‘old doctrine. 
M42 
stands unrivalled. This being the case, 
it ought to be considered a fortunate cir- 
cumstance for literature, that there does 
exist one work, your own, possessing a 
far more extensive circulation, in which 
its Jejune criticisms may be fairly and de- 
servedly exposed.—In the article of the 
Review, to which I have alluded, the cri- 
tic betrays a flagrant ignorance of gram- 
mar and of grammars, for his knowledge 
does not appear to extend beyond Dr. 
Valpy’s and the Westminster grammar. 
So circumscribed an acquaintance with 
the language may, perhaps, suit the li- 
mited sphere of the British Critic ; but, 
in the judgment of the learned, it must 
infalibly render him a laughingstock to 
British critics. Having thus far spoken 
in general terms, I shall now proceed to 
particular evidence. 
ist. The reviewer observes, that the 
author of the work “ injudiciously retains 
the old doctrine, and forms the participle 
fof Latin ab from the supine, not the 
supine from the participle.” ‘There is 
certainly more novelty than wisdum in 
this remark. The old doctrine as the 
reviewer terms it, is, I can venture to 
assert without the fear of contradiction, 
almost the universal doctrine of the na- 
tion. If he had looked a httle farther 
into Dr. Valpy’s grammar, which is one 
of the latest, he would have found that 
4e also is so injudicious as to retain the 
‘The new doctrine 15 evi- 
dentiy productive of confusion, and con- 
trary to analogy. It contounds the ac- 
tive with the passive voice; for, whatever 
may be the origin of the supines, the first 
as.commmonly acknowledged to be active, 
and the second, either active or passive, 
but generally the latter; whereas, the 
perfect participle, although it may -have 
originally had both an active and a pas- 
sive siguification, is, generally, considered 
to be passive. The reviewer seems also 
to forget that the passive voice is. itself 
usually formed from the active; a mode 
which is certainly consonant with the 
mature of things, since action is necessa- 
ness,” p. 641, instead of ** We would de- 
tract #éither from his fame ner. his usefulness,” 
or ‘© We would not detract either frem his 
fzme or his usefulness.” A stranger, a more 
gonfused, or a more inharmontous sentence 
than the following, never, I believe, came 
from the pen of a critic:—‘* It is evident 
enough that the author is. not friendly to the 
church 3 but for the rest we should suppose 
that he is indifferent. to, a//. sects, and thinks 
that the hest way. is for al/.to proceed at plea- 
gare, regardless of al/ the rest,” Dp» Boe 
Mr. Grani, on the 
[March I, 
Fily antecedent to passion, But, accord- 
ing to the new plan, a part of the active 
voice must be formed from the passive. 
‘Let the British Critic, however, be allow- 
ed to state his reasons for the superior 
propriety of the new method.—* John- 
son’s Grammatical Commentaries might 
have shewn the author how few Latin 
verbs, comparatively, have ascertained 
and exemplified supines; and the West- 
minsterGrammar,which he often copies— 
[this is not true], might have told hun, 
that they were more properly to be con- 
sidered as verbal nouns, of only two 
cases. 
Et verbalia in -um, -u, que wulgo dictasus 
pina.” 
Whether the supine be a verbal noun 
or not, and whether it do ordo not exist 
so often as the participles usually said to 
be formed from it, ace circumstances of 
no consequence in regard to the mechani- 
cal process of formation, for the conve- 
nience of which even an active voice is 
oiten supposed, as in forming deponents 
and commons, the termination o being 
properly deemed tie root of both voices, 
or the part whence the perfect, supine, 
and infinitive, and ail the other parts, 
are formed immediately or mediately. - 
It is almost unnecessary to add, since 
every school-boy knows it, that Latin 
Dictionaries. particulanse the present, 
the preterite, the supine, and the infin- 
tive, for no other reason, than that these 
are acknowledged as the primary parts 
of the verb. But, if the supine’s being 
a verbal noun is to be regarded as a rea- 
son for not deeming it a primary part, we 
must, upon the same principle, exclude 
the infinitive also, which the critic does 
not seem to know is nothing else but a 
verbal noun, nomen verbi. Nay, follow- 
ing the reviewer's new doctrine, we must 
yet go further; we must exclude even 
bis favourite, the perfect participle; for 
what is this but a verbal noun? It is evi- 
dent, therefore, that, according to the 
principles of the British Critic, strictly 
followed, we shall be compelled to form 
all the parts from only the present and 
the pereterite; but this is a mode, to 
which, I am inclined to: think, that he 
will gain but few proselytes. There are, 
indeed, much uncertainty and obscurity 
in discussions relative to the origin and 
nature both of supines and ‘gerunds ; 
and, were we to draw any practical in- 
ference from Mr. R. Johnson’s limited 
lists of supines, we should have to ex- 
clude, from the paradigms of our gram-=_ 
mars, the supings of amo, mengo, and rego, 
tor 
