the desertion of strong verbs to the weak, and predicts the speedy surrender of the few yet loyal to the old flag. But a more thorough study of literature would have stayed the grief of the good Dean, and we should have been spared his gloomy prophecy. The indefatigable Lounsbury has ascertained (1) that there were over three hundred simple strong verbs in Anglo-Saxon; (2) that one hundred of these are not found in English at all; and (3) that more than one hundred of the remainder have gone over from the strong to the weak.

But he has also ascertained (1) that only twelve strong verbs in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales have since deserted to the weak; (2) that only four verbs, strong in the Tales, are both weak and strong now; (3) that only three, partially weak in the Tales, are now wholly weak; while (4) four, weak in the Tales, are strong now. And, comparing literature two hundred years later than the Chaucerian with our own, the Professor says, "Modern English has lost not a single one [strong verb] since the reign of Queen Elizabeth ;" and adds, "The present disposition of the language is not only to hold firmly to the strong verbs it already possesses, but . even to extend their number whenever possible.' And he adduces a few, as shine, strive, shake, and others, which, since 1600, have dropped ed in the preterite, and now form the tense by variation of the stem-vowel.

This, however, should be said, that new English verbs, from whatever source derived, form their past tense and past participle in ed as regularly as new nouns adds to form the plural. So that, while the weak conjugation is no longer recruiting itself from the strong, its numbers are slowly increasing.

XXVII. Changes in the Present and Past Tenses.-1. The

Third Person Indicative Singular.—In the third person singular indicative present of both conjugations the AngloSaxon (th), even before the Conquest, frequently softened to s in the North of England. But in Middle and Southern England the regular th was continued even during what is called the Middle English Period of our literature, 1350– 1550. Chaucer almost always uses this th, and the English Bible invariably. The s from the North gradually pushed its way, and, by the middle of the seventeenth century, became the prevailing form.

2. Dropping Final Letters.-After the Conquest the fashion obtained in verbs, as in nouns, of dropping the final n after the preceding a or o had softened into e. Then this e disappeared, first from pronunciation and then from the word; though in the infinitive and elsewhere it is still sometimes retained to show that the preceding vowel is long, as in bite, but more frequently lost, as in hear.

In the indicative plural present of both conjugations, the Anglo-Saxon termination, ath, eth, was continued in the South of England; but, throughout the central portion, en

-an intrusion of the subjunctive en, some think-became the established form. Modern English seized upon this en; and, discarding the n wholly and the e partially, "caused all the persons of the plural to assume the same form as the infinitive and the first person singular." And thus they stand to-day.

In the subjunctive the n and the e vanished as in the indicative.

3. The Imperative. The imperative was used in the second person, singular and plural. The plural ending ath, weakened to eth, was sometimes dropped, and the two numbers were often used interchangeably. This result may have

been hastened by the substitution of ye, afterward you, for thou in address. Later, the plural ending went out of use, as did the singular, when the verb had one, by the weakening of a to e and the disuse of e.

4. The Present Participle.-The Anglo-Saxon present participle of both conjugations ended in ende. The final e was dropped here, as elsewhere, and the end sometimes appeared in the North as and and in the South as ind. But there was a verbal noun in Anglo-Saxon in ung, afterwards ing. The meaning of this and of the present participle was the same, and the sameness of function brought about a sameness of form―ing.

per

5. Exceptional Preterites. The preterite of some weak verbs in Anglo-Saxon had, between the stem and the personal endings, either the connective o or ia, to which the full Teutonic connective aja had been reduced. When a connective e had been inserted between the stem and the sonal endings of verbs that did not have o or ia, and these two had in English weakened to e, then e became the general connective of the weak preterite. And when the don of the plural indicative had weakened to den, and the n of this mode and of the subjunctive plural den had disappeared, and the e preceding the n had also vanished, then ed became, as now, the full ending appended to the stem to form the weak preterite.

But if the e in the ed is not pronounced, this ed often has (1) the sound of t, as in kissed and looked; often (2) not, as in spoiled and spilled; often (3) the same verb has two forms and two sounds, as in spoiled and spoilt, spelled and spelt-the unpronounced e in the second form has fallen out, and the d, pronounced t, has become t. In some verbs (4) the ed is always a separate syllable, as in greeted and

lifted; in others (5) it is so sometimes, and sometimes has run down to t, as in builded and built, girded and girt. If the stem ends in d or t, and the e of ed is omitted, the d following (6) may go too; and so verbs with the same forms in the preterite, the infinitive, the first person singular, and the three persons of the plural indicative are found in English. Read, spread, and put illustrate this. All the forms are alike in pronunciation also; or, as in read, differ but slightly-read of the participle and preterite is pronounced

red.

6. The d of the Past Participle.—The d of the past participle is not, like the d of the preterite, from did. It is the t of the Indo-European suffix ta, changed to d. When, as detailed above, e became the general connective uniting the d to the stem of the verb, then the participle ending ed was precisely like that of the preterite. The changes that befell this ed befell that.

7. The en of Past Participles.—What has been said of the dropping of the final n and the preceding e does not hold rigorously of the en of the past participle strong. Many participles (1) retain it in full; as, beaten, fallen, spoken; some (2) retain the n and drop the e; as, drawn, flown, lain ; some (3) have two forms, one with the en and one without it; as, shrunken and shrunk, trodden and trod; and some (4) have dropped the en entirely; as, sprung, sung, and stung.

If, now, we carry back and apply to the paradigms at the head of this chapter what has been said of the softening of the other vowels to e, and of the dropping of this e and the consonants, we shall see that the Anglo-Saxon verb has been nearly stripped of its inflections in becoming English, and presents us now little else than its bare stem.

The inflections remaining are the est of the second

person indicative present singular; the s of the third person; the ed of the weak preterite throughout; the st added to this ed in the second person singular; the ed of the past participle weak; the ing of the participle present; and the en or n of the strong participle past.)

XXVIII. Some Changes not Noted in the Paradigms.1. The Anglo-Saxon Gerund.-A form of the AngloSaxon infinitive ended in anne or enne. This, thought to be the dative case of the infinitive, was called a gerund, and was employed mainly to indicate purpose. It was always preceded by the preposition to. Dropping the second n and the final e, this gerund reduced to the form of the ordinary infinitive. When, dropping the n remaining, the Anglo-Saxon infinitive came into English, the to, hitherto found before it only when the infinitive was a gerund, was extended to the infinitive in all its uses, and so we find it today. When the idea of purpose had to be conveyed by the infinitive, it became usual to prefix for to the to. For to with the infinitive is often found in Elizabethan literature.

Which for to prevent I have in quick determination thus set it down. -Ham. III. 1, 162. What went ye out for to see ?-Luke vii. 24. Keeper, you are irreligious for to talk and cavil thus.-Thackeray.

Except in such playful lines as these of Thackeray's, for to is wholly inadmissible now.

2. Double Preterite Forms.-Nearly four-fifths of all the strong verbs in English had in Anglo-Saxon a stemvowel, in the first and third persons indicative preterite, unlike that of the three persons in the plural. This distinction between the two persons of the singular and the three of the plural had largely given way in Chaucer's time. The singular stem had supplanted the plural; the plural, the singular; or both were used indiscriminately.