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attributed to the GreekVerb. 217 of the second aorist: in the great bulk of verbs which have that tense, its signification is no less transitive than that of the present. Nor do the facts seem to bear one out in conjecturing, as one might incline to do, that the verbs the second aorist of which kept its currency were of an in- transitive cast: the preference seems rather to have been dic- tated by a regard to the form of the word than to its meaning. It cannot, one should imagine, be very difficult to teach a boy that such is the case, especially with the help of the ana- logies which our own language supplies. But though I think we may safely abide by the practice of the old grammarians in giving the active voice a double aorist, it is very desirable that we should abandon them when they talk about a perfect middle with the same termination as the perfect active ; and that, with Hermann, Buttmann, Matthiae, Rost, Pinzger, we should transfer the tense to which they give that name, and of course its satellite too along with it, to the active voice. The reasons for doing so are stated by Buttmann in his admirable Grammar (Vol. i. pp. 370, foil.) with his wonted clearness and good sense. It is true that this form of the perfect has not unfrequently an intransitive meaning, and that in some verbs, in which we meet with both forms of the perfect in a, the same distinction, which was re- markt above between the second aorist and the first, is observ- able between this perfect and the other : for instance between TTCTTOiOa and TreTreiKia^ between bXooXa and oXwXeKa^ between TTCTTpaya and TreVjOa^a. But in like manner the other form will sometimes go along with the second aorist in taking an intransitive sense when the present has a transitive one, as we see in ecr/S^/ca, irecpuKa^ ecxTrjKa' In fact one has much oftener occasion to speak of a past state, than of a past action, with immediate reference to the present moment, in the man- ner denoted by the Greek perfect. " I have lived and have lovedj says Thekla in her beautiful song: and many might be led to say the same: but few would ever find inducement to say, / have loved a person: in speaking of our feelings toward others we should mostly use the indefinite preterite, / loved them. Indeed the story of Thelymnia at the begin- ning of this number supplies us with a passage just in point. Did you ever love any one ? she iasks Euthymedes. Unless Vol. II. No. 4. Ee