"Did it rain to-morrow?" asked Monsieur Grenouille.
We propose the following as an _auxiliary mode_ of conjugating verbs:--"I love to roam on the crested foam, Thou lovest to roam on the crested foam, He loves to roam on the crested foam, We love to roam on the { 060}crested foam, Ye or you love to roam on the crested foam, They love to roam on the crested foam," &c.
The Auxiliary Verbs, too, are very useful when a peculiar emphasis is required: as, "I shall give you a drubbing!"
"It might" as the Quaker said to the Yankee, who wanted to know what his name might be; "it might be Beelzebub, but it is not."
Now we may as well say what we have to say about the conjugation of regular verbs active.
SECTION VI. THE CONJUGATION OF REGULAR VERBS ACTIVE.
Regular Verbs Active are known by their forming their imperfect tense of the indicative mood, and their perfect participle, by adding to the verb ed, or d only when the verb ends in e: as,
Here { 061}should follow the conjugation of the regular active verb, To Love; but we have already assigned a good reason for omitting it; besides which we have to say, that we think it a verb highly unfit for conjugation by youth, as it tends to put ideas into their heads which they would otherwise never have thought of; and it is moreover our opinion, that several of our most gifted poets may, with reason, have attributed the so unfortunate attachments which, though formed in early youth, served to embitter their whole lives, to the poison which they thus sucked in with the milk, so to speak, of their Mother Tongue, the Grammar.
We shall therefore dismiss Cupid, and he must look for other lodgings.
Verbs { 062}Passive are said to be regular, when their perfect participle is formed by the addition of d, or ed to the verb: as, from the verb "To bless," is formed the passive, "I am blessed, I was blessed, I shall be blessed," &c.
The conjugation of a passive verb is nothing more than the repetition of that of the auxiliary To Be, the perfect participle being added.
And now, having cut the regular verbs (as Alexander did the Gordian knot) instead of conjugating them, let us proceed to consider the
Irregular Verbs are those of which the imperfect tense and the perfect participle are _not_ formed by adding _d or ed_ to the verb: as,