which by its own different forms is capable of indicating Time. (Hence its German designation Zeitwort, “Timeword.")

There are three natural divisions of Time-Present, Past, Future; each of which is represented in Grammar by a corresponding Tense: as, the sun shines, the sun shone, the sun will shine.

§ 132. Each one of the three main Tenses-Present, Past, Future-has three forms: thus

Obs. 1. The forms with do, did [I do write, I did write], have been called the Present and Past Emphatic respectively. But the emphasis lies rather in the stress of voice than in the form itself, as may be seen from the following examples in which the words do, did, are by no means emphatic:

"Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." (Rom. xii. 15.)

"You all do know this mantle..." (Shaks. J. C. iii. 2.)

"I only speak what you yourselves do know." (Ib.)

"They set bread before him, and he did eat." (2 Sam. xii. 20.)

"When the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread." (Ib. ver. 21.)

The forms with do are now chiefly used in questions and in negative sentences. Thus we now say, Do you think? rather than, Think you? (" How think ye?"— Matt. xviii. 12); I did not deny you, rather than, "I denied you not" (Shaks. J. C. iii. 2); Do our subjects revolt? rather than, "Revolt our subjects?" (Shaks. Rich. III. iii. 2). [Comp. Abbott, Shaks. Gr. § 306.]

Obs. 2. The forms do, did, are also used to avoid the repetition of a Verb: as

"Strike as thou didst at Cæsar..."
." (Shaks. J. C. iv. 3.)

Obs. 3. If the sentence be negative, the Adverb not is placed after the Auxiliary, or after the Verb itself when it has no Auxiliary: as, "it did not touch him;" or, "it touched him not." The older writers frequently place the negative before the Verb: as,

"She not denies it." (Shaks. Much Ado, iv. 1.)

"For men

Can counsel, and give comfort to that grief,

Which they themselves not feel." (Ib. v. 1.)

"The burning lover not deludes his pains." (Dryden, Ovid. Met. xii.)

"I hope, my Lord, said he, I not offend." (Dryden, Fables.)

NOTE. The following is incorrect:

"If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?" (Matt. xviii. 12.)

It ought to be go and seek, that is, "doth he not go . . . and seek ?”

...

§ 133. Present Tense Indefinite.-This Tense has a variety of uses :

1. It describes what is actually taking place: as"Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea." (Gray, Elegy.)

2. It indicates what habitually or regularly takes place: as―

Birds fly-fishes swim-reptiles creep.

"The Turks always salute in sneezing." (Caxtons.)

3. It is occasionally used for the future, of that which is fixed and near at hand: as-

"We do not move till Tuesday, when we go, fourteen souls, to Oxford." (Arnold, Letters, xxxi.)

"The boys come back next Saturday week." (Ib. xxxii.)

4. It is sometimes employed in poetry and other imaginative writing instead of the Past Indefinite, to give greater vividness to a narrative: as—

"Day dawns upon the mountain's side:

There, Scotland, lay thy bravest pride. . ." (Marmion.) "The wind shifts to the west. . . The advancing hours make it strong: by midnight, all sleepless watchers hear and fear a wild southwest storm.-That storm roared frenzied for seven weeks."

(C. Brontë, Villette.)

Gls. When a narrative writer proceeds to use the Present Tense instead of the Past, he passes in so doing from narration to description, and portrays the scene as if it were actually before his eyes. Our best prose writers are sparing of this use.

5. It is used of an author saying or stating anything in
his works, whether he himself be living or not: as—

"Barnes says Homer is Solomon . .
"Thus Herodotus speaks . . . says Pliny

(Caxtons.)

Polybius says
(Arnold, Rome.)

6. It is used instead of the Future when the reference to future time is clear from the remainder of the sentence: as

“... when I am forgotten, as I shall be,

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention

Of me more must be heard of..." (Hen. VIII. iii. 2.)

"No longer mourn for me when I am dead." (Shaks. Sonn. 71.)

Obs. This use is only found in complex sentences, where the time of one mem-` ber is the key to that of the other. In Latin the Future-Perfect would be employed.

§ 134. Present Complete.-The Present Complete I have written may perhaps seem at first to belong rather to the Past Tenses, since it speaks of the action as finished. But we must understand by the Present not merely the immediate instant, but also any portion of time reaching up to and including it. Thus the statement, "I have lived in London seven years," implies that the speaker is still living in London, and the period of time referred to reaches up to the moment of speaking.

So, if a person says, "I have once seen a total eclipse of the sun," the sense is, once in my life; and the circumstance is referred as before to a period of time still continuing and present.

On the other hand, when a person says, "I saw a total eclipse of the sun in the year 1851," he distinctly refers the event to a period (the year 1851) altogether detached from the present, and past.

§ 135. Past Indefinite Tense. This Tense has three

uses:

1. To indicate in the most general way that something was done or took place in the past: as

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

"You all did see that, on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

(Gen. i. 1.)

Which he did thrice refuse..." (Shaks. J. C. iii. 2.)

2. To denote what was usual or customary at some former period: as—

"His sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day

(Job i. 4.)

"He borrowed without scruple, and after his return from exile was almost constantly in debt." (Forsyth, Cicero.)

3. It is also used with the force of the Past Incomplete, especially in older English: as

"While he yet spake (= was speaking), behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them." (Matt. xvii. 5.)

"While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept."

(lb. xxv. 5.)

§ 136. Future Tense.-This Tense employs in all its forms the two auxiliary Verbs shall and will, but with a difference of meaning.

§ 137. Shall strictly denotes obligation, authority, or constraint (Ger. sollen); and it retains this sense in the Second and Third Persons Singular and Plural: as—

"Thou shalt not steal." [Prohibition.] (Exod. xx. 15.) "The man that hath done this thing shall surely die." [Threat.] (2 Sam. xii. 5.)

"No Italian priest

Shall tithe or toll in our dominions." [Prohibition.]

(K. John, iii. 1.) "Ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water." [Commands.] (Deut. xii. 16.)

"And ye shall be his bride, ladye." [Promise or consent.] (Song.) Hence it is used in the language of prophecy, the very idea of which implies the decision of a superior Power; as"He shall not strive, nor cry." (Matt. xii. 19.)

"Ye shall not surely die." (Gen. iii. 4.)

"This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered."

(Henry V. iv. 3.)

Obs. The Interrogative forms shalt thou? shall you? are used with a simple Future sense.

§ 138. In the First Person Singular and Plural shall is used for the simple Future; but here also its proper force may often be traced, though less strongly marked: as— (2 Sam. xii. 23.) Good old knight,

"I shall go to him

"K. Hen.

Collect them all together at my tent.

I'll be before thee.

Erp. I shall do it, my lord." (Henry V. iv. 1.)

Here the use of shall implies that the actions to be done are not dependent upon the will of the speaker. So shall serves to indicate a definite resolution of the speaker, by which he considers himself to be bound: as"I shall send my letters open, that you may take copies..

(Goldsmith, Cit. 2.)

"I shall trace the course of that revolution which terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments."

(Mac. H. E. i.)

"The two propositions which I shall endeavour to establish are these.. (Paley, Ev.)

§ 139. Will in the First Person Singular or Plural of the Future implies that the action is dependent upon the will of the speaker: as

66

... because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her."

(Luke xviii. 5.) "We will be avenged... We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with him." (Shaks. J. C. iii. 2.)

But in the Second and Third Persons Singular and Plural will usually implies nothing more than futurity, without any reference to the will of the agent: * as

66 Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear." (Shaks. Sonn. 77.) "Thine anguish will not let thee sleep." (Tennyson, Two Voices.) "You will find the just sum in a silken purse, within the leathern pouch." (Scott, Iran. ch. xi.)

§ 140. Number.-The Verb, like the Noun, has two numbers, Singular and Plural. In modern English, distinct Plural forms are found only in the Verb to be: see p. 59. In all other Verbs the Plural is without inflexion.

Obs. In the oldest form of English the Plural suffix for the Present Tense Indicative of Regular Verbs is -ath: as, we lufiath = we love. In the time of Edward III. this termination had given way to -en (we loven), which is the regular one in Chaucer, and is occasionally to be met with in the Elizabethan writers.

§ 141. Person.-Verbs are also inflected for Person. [See $78, concerning the distinction of First, Second, and Third Persons.] But this inflexion is confined to the Singular Number. See Paradigms.

The following practical rules for the use of WILL and SHALL will be found useful. (Head, p. 119, with alterations.)