208 THEOKT of the 



The cafe of the moods of verbs is exactly parallel to that of 

 their tenfes, which is very accurately pointed out and happily 

 illuftrated by the learned author of the treatife on the Origin 

 and Progrefs of Language. 



Almost every language has its own advantages and difad- 

 vantages in the expreffing of the various divifions and relations 

 of time 5 but the conception of thefe divifions and relations of 

 time mud be the fame in all mankind. So it is with the conception 

 and the expreflion of moods or energies, and indeed with the 

 conception of every thing elfe which can be expreffed by verbs, 

 or by any other words. As in one of his own inftances : " The 

 " Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blefTed be the 

 " name of the Lord." There is a precifion and a beauty in this 

 ufe of the fimple contrafted with the compound paft tenfe, which 

 cannot be attained in Latin. Dominus dedit, et Dominus 

 abstulit ; beneditlum fit nomen Domini. But it might be at- 

 tained in Greek, by ufing the aorift for gave, and the preter- 

 perfect for hath taken away. On looking into the Septuagint, 

 I do net, however, find that this delicacy of expreflion has been 

 attempted. But the genius of the Greek language has led the 

 translators to another nicety and propriety of expreflion, which 

 cannot be attained in any other language, nor indeed explained 

 without a circumlocution : 'O Kvgio; sk», o Kvgiog aQu'huro- htj 

 to ovopa Kvgiov ivXoytipsvov. In this paflage, etiuxev is the aorift of 

 the active voice of the verb fignifying to give; cc<peiXotro is the 

 aorift of the middle voice of the verb fignifying to take away. 

 The Greek fentence therefore exprefTes, The Lord gave, the 

 Lord took away to himfelf, took back to himfelf, or (imply took 

 back. Dominus dedit, Dominus recepit. If the Greek verb 

 aQeugew had a preterperfect middle, and if this tenfe of the 

 middle voice had, like moft other parts of the middle verb, a 

 kind of reciprocal or reflected meaning, on which points I dare 

 not prefume to decide, but muft leave them to the judgment 

 of grammarians, it would be poflible to exprefs in Greek both 



the 



