"Many verbs form both the preterite tense and the preterite participle irregularly."Ib., p. 28.

Sentences (inflect forms if necessary; for example, use the past tense, participle, or infinitive of a verb instead of its present tense): It was into law.

"were is a neuter verb, of the indicative mood, imperfect tense.

A strict dissenter saying grace, A lecturer preaching for a place, Folks, things prophetic to dispense, Making the past the future tense, The popish dubbing of a priest, Fine epitaphs on knaves deceased.

Second, That the subjective mood, to which he himself had previously given all the tenses without inflection, is not different in form from the indicative, except in the present tense.

"The rules concerning the perfect tenses and supines of verbs are Lily's.

Say, "has been declared;" for "preference" is here the nominative, and Dr. Priestley himself recognizes no other subjunctive tenses than the present and the imperfect; as, "If thou love, If thou loved."Ib., p. 16.

"The auxiliary and principal united, constitute a tense.

The distance you are at, cuts up tenses by the root.

A few, like Latham and Child, denying all the compound tenses to be tenses, acknowledge only the first two, the present and the past; and these they will have to consist only of the simple or radical verb and the simple preterit.

Some suppose the compound or participial form, as I am writing, to be more definite in time, than the simple form, as I write, or the emphatic form, as I do write; and accordingly they divide all the tenses into Indefinite and Definite.

She shrank away as she felt the tensing of his arm and was conscious of the contact of his rag-clothed body.

"There is no language so poor, but it hath two or three past tenses."Ib., p. 82.

This word probably needs its past tense and participle to be securely fixed before it will be used.

le! The sea had cooled the burning of that brain; Had laid to rest those limbs so fever-tense, That scarce relaxed in sleep; and now she lies Sleeping the sleep that follows after pain. 'Twas one night more of agony and fear, Of shrinking from the onset of the sea; One cry of desolation, when her fear Became a fact, and then,God knows the rest.

So, between these two authors, our verbs will retain no tenses at all.

And as the red-faced sinner stammered out the tenses, the Rector would make a tube of his left hand into which he poked his right thumb.

Hence it is obvious that the term Imperfect has no other applicability to the English tense so called, than what it may have derived from the participle in ing, which we use in translating the Latin imperfect tense: as, Dormiebam, I was sleeping; Legebam, I was reading; Docebam, I was teaching.

Some others, who acknowledge six tenses, such as are above described, have endeavoured of late to change the names of a majority of them; though with too little agreement among themselves, as may be seen by the following citations: (1.)

Alla was pensive all through the first act, and while she was making her change from a lady-in-waiting to a bathing girl she remarked that she was going to write an odepast tense of I

"Some writers on grammar, admitting the second-future tense into the indicative mood, reject it from the subjunctive.

mood, why so called; in what manner applied its one tense, and the import of do its inflection shown in the verb LOVE, conjugated what nominatives only it takes use of, in the Gr. lang.

Thirdly, shall or should can never be really implied in the subjunctive present; because the supposed ellipsis, needless and unexampled, would change the tense, the mood, and commonly also the meaning.

[Footnote 1: Why do the editors choose the present tense of the Quarto?

By combining the present and past tenses of will, shall, have, be, or do with those parts of the verb known as infinitives and participles, the various tenses of the complete conjugation of the verb are built up.