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it had a root of its own independently of them, it established itself upon the ruins of reduplication, and within its overgrowth it has enclosed enough of the old unreduced stuff to guide the analytic and reconstructive eye of modern Philology.

2. MIXED VERBS.

287. The second class of verbs are those which may conveniently be called Mixed, because they unite in themselves the characters of the first and third classes.

Some critics would deny them the distinction of being a class at all. There are (say they) but two principles at work in the verb-flexions; namely, internal change and external addition. And this is the fact. But then, the variety of relations in which two systems are ranged may easily give rise to a third series of conditions. When the sun peers through the foliage of an aged oak, it produces on the ground those oval spots of dubious light which the poet has called a mottled shade. Each oval has its own outline, and its own particular degree of luminousness; but where two of them overlap each other a third condition of light is induced. Such an overlapping is this sample of mixed verbs, a compromise between the strong and the weak.

288. In the formation of the preterite, they suffer both internal vowel-change, and also external addition. They form the participle in T or D. Such are the following:

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1 In a few instances, such as dealt, heard, meant, read (preterite), the ordinary spelling has been departed from in order to exhibit to the eye as well as to the ear that there is a change in the internal vowel.

Remarks on the Forms signed with an Asterisk.

289. fet. Baker's Northamptonshire Glossary, v. Fet. Fought, participle. It occurs in Congreve's Way of the World, iv. 4, where Sir Wilfull Witwoud says to Millamant —

I made bold to see, to come and know if that how you were disposed to fetch a walk this evening, if so be that I might not be troublesome, I would have fought a walk with you.-Ed. Tonson, 1710.

lad. Spenser, Faery Queene, iv. 8. 2.

plad. Chaucer, Prologue, 532.

But it is now a

Ought is historically the preterite of owe. preterite only in form it is a present in its ordinary usage as an auxiliary. The present owe has not accompanied the preterite in its transition to this moral and semi-symbolic use. When the old preterite had deserted the service of the verb owe in its original sense, that verb supplied itself with a new preterite of the modern type, owed. The distinction between ought the old preterite, and owed the new preterite, is now quite established, and no confusion happens. But the reader of our old poets should observe that ought once did duty for both these senses. In the following from Spenser, the modern usage would require owed:

Now were they liegmen to this Ladie free,

And her knights service ought, to hold of her in fee.

The Faery Queene, iii. 1. 44.

red. Spenser, Faery Queene, iv. 8. 29.

spet. The Saxon form is spætan, spætte; whereby we see that Shakspeare's spet is more genuine than the modern 'to spit.'

290. Stood. That passing of strong verbs over into the ranks of the weak, which was the subject of remark in the last section, is often due to mere gregariousness, or the common human proneness to follow with the greatest numbers. But here we may quote an instance in which a like change belongs rather to an active than to a passive movement. In the sixteenth century there sprang up the form 'understanded,' and this form associated itself in a

marked manner with the contention of the time to have a Bible and Liturgy 'understanded of the people.' Thus a weak form was temporarily substituted for a mixed form, not by way of negligence, but by the emphasis of resolute self-assertion.

Wot, though it has been used as a present tense from remote times, is really an ancient preterite of an old strong verb witan; and so far resembles the case of ought, except that wot is of far higher antiquity. It is in fact one of the ancient præterito-præsentia, of which mention will presently be made.

Wist is sometimes referred to a present I wis. See the explanation above, 256.

Wist the participle is more rare: it occurs in the phrase 'had I wist,' which see below, chap. xi. sect. iii.

291. These frontier verbs are a small class; and they do not admit of addition to their numbers any more than the strong verbs. They would seem to have been mostly the growth of a limited period; that, namely, wherein the transition of habit was taking place from the strong to the weak methods of conjugation.

But, insignificant as this class is in point of numbers, it contains within it a small batch of verbs of very high importance. It contains all those verbs which are commonly known as Auxiliaries. And these are little less than the whole remainder of symbolic verbs, after the two already mentioned in the previous section, which may be called the primary symbol verbs, namely, be and worth. The very fact that so well-marked a group of words is contained within this division of Mixed Verbs, offers a justification of the division.

These help-verbs are a very ancient group of so-called præterito-præsentia, that is to say, they are former preterites of strong verbs, which have taken a present-tense signifi

cation, and from this point making a fresh start, have thrown out new preterites of the weak type. This is the history of all in the subjoined column, except the last.

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These verbs, it will be seen, are destitute of participles; and this is merely because they have dropped off through disuse. In like manner, and from the same cause, few of them have infinitives. Indeed, none of them have infinitives of symbolic use. As symbolics, it has been their function to serve the participles and infinitives of other verbs, and to have none of their own. We can indeed say 'to will' and 'to dare'; but in neither instance would the sense or the tone of the word be the same as when we say, 'it will rain,' or 'I dare say.'

292. þEARF, thar, þORFTE. This verb has been supplanted by such phrases as it behoveth, it needs, there is ground for, call for. Even in Chaucer, it is used less as of the poet's own speech, than as the set words of a proverb or old traditional saw :

And therfore this proverb is seyd ful soth,
Him thar nat weene wel that yuel doth.

Canterbury Tales, 4317.

That is to say -'It is not for him that doeth evil, to indulge flattering expectations'; or,' He that doeth evil needn't fancy all right.'

293. May has long been without an infinitive, but there was one as late as the sixteenth century, in the form mowe.

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