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to the prefent time, and which bears no other relation to the 
prefent, and whofe time therefore is the real preterperfect. Accord- 
ingly Dr. Clark has afligned to this office the tenfe ufually called 
the preterpluperfect ; but furely without authority, for that tenfe 
exprefles fomething more. The tenfe we want is only to denote 
that the action was paft and perfected at a time antecedent to 
the prefent. But the preterpluperfect is always ufed to fignify 
that the action was paft and perfected at a time antecedent alfo 
to a paft time, i. e. antecedent to fome given period or epocha paft, 
to.which we look back. He bud done it, fecerat, muft mean that 
he had done it before fome certain time or event paft, of which 
we have been fpeaking, and is fomething very different from 
faying, be uAs done it, Grammarians were therefore in this 
inflance right in calling it the preterpluperfect, as implying 
fomething more than the mere paft perfect. This tenfe then 
not anfwering our purpofe, it feems to me that we mutt have 
recourfe to the firft aorift, and that the original intention of the 
firft aorift was to exprefs the real preterperfect time of philofophic 
grammar. 
To confirm this by examples would be an endlefs tafk; the 
only method of proof that can be adopted, is that of referring 
the reader to the general ufe of this tenfe when it is not an in- 
definite. When it is ufed as a paft definite it can have but two 
meanings ; either that of an action entirely paft, or of an action 
which commenced at a time paft, and is ftill continuing. The 
latter meaning has been appropriated by the writers abovemen- 
tioned to the preteritum perfectum. It follows then of courfe 
that 
ah bao eee eee 
