a writer or speaker, is not the fenfe which good

ufe hath affigned to it.

CHAP. IV.

Some grammatical Doubts in regard to English Conftruction stated and examined.

BEFORE 1 difmifs this article altogether,

it will not be amifs to confider a little fome dubious points in conftruction, on which our critics appear not to be agreed.

ONE of the most eminent of them makes this remark upon the neuter verbs: "A neuter verb "cannot become a paffive. In a neuter verb "the agent and object are the fame, and can

not be feparated even in imagination; as in "the examples to fleep, to walk; but when the "verb is paffive, one thing is acted upon by "another, really or by fuppofition different "from it." To this is fubjoined in the margin the following note: "That fome neuter "verbs take a paffive form, but without a paf"five fignification, has been obferved above. "Here we speak of their becoming both in form * Short Introduction, &c. Sentences.

" and

" and fignification paffive, and fhall endeavour "further to illuftrate the rule by example. "To Split, like many other English verbs, has "both an active and a neuter fignification; ac

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cording to the former we fay, The force of "gunpowder split the rock; according to the "latter, The ship split upon the rock-and converting the verb active into a paffive, we may fay, The rock was fplit by the force of gunpowder; or, The ship was fplit upon the "rock. But we cannot fay with any propriety,

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turning the verb neuter into a paffive, The "rock was fplit upon by the fhip."

THIS author's reasoning, so far as concerns verbs properly neuter, is fo manifeftly juft, that it commands a full affent from every one that understands it. I differ from him only in regard to the application. In my apprehenfion, what may grammatically be named the neuter verbs, are not near fo numerous in our tongue as he imagines. I do not enter into the difference between verbs abfolutely neuter, and intranfitively active. I concur with him in thinking, that this diftinction holds more of metaphyfics than of grammar. But by verbs grammatically neuter, I mean fuch as are not followed either by an accufative,

I

cufative, or by a prepofition and a noun; for I take this to be the only grammatical criterion with us. Of this kind is the fimple and primitive verb to laugh; accordingly to fay he was laughed, would be repugnant alike to grammar and to fenfe. But give this verb a regimen, and fay, To laugh at, and you alter its nature, by adding to its fignification. It were an abuse of words to call this a neuter, being as truly a compound active verb in English, as deridere is in Latin, to which it exactly correfponds in meaning. Nor' doth it make any odds that the prepofition in the one language precedes the verb, and is conjoined with it, and in the other follows it, and is detached from it. The real union is the fame in both. Accordingly he was laughed at is as evidently good English, as derifus fuit is good Latin.

LET us hear this author himfelf, who, fpeaking of verbs compounded with a prepofition, fays expressly, "In English the prepofition is "more frequently placed after the verb, and fe

parate from it, like an adverb; in which fitu"ation it is no lefs apt to affect the sense of it, "and to give it a new meaning; and may ftill "be confidered as belonging to the verb, and a

*.part of it. As, to caft is to throw; but to caft "up, or to compute, an account, is quite a dif"ferent thing: thus, to fall on, to bear out, to "give over, &c." Innumerable examples might be produced, to fhow that fuch verbs have been always used as active or tranfitive compounds, call them which you please, and therefore as properly fufceptible of the paffive voice. I fhall produce only one authority, which, I am perfuaded, the intelligent reader will admit to be a good one. It is no other than this ingenious critic himself, and the paffage of his which I have in view will be found in the very quotation above made. "When the verb is paffive, one

thing is acted upon by another." Here the verb to act upon is undoubtedly neuter, if the verb to split upon be neuter in the expreflion cenfured; and converfely, the verb to split upon is undoubtedly active, if the verb to act upon be active in the paffage quoted. Nor can any thing be more fimilar than the conftruction. "One

thing is acted upon by another."

"is fplit upon by the thip."

"The rock

AFTER all, I am fenfible that the latter expreffion is liable to an exception, which cannot be made against the former. I therefore agree with the author in condemning it, but not in the rea

fon

The only

The active

fon of pronouncing this fentence.
reason that weighs with me is this.
fenfe of the fimple verb to Split, and the sense of
the compound to split upon, are, in such a phrase
as that above mentioned, apt to be confounded.
Nay, what is more, the falfe fenfe is that which
is first fuggefted to the mind, as if the rock and
not the ship had been split. And though the
fubfequent words remove the ambiguity, yet the
very hefitancy which it occafions, renders the ex-
preffion juftly chargeable, though not with fole-
cism, with what is perhaps worfe, obfcurity and
inelegance,

THAT we may be fatisfied, that this and no other is the genuine cause of cenfure, let us borrow an example from fome verb, which in the fimple form is properly univocal. To smile is fuch a verb, being a neuter, which, in its primitive and uncompounded ftate, never receives an active fignification; but to fmile on is with us, according to the definition given above, a compound active verb, juft as arridere, to which it

• I know that the verb arrideo is accounted neuter by Latin lexicographers. The reafon lies not in the fignification of the word, but purely in this circumftance, that it governs the dative and not the accufative. But with this diftinction we have no concern. That it is active in its import is evident from this, that it is ufed by good authors in the passive.

corre