[os Ul 
yield immediately to fome contrary inftances, which may be owing 
‘to inattention or poetic licenfe ; and I muft again recall the reader’s 
attention to this truth, that if fuch weight be given to contrary 
inftances, neither the interpretation given by Dr. Clark, and all 
the eminent Greek fcholars of this century, of the preterperfect, 
nor indeed any fyftem calculated to reduce the Greek tenfes, to fome 
certain and clear analogy, can be maintained. Nothing is more 
common than a primogenial and a vulgar ufe of words, of tenfes, 
moods, &c. Itis the cafe, as Dr. Clark has fhewn, with refpect to 
the preterperfe@. It is the cafe with refpe&t to the middie VOICE ; 
its primogenial ufe, as is univerfally acknowledged, is to mark a 
refle@ted ation, like! a reflex verb; yet how often is it ufed 
without any fuch poffible meaning? Why may not, in the fame 
manner, a primogenial fignification and ufe be granted to the firft 
aorift, though contrary inftances occur? The weight and number 
of inftances is to determine a 
Tue probability that the Greek language might entertain a 
diftin@ tenfe to denote what had lately or what had long fince 
happened, is augmented by our knowledge that they had a tenfe 
to exprefs what was foon to come. The nation that ufed a paz/o 
poft future might have a paulo antepretertt. Some circum 
ftances refpe@ting the French language may tend alfo to illuftrate 
and 
* In affuming this criterion I am fupported by Cafaubon, Vofhius, and Henry 
Stephens. Notwithftanding numberlefs oppofite inftances, they advanced an opinion 
that the firft aorift denoted a time lefs remote than the preterperfect did; this being 
an opinion dire€tly contrary to mine, I might be thought guilty of great prefump- 
tion, if Henry Stephens, from whom the opinion originated, had not latterly expreffed 
great doubts of its truth. 
