[i er 
that the former belongs to the firft aorift. Exceptions * to the 
general rule cannot be allowed to fubvert it, for if fo the multi- 
tude of exceptions + to Dr. Clark’s and his followers eftablifhed 
interpretation of the preterperfeét muft overthrow his fyftem. 
The one feems equally {trong with the other. 
Have I explained my argument clearly? it is, that a peculiar 
fignification having been proved inthe preterperfe@, vulgarly fo 
called, viz. that of a continuing aQion, and there being a phi- 
lofophic time belonging to an action quite paft, and not now 
continued, there ought in vulgar grammar to be a tenfe exprefling 
fuch atime, and in Greek no tenfe can be found applicable to 
it but the firft aorift, which undoubtedly often expreffes a paft 
definite of fome kind or other, and therefore, without any force 
or violence, naturally falls into that place. When it expreflesa 
paft definite, it muft mean either an action quite paft, or partly paft, 
but ftill continuing. In the latter meaning it would be confound- 
"ed with the preterperfect, from which danger Dr. Clark has refcued 
itfor me. It remains therefore clear that the former mutt be its 
meaning { 
THE 
*JIn the two: firft words of Xenophon’s Memorables, is an exception, HOAAAKIZ 
iSatuaca,, where the furprife of. Kenophon certainly had not ceafed. But fuch excep 
tions are few. A 
‘ 
+ That fuch exceptions are numerous may eafily be feen, by cafting the eye over the 
firft twenty pages of Demofthenes de Corona, where the preterperfe& tenfe is very 
frequently ufed, not in Dr, Clark’s fenfe. 
{ Tt will be faid here that I have been employed in diftinguifhing the firft aorift 
from the preterperfect, and not from the fecond; and it will be afked, how does it 
appear 
