HY 
: 
Led 
fize of words to the metre and ruthmos, But the queftion is, 
whether the aorifts are not in ftri&t propriety diftina, as to figni- 
fication, and were not meant originally to be fo, and even whe~ 
ther one of them may not have fignifications incommunicable to 
the other. 
I ruinx then it cannot efcape our obfervation that the firft 
aorift has much more frequently a definite meaning than the fe- 
cond. The fecond appears to me, in nine inftances out of ten, 
\ to be ufed indefinitely. He went, he rofé, he /poke, and all fimilar 
phrafes, are ufually expreffed in Greek in the fecond aorift, én, 
evecn, 27. ‘There is no difficulty in finding inftances to the con- 
trary; asin Tenth book of Homer, line 556, Neftor, fpeaking of 
the horfes of Rhefus, fays, I have never feen, nor have I obferved 
them before, enw io 28° evéyow. So AB{chines cont. Ctes, faying 
that even the man who had received no public money fhould yet ren- 
der anaccount, viz. that he had not received, and therefore not ex- 
pended, makes him fay, or’ cawEov, ov’ davmrhuce*. In thefe paffages "Ide 
C2 and 
“ And yet perhaps, without too much refinement, thefe might be tranflated, one 
definitely, the other indefinitely, at leaftin words if not in fenfe. I neither /aw, nor 
have I obferved. I neither recetved, nor have I expended, [Vide fec. 3, prefatory remarks.} 
Such diftin@ions are arbitrary, and therefore perhaps not generally noticed, yet 
they are not ufelefs, nor without beauty. Dr. Gregory, in a treatife on moods, 
in the laft Edinburgh tranfaGtions, takes notice of this very contraft, and ob- 
ferves ‘* that there is a precifion and beauty in this ufe of the fimple, contrafted with 
s* the compound paft tenfe, (e.g. the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away) not to 
“be attained in Latin, which would fay Dominus dedit, and Dominus abftulit; but 
“‘ attainable in Greek, by ufing the aorift for gave, and the preterperfe&t for hath 
“ taken away.” No, not according to my idea; but by ufing the. fecond aorift for 
gave, and the firft for Aath taken away. The contraft of the fecond aorifts bearing 
fuch poflible conftruction appears in every book and every line; but Dr. Gregory 
has given no example of the contraft he mentions, as Iremember. Perhaps, after all, 
, é the 
