attributed to the Greek Verb. 207 deviation from common usage than it would be to eraze the tense altogether. On the other hand the second aorist has much better ground to stand on. The instances of it are numerous; and it is a tense of perpetual occurrence. It has been re- markt indeed by others, as it is by our correspondent, that this tense is not commonly found except in verbs the first aorist of which was not in use. Solet enim ferme (says Her- mann, de Emend. Rat. Gr. Gram. p. 246) in its maocime verbis secundi aoristi usus requiri^ quorum primus aoristus propter molestiorem pronunciationem neglectus fuit» Yet a writer in the former volume of this Museum (p. 239) has enumerated several verbs, both the aorists of which are to be met with even in the tragedians and Aristophanes ; and the number might be considerably enlarged, if the research were carried through the whole range of the classical writers. It would be well if some scholar would do so, and make out a complete list of the Greek verbs the second aorist of which is anywhere found, distinguishing all those among them which had a first aorist along with it, and pointing out in what cases the two were in use together, in what cases one of them was superseded by the other, or survived only in a particular dialect. That the first aorist was the prevalent form in the later ages of the Greek language cannot be ques- tioned. Buttmann, like our correspondent, observes, that '^ while all clearly derivative verbs, such as the great mass of those in efo), t^o), and so on, never have any but the first aorist, none save primitives, or those which may be classed along with them, admit of a second aorist active ; and that even of these it is only found in a limited number of such verbs as belonged to the earliest period of the language.*" In the last words there is something rather like tautology ; for there could hardly be any primitive verbs, except such as belonged to the earliest period of the language. These how- ever for this very reason are many of them words that occur in almost every page. On the whole it is perfectly clear that in the early Greek language there were two entirely distinct modes of forming the indefinite preterite, though one or the other was in most cases preferred, as euphony or some analogy dictated, till at a later period the first aorist got
