222 THEORT of the 



tence by means of the relative dont. Ne foit point le fruity 

 would, in the firfl: place, be bad French, and, in the next 

 place, would have been a very impertinent infinuation to 

 Louis XIV. as if his high wifdom had been fomehow contin- 

 gent, or hypothetical. But BoiLEAU was not a man likely to 

 fall into either of thefe errors. 



On the fame principle, I prefunve, the indicative mood is 

 fubjoined to the indicative, in the following paflage of the 

 Holy Scripture : Je fids VEternel ton Dieii, qui f ai tire du 

 pais d^Egypte^ de la maifon de fervitude. The fubjundlive 

 mood, ^ti V AYE tire, would manifeftly be inelegant and in- 

 accurate in this place, where the fubjoined affirmation is pofi- 

 tive and certain. And for the fame reafon, we (hould never 

 hefitate to exprefs the fame thought in Latin by the words, 

 Ego fum Doviinus tints Deus, qui eduxi te e terra JEgypti^ e domo 

 fervitutis; and fliould be fenfible of a grofs impropriety, if the 

 word eduxerim were fubftituted for eduxi. 



But in innumerable inftances, wherein the fubjoined verb 

 expreffes any thing uncertain, precarious, contingent, or de- 

 pendent on the will or power of another, it is put in the fub- 

 jundlive mood : hence this mood has, in all its te/fes, a fort of 

 affinity or relation to a future meaning. Still, however, great 

 latitude is allowed to writers, both in profe and verfe, and is 

 adlually taken by the beft of them, in the ufe of the indicative 

 and of the fubjunftive moods ; as in the following inftances 

 irom Virgil and Cicero. 



Quid. T Aci AT Icetas fegetes, (^ o sideke terram 

 Vertere, Mcecenas, ulmijque adjungere vites 

 Conveniat: qu-s; cura £w/;//, qvi cvi^tvs habendo 

 Sit pecori, apibus quanta exptrieriia parcis, 

 JJinc canere incipiam. 



Vos, 



