Hieroglyphical Fragments. ^99 



; suggesting that the subjunctive mood ought always to be 

 considered as a conditional future. The exami)les given are, 

 ^ If the Elbe is now open, we shall soon have the ihails, and 

 then, if there be any news from the army, I will send it you im- 

 mediately." '^ If Catiline was generous, it was in order to 

 serve his ambition." The subjunctive past, if I were, becomes 

 present, by being the future of the past ; going back to the time 

 when the present was future, and therefore contingent ; and 

 this conditional sense involves no difficulty, except when a mis- 

 taken adherence to the fancied rules of grammar forces it in 

 where it has no business : thus the rules of some grammarians 

 would lead us to say, if Catiline were ambitious ; which is to- 

 tally contrary to the true sense of the subjunctive. Mr. Cob- 

 bett seems to have some such distinctions in view when he says 

 that " if has nothing at all to do with the government of the 

 verb. It is the sense which governs." By this he means that 

 if does not require a subjunctive unless is relates to a future 

 contingency. He is right in saying '* Though her chastity 

 is becoming, it gives her no claim to praise" : but most decid- 

 Mly wrong in adding ^* she would be criminal if she was not 

 chaste" ; for was is hei'e used as relating to the present cir- 

 cumstances, which are the future of the past, and therefore re-r 

 quire the subjunctive were to denote the condition intended. 

 He has, however, done signal justice to the cause of this injured 

 verb, by introducing it for was, in his sixth lesson, where he says 

 it should have been '* Your Lordship were apprized of every 

 important circumstance." 



Such errors as this, however, are easily corrected, and many 

 of the acute remarks which have been here copied are well 

 worthy the attention of practical grammarians ; at the same 

 time enough has been said, without any disparagement of 

 Cobbett's talents, to show that a man cannot be well qualified 

 to teach that which he has not had the means of properly learn- 

 ing. For although the English language appears at first sight 

 to be extremely simple and philosophical in its structure, it 

 has, in fact, been derived from a variety of heterogeneous 

 sources ; it has undergone a variety of vicissitudes, and has 

 served for the expression of a multiplicity of discussions on the 

 most refined subjeeia in literature and history and science, for 



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