4. To make the jacket sit yet more closely to the body, it was gathered at the middle by a broad leathern belt.
5. He had set up no unattainable standard of perfection.
6. For more than two hundred years his bones lay undistinguished.
7. The author laid the whole fault on the audience.
8. Dapple had to lay down on all fours before the lads could bestride him.
9. And send'st him...to his gods where happy lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth:--there let him lay.
10. Achilles is the swift-footed when he is sitting still.
11. It may be laid down as a general rule, that history begins in novel, and ends in essay.
12. I never took off my clothes, but laid down in them.
262. Verbals are words that express action in a general way, without limiting the action to any time, or asserting it of any subject.
Verbals may be participles, infinitives, or gerunds.
263. Participles are _adjectival_ verbals; that is, they either belong to some substantive by expressing action in connection with it, or they express action, and directly modify a substantive, thus having a descriptive force. Notice these functions.
[Sidenote: _Pure participle in function._]
1. At length, _wearied_ by his cries and agitations, and not _knowing_ how to put an end to them, he addressed the animal as if he had been a rational being.--DWIGHT.
Here _wearied_ and _knowing_ belong to the subject _he_, and express action in connection with it, but do not describe.
[Sidenote: _Express action and also describe._]
2. Another name glided into her petition--it was that of the _wounded_ Christian, whom fate had placed in the hands of bloodthirsty men, his _avowed_ enemies.--SCOTT.
Here _wounded_ and _avowed_ are participles, but are used with the same adjectival force that _bloodthirsty_ is (see Sec. 143, 4).
Participial adjectives have been discussed in Sec. 143 (4), but we give further examples for the sake of comparison and distinction.
[Sidenote: _Fossil participles as adjectives._]
3. As _learned_ a man may live in a cottage or a college commmon-room.--THACKERAY
4. Not merely to the soldier are these campaigns _interesting_ --BAYNE.
5. How _charming_ is divine philosophy!--MILTON.
264. Participles, in expressing action, may be active or passive, incomplete (or imperfect), complete (perfect or past), and perfect definite.