leaving.

Cæsar spent his winters at Lucca without leaving his province.-E. A. Freeman, Essays, vii. p. 166.

580 d. A very good illustration of our point is furnished by sentences of the varying type in which the infinitiveregnant with to confronts the flexional infinitive :

It is quite possible for you to carry your point, without gaining your end. But talking is not always to converse.

W. Cowper, Conversation, 7.

Where the case is so plain, it is not for the dignity of this house to inquire instead of acting.--February 11, 1870.

To select a First Lord of the Admiralty is something like appointing the Captain of a ship.-March 14, 1876.

When there are a great many infinitives to be expressed, it is here as elsewhere the delight of our language to have the means of avoiding monotony by variation; as—

But it is clear that, as society goes on accumulating powers and gifts, the one hope of society is in men's modest and unselfish use of them; in simplicity and nobleness of spirit increasing, as things impossible to our fathers become easy and familiar to us; in men caring for better things than money and ease and honour; in being able to see the riches of the world increase and not set our hearts upon them; in being able to admire and forego.-R. W. Church, Sermons, ii. (1868).

580 e. A case that deserves a place apart is that of being and having when they enter into composite infinitives, active or passive :

The present apparent hopelessness of a really Ecumenical Council being assembled.-John Keble, Life, p. 425.

In the next piece it would be allowable to substitute to have heard for having heard:

I recollect having heard the noble lord the member for Tiverton deliver in this House one of the best speeches I ever listened to. On that occasion the noble lord gloried in the proud name of England, and, pointing to the security with which an Englishman might travel abroad, he triumphed in

the idea that his countrymen might exclaim, in the spirit of the ancient Roman, Civis Romanus sum.-John Bright, Speeches, 1853.

At the close of the following quotation it would mean the same, and be equally correct, if 'being' were put in the place of to be:

I did not show all my dissatisfaction, however, for that would only have estranged us; and it is not required, nay, it may be wrong, to show all you feel or think: what is required of us is, not to show what we do not feel or think; for that is to be false.-George MacDonald, Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood, ch. xii.

In the early days of the infinitive with to it was sometimes pushed (like a new toy) beyond the sphere since allotted to it, and we find it in places where the present language would render it by the infinitive in -ing. Spenser has

For not to have been dipt in Lethe lake

Could save the son of Thetis from to die;

which in plain English would run somewhat thus:- -'His having-been-dipped in Lethe could not save Achilles from

dying.'

580 f. The expression in the following line is certainly condensed, and the grammar by no means explicit, but I should be curious to know by what process of thought the word writing could be accepted in any other character than that of an infinitive :

Nature's chief master-piece is writing well.

Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism, 725.

The expression 'about doing anything' is not generally approved by grammarians, yet it is met with in authors of repute :

Mrs. Wilson smiled, and, addressing herself to Mrs. Benson, said, Now, madam, we will, if you please, return to the house; for I fancy by this time dinner is nearly ready, and my husband and sons are about coming home.— Mrs. Trimmer, Fabulous Histories, ch. xx.

He was about retracing his steps, when he was suddenly transfixed to the spot by a sudden appearance.-Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers, ch. xxiii.

The aversion which there is to this particular expression might perhaps be modified if the verb in -ing were acknowledged to be an infinitive. I apprehend that the ground of the objection to all such terms of expression as 'before coming,' 'since leaving,' is that under the participial hypothesis the logical sentiment is dissatisfied.

580 g. The German scholar will hardly require to have the reality of this old infinitive urged upon him, if he marks how often the German infinitive can only be rendered by the English verb in -ing.

Luther.

Auch haben sie mich nicht gefunden im Tempel mit jemand reden, oder einen Aufruhr machen im Volk,

1611.

And they neither found me in the Temple disputing with any man, neither raising vp the people,— Acts xxiv. 12.

There are some English constructions in which this infinitive stands out in as unequivocal a character as a German or a Latin infinitive could do. Such is the case with attempting in the following extract:—

I am not sure that it is of very much use attempting to define exactly what is meant by Honouring parents.-R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 125.

The really dubious cases are those which arise from the natural contiguity of the infinitive to the noun-substantive. In fact these two may blend so closely as to defy all attempts at a line of demarcation. I will therefore only say, that in such instances as the following I think the meaning is better apprehended by regarding them as verb-substantives, that is to say, infinitives.

Amend therfore, and ye that be prelates loke well to your office, for right prelatynge is busye labourynge and not lordyng.-Hugh Latimer, The Ploughers, 1549.

580 h. While we are on this flexional infinitive, I must call attention to one of the finest of our provincialisms. It is when this infinitive is used as something between active and passive, as if it were a neutral voice, like the so-called middle voice in Greek. In all classes of society in Yorkshire it may be heard; as, 'Do you want the tea making,' 'I want my coat brushing,' 'Father wants the door shutting.'1

We may well contend for the infinitival character of this -ing, if only to rescue from the wreck of our old flexional system some time-honoured relic. The English language has divested itself of flexion to a most remarkable degree, and we should be all the more solicitous to render justice

1 In the prospectus of a projected almanack which was circulated in November 1869, and which was dated from Darwen, Lancashire, it is said that 'The miscellaneous matter on the other pages of the almanack treats of topics which the clergy are likely to want prominently placing before their parishioners.' We may regret the loss of this Yorkshire idiom, for we lack a middle verb-a verb neither active nor passive. The French have managed it in their reflex verbs, as se marier, and the Italians thus, maritarsi: which goes into English either by an active or passive. Je veux me marier' may either be turned 'I will marry' or 'I intend to be married.' The nearest approach to a distinct provision for a middle verb is that which has already been touched on above, 299-'I mean to get married.'

to the tenacity of such forms as still remain. The steady eye may now and then restore some ancient outline which has been all but eclipsed by the superficial pattern of new device.

3. OF SYNTAX BY SYMBOLIC WORDS.

581. The most convenient plan for this section will be the division into the symbolism of the verb and the symbolism of the noun. This division will prove convenient from a historical point of view. For that explicitness of syntax which we have acquired by the development of symbolism, is drawn partly from the Gothic and partly from the Roman source. It may be said, speaking in general terms, that the explicit verb has come to us from the Saxon, and the explicit noun from the French.

In the previous section the noun was taken first and the verb second; but here the order is reversed, and thus the treatment of the verb is continuous.

The Explicit Verb.

The most signal symbol-verb 'to be.' acquired its symbolic value, we may say that the reign of flexion was doomed. Not that it is the universal solvent of flexion, but it has been the chief means of undermining it in its own favourite stronghold, the verb. We are told by Sanskrit scholars that this symbol is found in the oldest Sanskrit monuments, and that none of the Aryan languages are without it. But if we compare its functions now in the great languages of Europe with those which it had in Greek and Latin, we shall find that the agency of this verb TO BE

example of a symbolic word is the From the moment that this verb had