222 THEORT of the 



tence by means of the relative dont. Ne foit point le fruh\ 

 would, in the firft place, be bad French, and, in the next 

 place, would have been a very impertinent insinuation to 

 Louis XIV. as if his high wifdom had been fomehow contin- 

 gent, or hypothetical. But Boileau was not a man likely to 

 fall into either of thefe errors. 



On the fame principle, I prefume, the indicative mood is 

 Subjoined to the indicative, in the following paflage of the 

 Holy Scripture : Je fuis VEternel ton Dieu, qui f ai tire du 

 pais d' Egypt e, de la maifon de fervitude. The Subjunctive 

 mood, §hii V aye tire, would manifeftly be inelegant and in- 

 accurate in this place, where the Subjoined affirmation is pofi- 

 tive and certain. And for the fame reafon, we Should never 

 hefitate to exprefs the fame thought in Latin by the words, 

 Ego fum Dominus tuns Deus, qui eduxi te e terra JEgypti, e domo 

 fervitutisj and Should be fenSible of a grofs impropriety, if the 

 word eduxerim were Substituted for eduxi. 



But in innumerable inftances, wherein the fubjoined verb 

 expreSTes any thing uncertain, precarious, contingent, or de- 

 pendent on the will or power of another, it is put in the Sub- 

 junctive mood : hence this mood has, in all its tenfes, a fort of 

 affinity or relation to a future meaning. Still, however, great 

 latitude is allowed to writers, both in profe and verfe, and is 

 actually taken by the beft of them, in the ufe of the indicative 

 and of the Subjunctive moods ; as in the following inftances 

 from Virgil and Cicero. 



Quidfaciat last as fegetes, quo sidere terram 

 Vert ere, Maecenas, ulmijque adjungere vites 

 Conveniat: qvje cura Bourn, qui cultus habende 

 Sit pecori, apibus quanta experievlia parch , 

 Hinc canere incipia?n. 



Vos, 



