MOODS of VERBS. 197 



I suspect therefore forne inaccuracy in the learned author's 

 manner of exprefling himfelf, when he fays in one page, (161) 

 that moods are effential to verbs, and in the next page remarks 

 that the infinitive is not a mood. This would imply, that a 

 verb, when put in the infinitive, ceafed to be a verb ; which 

 he does not exprefsly fay, though he comes very near to it, in 

 the following words : " As to the infinitive, I hold it to be no 

 " mood, though it be commonly called fo ; becaufe it expreffes 

 " no energy of the mind of the fpeaker, but fimply the action" 

 (he fhould certainly have faid more generally the accident, as in 

 ejfe, valere, or cadere) " of the verb, with the addition of time. 

 " It is therefore ufed, either as a noun, or it ferves to connect 

 " the verb with another verb, or a noun, and fo is ufeful in, 

 M fyntax." But ftill I would afk, When it is ufed in thefe or 

 other ways, and is accordingly ufeful in fyntax, does it bona 

 fide ceafe to be a verb ? I own I do not think it does ; for this 

 reafon, that the thought expreffed by means of the infinitive, 

 may be expreffed in fynonymous and convertible phrafes, in 

 different languages, by means of other parts or moods of the 

 verb. " To be or not to.be, that is the queftion," is equivalent 

 in meaning, though fuperior in fimplicity, beauty and force of 

 expreffion, to " The queftion is, whether we fhall be or fhali 

 " not be." 



Nee quicquam tibi prodeft 



Aerias tentasse domos, animoque rotundum 

 percurrisse polum, morituro. 



Nee quicquam tibi prodeft quod aerias domos tent aver is, et 

 animo percurreris polum. 



Moreover, it muft be taken into confideration, that the 

 infinitive not only appears as the nomen verbi, (which fome 

 have called it) but expreffes fully the accident of the verb, whe- 

 ther this be mere exiftence, or ftate, or event, or intranfitive ac- 

 tion, or tranfitive action, that is, action with relation of vari- 

 ous 



