verbs, are incapable of this method of conjugation.[265] It is true, we often find in grammars such models, as, "I was loving, Thou wast loving, He was loving," &c. But this language, to express what the authors intend by it, is not English. "He was loving," can only mean, "He was affectionate:" in which sense, loving is an adjective, and susceptible of comparison. Who, in common parlance, has ever said, "He was loving me," or any thing like it? Yet some have improperly published various examples, or even whole conjugations, of this spurious sort. See such in Adam's Gram., p. 91; Gould's Adam, 83; Bullions's English Gram., 52; his Analyt. and Pract. Gram., 92; Chandler's New Gram., 85 and 86; Clark's, 80; Cooper's Plain and Practical, 70; Frazee's Improved, 66 and 69; S. S. Greene's, 234; Guy's, 25; Hallock's, 103; Hart's, 88; Hendrick's, 38; Lennie's, 31; Lowth's, 40; Harrison's, 34; Perley's, 36; Pinneo's Primary, 101.
OBS. 2.--Verbs of this form have sometimes a passive signification; as, "The books are now selling."--Allen's Gram., p. 82. "As the money was paying down."--Ainsworth's Dict., w. As. "It requires no motion in the organs whilst it is forming."--Murray's Gram., p. 8. "Those works are long forming which must always last."--Dr. Chetwood. "While the work of the temple was carrying on."--Dr. J. Owen. "The designs of Providence are carrying on."--Bp. Butler. "A scheme, which has been carrying on, and is still carrying on."--Id., Analogy, p. 188. "We are permitted to know nothing of what is transacting in the regions above us."--Dr. Blair. "While these things were transacting in Germany."--Russell's Modern Europe, Part First, Let. 59. "As he was carrying to execution, he demanded to be heard."--Goldsmith's Greece, Vol. i, p. 163. "To declare that the action was doing or done."--Booth's Introd., p. 28. "It is doing by thousands now."--Abbott's Young Christian, p. 121. "While the experiment was making, he was watching every movement."--Ib., p. 309. "A series of communications from heaven, which had been making for fifteen hundred years."--Ib., p. 166. "Plutarch's Lives are re-printing."--L. Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 64. "My Lives are reprinting."--DR. JOHNSON: Worcester's Univ. and Crit. Dict., p. xlvi. "All this has been transacting within 130 miles of London."--BYRON: Perley's Gram., p. 37. "When the heart is corroding by vexations."--Student's Manual, p. 336. "The padlocks for our lips are forging."--WHITTIER: Liberator, No. 993. "When his throat is cutting."--Collier's Antoninus. "While your story is telling."--Adams's Rhet., i, 425. "But the seeds of it were sowing some time before."--Bolingbroke, on History, p. 168. "As soon as it was formed, nay even whilst it was forming."--Ib., p. 163. "Strange schemes of private ambition were formed and forming there."--Ib., p. 291. "Even when it was making and made."--Ib., 299. "Which have been made and are making."--HENRY CLAY: Liberator, ix, p. 141. "And they are in measure sanctified, or sanctifying, by the power thereof."--Barclay's Works, i, 537. "Which is now accomplishing amongst the uncivilized countries of the earth."--Chalmers, Sermons, p. 281. "Who are ruining, or ruined, [in] this way."--Locke, on Ed., p. 155. "Whilst they were undoing."--Ibid. "Whether he was employing fire to consume [something,] or was himself consuming by fire."--Crombie, on Etym. and Syntax, p. 148. "At home, the greatest exertions are making to promote its progress."--Sheridan's Elocution, p. iv. "With those [sounds] which are uttering."--Ib., p. 125. "Orders are now concerting for the dismissal of all officers of the Revenue marine."--Providence Journal, Feb. 1, 1850. Expressions of this kind are condemned by some critics, under the notion that the participle in ing must never be passive; but the usage is unquestionably of far better authority, and, according to my apprehension, in far better taste, than the more complex phraseology which some late writers adopt in its stead; as, "The books are now being sold."--"In all the towns about Cork, the whiskey shops are being closed, and soup, coffee, and tea houses [are] establishing generally."--Dublin Evening Post, 1840.
OBS. 3.--The question here is, Which is the most correct expression, "While the bridge was building,"--"While the bridge was a building,"--or, "While the bridge was being built?" And again, Are they all wrong? If none of these is right, we must reject them all, and say, "While they were building the bridge;"--"While the bridge was in process of erection;"--or resort to some other equivalent phrase. Dr. Johnson, after noticing the compound form of active-intransitives, as, "I am going"--"She is dying,"--"The tempest is raging,"--"I have been walking," and so forth, adds: "There is another manner of using the active participle, which gives it a passive signification:[266] as, The grammar is now printing, Grammatica jam nunc chartis imprimitur. The
