or participial form, as I am writing, to be more definite in time, than the simple form, as I write, or the emphatic form, as I do write; and accordingly they divide all the tenses into Indefinite and Definite. Of this division Dr. Webster seems to claim the invention; for he gravely accuses Murray of copying it unjustly from him, though the latter acknowledges in a note upon his text, it "is, in part, taken from Webster's Grammar."--Murray's Octavo Gram., p. 73. The distribution, as it stands in either work, is not worth quarrelling about: it is evidently more cumbersome than useful. Nor, after all, is it true that the compound form is more definite in time than the other. For example; "Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, was always betraying his unhappiness."--Art of Thinking, p. 123. Now, if was betraying were a more definite tense than betrayed, surely the adverb "always" would require the latter, rather than the former.
OBS. 4.--The present tense, of the indicative mood, expresses not only what is now actually going on, but general truths, and customary actions: as, "Vice produces misery."--"He hastens to repent, who gives sentence quickly."--Grant's Lat. Gram., p. 71. "Among the Parthians, the signal is given by the drum, and not by the trumpet."--Justin. Deceased authors may be spoken of in the present tense, because they seem to live in their works; as, "Seneca reasons and moralizes well."--Murray. "Women talk better than men, from the superior shape of their tongues: an ancient writer speaks of their loquacity three thousand years ago."--Gardiner's Music of Nature, p. 27.
OBS. 5.--The text, John, viii, 58, "Before Abraham was, I am," is a literal Grecism, and not to be cited as an example of pure English: our idiom would seem to require, "Before Abraham was, I existed." In animated narrative, however, the present tense is often substituted for the past, by the figure enallage. In such cases, past tenses and present may occur together; because the latter are used merely to bring past events more vividly before us: as, "Ulysses wakes, not knowing where he was."--Pope. "The dictator flies forward to the cavalry, beseeching them to dismount from their horses. They obeyed; they dismount, rush onward, and for vancouriers show their bucklers."--Livy. On this principle, perhaps, the following couplet, which Murray condemns as bad English, may be justified:--
"Him portion'd maids, apprentic'd orphans blest,
The young who labour, and the old who rest."
See Murray's Key, R. 13.
OBS. 6.--The present tense of the subjunctive mood, and that of the indicative when preceded by as soon as, after, before, till, or when, is generally used with reference to future time; as, "If he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?"--Matt., vii, 10. "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me."--John, xxi, 22. "When he arrives, I will send for you." The imperative mood has but one tense, and that is always present with regard to the giving of the command; though what is commanded, must be done in the future, if done at all. So the subjunctive may convey a present supposition of what the will of an other may make uncertain: as, "If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself."--St. Paul to Philemon, 17. The perfect indicative, like the present, is sometimes used with reference to time that is relatively future; as, "He will be fatigued before he has walked a mile."--"My lips shall utter praise, when thou hast taught me thy statutes."--Psalms, cxix, 171. "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves, shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."--John, v, 28.
OBS. 7.--What is called the present infinitive, can scarcely be said to express any particular time.[234] It is usually dependent on an other verb, and therefore relative in time. It may be connected with any tense of any mood: as, "I intend to do it; I intended to do it; I have intended to do it; I had intended to do it;" &c. For want of a better mode of expression, we often use the infinitive to denote futurity, especially when it seems to be taken adjectively; as, "The time to come,"--"The world to come,"--"Rapture yet to be." This, sometimes with the awkward addition of about, is the only substitute we have for the Latin future participle in rus, as venturus, to come, or about to come. This phraseology, according to Horne Tooke, (see Diversions of Purley, Vol. ii, p. 457,) is no fitter than that of our ancestors, who for this purpose used the same preposition, but put the participle in ing after it, in lieu of the radical verb, which we choose to employ: as, "Generacions of eddris, who shewide to you to fle fro wraththe to comynge?"--Matt., iii, 7. Common Version: "O generation of vipers! who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" "Art thou that art to comynge, ether abiden we another?"--Matt., xi, 3. Common Version: "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" "Sotheli there the ship was to puttyng out the charge."--Dedis, xxi, 3. Common Version: "For there the ship was to unlade her burden."--Acts, xxi, 3. Churchill, after changing the names of the two infinitive tenses to "Future imperfect" and "Future perfect," adds the following note: "The tenses of the infinitive mood are usually termed present and preterperfect: but this is certainly improper; for they are so completely future, that what is called the present tense of the infinitive mood is often employed simply to express futurity; as, 'The life to come.'"--New Gram., p. 249.
OBS. 8.--The pluperfect tense, when used conditionally, in stead of expressing what actually had taken place at a past time, almost always implies that the action thus supposed never was performed; on the contrary, if the supposition be made in a negative form, it suggests that the event
