often of great importance to be communicated. For example, whether the agent ope

rated

rated with deliberation, confidence, and resolution, or with embarrassment, hesitation, and suspicion; whether he commanded the performance of the action, or signified only his inclination that it should be performed. Hence resulted the necessity, that the verb, along with the signification of action and time, should also denote manner. You will easily perceive in these observations the origin of the tenses and

moods of verbs.

"As it was necessary that the circumstances of time and manner should attend the signification of action; the next important step in the formation of language, was to determine by what means this combined communication should be accomplished. One of two methods, it seems, must have been adopted; either to vary the terminations of the verb, or to conjoin with it auxiliary words, so as to convey these additional circumstances. The former of these methods, with a mixture of the latter, in the passive form of their verbs, was employed by the Greeks and Romans. The latter method, with a mixture of the former, in the active form of their verbs, has been adopted by the English, the French, and the Italians.

"The structure of the verb was rendered still more complicated, because it was found requisite, that along with the signification of action, time, and manner, it should also denote person and number, to adapt it for corresponding with the persons and numbers of nouns and pronouns with which it might be connected. To combine together so many important articles in the inflections of one word, required a degree of ingenuity, which nothing could supply but the discernment and experience of ages,

"In respect of time, it may perhaps be imagined, on the first view, that it would be sufficient for the purposes of communication, if the verb denoted the general division of it, into past, present, and future; but a little experience would discover the imperfections of this arrangement. The very fleeting nature, indeed, of present time, made any subdivision of it both difficult and unnecessary; and for this reason all polished languages, according to the general opinion of grammarians, have m any mood one tense only appropri ated to express it, A similar o pinion seems to have guided the construction of languages for ex pressing future time. That future time, including a long duration, was divisible into parts, must soon have been perceived; but the total ignorance in which mankind are involved concerning actions that may take place in that period, must have divested them of all disposition to mark differences of future time, or to provide language with tenses for that purpose.

"Hence appears the reason why all polished languages, expect the Greek, have also been contented with one tense, expressive of future time. The Greeks, it has been supposed, wished to circumscribe future time, by their tense denc minated paulo post futurum, by which they intended to signify that the action was future; but would not be long so, as the time of its execution would quickly arrive.This tense, however, must be considered as a specimen of the ingenuity of the Greeks, and of their great zeal to cultivate and improve their language, rather than as requisite for the communication of knowledge; for it very rarely occurs in any of their works. Later grammarians

grammarians controvert even the existence of this tense.

"The past, then, is the time which the framers of all languages have been chiefly anxious to subdivide. Most of the actions which could be the subject of discourse or writing, must have taken place in past time; and to render the accounts of them more conspicuous and intelligible, it must often have been requisite to specify the progress, or the stages, of their execution. Hence the various divisions of past time, and the different tenses significant of them, with which all languages, even the most imperfect, abound. Of polished languages, the least complete, in this respect, have three divisions; a pluperfect tense, by which is signified that the action is finished, and that some time has intervened since it was completed; a perfect, which denotes that the action is finished, but that very little or no time has elapsed since its completion; and an imperfect, which signifies that the action had been going on, but had not been completed. These are all the tenses significant of past time, possessed by the language of ancient Rome.

"But the Greek language, the English, and the French, besides these tenses, employ another, which the Grecks call an aorist, and which denotes only, that the action is completed, without distinguishing in what division of past time the completion took place, or whether the execution was pluperfect, perfect, or imperfect.

"If we attend to the usual course of speaking and writing, we will find, that this state of an action very frequently occurs; and, therefore, that a tense adapted to express it is of singular convenience and advantage. In numerous cases, the completion of the action is the only circumstance of consequence to be communicated; and in all such cases, the aorist is the proper tense to be employed. The language of ancient Rome retains, on this occasion, a portion of that ambiguity, to which it must be allowed to be obnoxious in some other articles. For it is from the sense of the context only, that the hearer or the reader can discover whether amavi denotes the aorist pixa, j'aimai, I loved, or the perfect past, replayna, j'ai aimé, I have loved,"

to which we are to impute the flourishing state of every species of composition, except oratory, which appears to be prompted chiefly by ambition and times of danger. Ás emulation and the love of fame are the principal causes to which we are to ascribe the eminence of poets, philosophers, historians, and critics, yet conspicuous exhibitions in any of these lines are to be expected only when the full and free exercise of the powers of genius and industry is countenanced, at least not discouraged by government; when society is so far advanced, so polished and enlightened, as to discover and applaud what is meritorious; and when the exertions of genius are instigated by rivalship. If we consult the history of literature, we shall find, that in the fortunate conjunctures in which all these favorable circumstances have concurred, authors of eminence have sprung up with rapidity, and in clusters, like plants from a hot-bed.

"The progress of poetry, however, is not altogether regulated by the same circumstances which are supposed to influence the production of prose compositions; and epic poetry particularly seems to constitute a remarkable exception. It appeared in Greece in the poems of Homer some centuries at cast before any composition in prose which merited the attention of posterity; for it is scarcely supposeable that all productions in prose should have perished, while those in poetry remained. The singular institution of bards, and the practice of reciting at festivals and public solemnities the illustrious deeds of patriots and heroes, so consonant to the notions of a warlike and magnanimous, though an uneultivated and unpolished people,

seems to have contributed to the early perfection of epic composition. Attachment to poetry might even introduce a contempt and dislike of prose, and may help to account for the late appearance of that species of composition. It is well known, that even the laws and public acts of rude communities were sometimes written in verse.

"Among the first good compositions in prose which were produced in Greece, was probably the history of Herodotus, and it is the most early and best of that species which has descended to modern times.

He lived between the Persian invasion and the Pelopon nesian war, about four hundred and forty years before the birth of Christ, and was the dawn of the illustrious age of his country.— From the time of his appearance to the expedition of Alexander the Great into Asia, (a period of less than one hundred and fifty years), were displayed all those conspicuous exertions of the genius of Greece, which all men of letters have hitherto admired, and all refined ages will continue to admire. The principal writers of this period were, Euripides, Sophocles, Thucydides, Isocrates, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes. Alexan der the Great annihilated the liberty of Greece, and with it filed her spirit and her genius.

"After the Romans had overrun the greater part of Greece, they were tempted to turn their attention towards the precious remains of literature and arts which that country had to exhibit. But so unpolished still were this great people, that in the six hundred and seventh year of their city, scarcely a hundred years before the termination of the commonwealth, Lucius Mummius, a Roman consul, was