214 071 certain Tenses a plan pursued, this portion of our grammar would assume an entirely new and much more intelligible as well as graceful character. In Becker's Grammar we further see the meaning of the words quoted above from Adelung. All the primitive verbs, he remarks, belonged originally to the first of his two conjugations, though many of them in course of time have scone over to the second. It would be an interesting enquiry to ascertain, as well as our means will enable us, how far the same thing is true of the Greek aorists. Buttmann's observation quoted above (p. 207) might lead us to suspect that the case may have been nearly the same : and there is a striking analogy between the mode of forming the second aorist, and that of forming the^ preterite in Becker's first conjugation ; while the addition of a a in the first aorist may in some measure be compared to that of de or te. In a complete English grammar there should be a list of all such turncoat verbs, as well as of those that have remained faithful to the old system in despite of fashion : it would be desirable also to illustrate this list by a collection of all similar preterites still preserved in our provincial dialects, such as snew {snowed)^ mew (mowed)y hew (hoed)^ ris (after the analogy of hit^ slid, chid)^ which are still found, as no doubt many like forms are, in some of our counties : and it should be ascertained, as far as it can be, by a diligent examination of our old writers at what period the changes took place. Thus for instance in the first ten chapters of the Morte d'Arthur I have fallen in with lough {laiight)^ pight (pitcht)^ wan (won)^ awroke (awreakt)^ alight (alighted)^ yield (yielded). It would be well also if such verbs were illustrated by a view of their forms in German and the other connate lanffuaffes. For a grammar, to be good, must be of a historical character. Our grammarians at present only think of teaching us what the language is, or what they choose to fancy it ought to be, at this day. Yet in language, more almost than in anything else, it is impossible to understand the present, except in connexion with the past. Nor is the question we have been discussing a mere empty dispute about a name, devoid of any practical significance. Such is the sway of words over thoughts and opinions, that to call anything irregular or anomalous is to fasten a stigma upon it : and the mere notion that our
