language. In I was beating, I have beaten, I had beaten, and I shall beat, a difference of time is expressed; but as it is expressed by a combination of words, and not by a change of form, no true tenses are constituted."-The English Language, p. 274.

145. The Participles of the verb are likewise two in number-the Perfect and the Imperfect. They are often called the Present and Past, but in themselves they have no reference to time, and merely indicate the completion or non-completion of an action. If we say, " He is walking," the participle walking would appear to indicate present time, but it is not in itself, but from its accidental connexion with is, which is the word that truly points out present time. If we say, "He was walking," it would equally appear to refer to past time, but it does not. In both cases it indicates an action going on at the time specified by the verb with which it is connected. In the case of the other participle, the name past is not so obviously inappropriate, but it is not less so.

146. The Imperfect Participle always ends in ing, and the Perfect in ed, except in some irregular verbs. The name Participle was given to this part of the verb from its partaking of the nature of both the adjective and the verb. In the sentences, "He is reading," "He is a reading man," the first reading represents an act going on, but the second, a habit. The idea of the verb predominates in the one, the idea of the adjective, in the other.

147. According to this view of the verb, which has led us to reduce the number of moods and tenses, we are induced to deny what is called a passive voice. It is not formed by any variety of termination, and so cannot be acknowledged as an inflection. This point, too, Dr Crombie has urged in a manner so able as to leave little for his successors to say. "The English verb," says this most acute critic, "has only one voice, namely, the active. Dr Lowth, and most other grammarians, have assigned it two voices-active and passive. Lowth has, in this instance, not only violated the simplicity of our language, but has also advanced an opinion inconsistent with his own principles. For, if he has justly excluded from the number of cases in nouns, and

moods in verbs, those which are not formed by inflection, but by the addition of prepositions and auxiliary verbs, there is equal reason for rejecting a passive voice, if it be not formed by variety of termination. Were I to ask him why he denies from a king to be an ablative case, or I may love to be the potential mood, he would answer, and very truly, that those only can be justly regarded as cases or moods which, by a different form of the noun or verb, express a different relation or a different mode of existence. If this answer be satisfactory, there can be no good reason for assigning to our language a passive voice, when that voice is formed not by inflection but by an auxiliary verb. Doceor [being an inflection of the word doceo] is truly a passive voice; but I am taught cannot, without impropriety, be considered as such."-Etymology and Syntax, p. 94.

148. By conjugating a verb is meant mentioning the present and past tenses and the perfect participle.

149. The past tense and perfect participle are formed from the present tense by adding ed, if it end in a consonant, as rain, rained, and simply d if it end in the vowel e, as change, changed.

150. If these parts are formed in any other way, the verb is called Irregular; and if it wants any of these, it is said to be Defective.

151. Attempts have been made to classify the Irregular verbs into different conjugations, as we find done in the Greek and Latin grammars, but with too little success to justify us in stating them. We prefer following the common plan, that is, to give a list of those most commonly in use. They must be committed to memory, or rather familiarized to the ear as separate facts without regard to rule.

152. The following is a list of the Irregular Verbs :