not always be very nice in choosing between them. For the sake of variety, however, if for nothing else, it is to be hoped, the doctrine above-cited, which limits half our passive verbs of the present tense, to the progressive form only, will not soon be generally approved. It impairs the language more than unco-passives are likely ever to corrupt it.
OBS. 18.--"No startling novelties have been introduced," says the preface to the "Analytical and Practical Grammar of the English Language." To have shunned all shocking innovations, is only to have exercised common prudence. It is not pretended, that any of the Doctor's errors here remarked upon, or elsewhere in this treatise, will startle any body; but, if errors exist, even in plausible guise, it may not be amiss, if I tell of them. To suppose every verb or participle to be either "transitive" or "intransitive," setting all passives with the former sort, all neuters with the latter; (p. 59;)--to define the transitive verb or participle as expressing always "an act DONE by one person or thing to another;" (p. 60;)--to say, after making passive verbs transitive, "The object of a transitive verb is in the objective case," and, "A verb that does not make sense with an objective after it, is intransitive;" (p. 60;)--to insist upon a precise and almost universal identity of "meaning" in terms so obviously contrasted as are the two voices, "active" and "passive;" (pp. 95 and 235;)--to allege, as a general principle, "that whether we use the active, or the passive voice, the meaning is the same, except in some cases in the present tense;" (p. 67;)--to attribute to the forms naturally opposite in voice and sense, that sameness of meaning which is observable only in certain whole sentences formed from them; (pp. 67, 95, and 235;)--to assume that each "VOICE is a particular form of the verb," yet make it include two cases, and often a preposition before one of them; (pp. 66, 67, and 95;)--to pretend from the words, "The PASSIVE VOICE represents the subject of the verb as acted upon," (p. 67,) that, "According to the DEFINITION, the passive voice expresses, passively, the same thing that the active does actively;" (p. 235;)--to affirm that, "'Cæsar conquered Gaul,' and 'Gaul was conquered by Cæsar,' express precisely the same idea,"--and then say, "It will be felt at once that the expressions, 'Cæsar conquers Gaul,' and 'Gaul is conquered by Cæsar,' do not express the same thing;" (p. 235;)--to deny that passive verbs or neuter are worthy to constitute a distinct class, yet profess to find, in one single tense of the former, such a difference of meaning as warrants a general division of verbs in respect to it; (ib.;)--to announce, in bad English, that, "In regard to this matter [,] there are evidently Two CLASSES of verbs; namely, those whose present-passive expresses precisely the same thing, passively, as the active voice does actively, and those in which it does not:" (ib.;)--to do these several things, as they have been done, is, to set forth, not "novelties" only, but errors and inconsistencies.
OBS. 19.--Dr. Bullions still adheres to his old argument, that being after its own verb must be devoid of meaning; or, in his own words, "that is being built, if it mean anything, can mean nothing more than is built, which is not the idea intended to be expressed."--Analyt. and Pract. Gram., p. 237. He had said, (as cited in OBS. 5th above,) "The expression, 'is being,' is equivalent to is, and expresses no more; just as, 'is loving,' is equivalent to 'loves.' Hence, 'is being built,' is precisely equivalent to 'is built.'"--Principles of E. Gram., p. 58. He has now discovered "that there is no progressive form of the verb to be, and no need of it:" and that, "hence, there is no such expression in English as is being."--Analyt. and Pract. Gram., p. 236. He should have noticed also, that "is loving" is not an authorized "equivalent to loves;" and, further, that the error of saying "is being built," is only in the relation of the first two words to each other. If "is being," and "is loving," are left unused for the same reason, the truth may be, that is itself, like loves, commonly denotes "continuance;" and that being after it, in stead of being necessary or proper, can only be awkwardly tautologous. This is, in fact, THE GRAND OBJECTION to the new phraseology--"is being practised"--"am being smitten"--and the like. Were there no danger that petty writers would one day seize upon it with like avidity, an other innovation, exactly similar to this in every thing but tense--similar in awkwardness, in tautology, in unmistakeableness--might here be uttered for the sake of illustration. Some men conceive, that "The perfect participle is always compound; as, having seen, having written;"--and that the simple word, seen or written, had originally, and still ought to have, only a passive construction. For such views, they find authorities. Hence, in lieu of the common phrases, "had we seen," "we have written," they adopt such English as this; "Had we having seen you, we should have stopped."--"We have having written but just now, to our correspondent." Now, "We are being smitten," is no better grammar than this;--and no worse: "The idea intended" is in no great jeopardy in either case.
OBS. 20.--J. R. Chandler, of Philadelphia, in his Common School Grammar of 1847, has earnestly undertaken the defence of this new and much-mooted passive expression: which he calls "the Definite Passive Voice," or "the Passive Voice of the Definite Form." He admits it, however, to be a form that "does not sound well,"--a "novelty that strikes the ear unpleasantly;" but he will have the defect to be, not in the tautologous conceit of "is being," "was being," "has been being," and the like, but in everybody's organ of hearing,--supposing all ears corrupted, "from infancy," to a distaste for correct speech, by "the habit of hearing and using words ungrammatically!"--See p. 89. Claiming this new form as "the true passive," in just contrast with the progressive active, he not only rebukes all attempts "to evade" the use of it, "by some real or supposed equivalent," but also declares, that, "The attempt to deprive the transitive definite verb of [this] its passive voice, is to strike at the foundation of the language, and to strip it of one of its most important qualities; that of making both actor and sufferer, each in turn and at pleasure, the subject of conversation."--Ibid. Concerning equivalents, he evidently argues fallaciously; for he urges, that the
