[256] These are what William Ward, in his Practical Grammar, written about 1765, denominated “the CAPITAL FORMS, or ROOTS, of the English Verb.”  Their number too is the same.  “And these Roots,” says he, “are considered as Four in each verb; although in many verbs two of them are alike, and in some few three are alike.”—­P. 50.  Few modern grammarians have been careful to display these Chief Terms, or Principal Parts, properly.  Many say nothing about them.  Some speak of three, and name them faultily.  Thus Wells:  “The three principal parts of a verb are the present tense, the past tense, and the perfect participle.”—­School Gram., 113th Ed., p. 92.  Now a whole “tense” is something more than one verbal form, and Wells’s “perfect participle” includes the auxiliary “having.”  Hence, in stead of write, wrote, writing, written, (the true principal parts of a certain verb,) one might take, under Wells’s description, either of these threes, both entirely false:  am writing, did write, and having written; or, do write, wrotest, and having written.  But writing, being the root of the “Progressive Form of the Verb,” is far more worthy to be here counted a chief term, than wrote, the preterit, which occurs only in one tense, and never receives an auxiliary.  So of other verbs.  This sort of treatment of the Principal Parts, is a very grave defect in sundry schemes of grammar.

[257] A grammarian should know better, than to exhibit, as a paradigm for school-boys, such English as the following:  “I do have, Thou dost have, He does have:  We do have, You do have, They do have.”—­Everest’s Gram., p. 106.  “I did have, Thou didst have, He did have:  We did have, You did have, They did have.”—­Ib., p. 107.  I know not whether any one has yet thought of conjugating the verb be after this fashion; but the attempt to introduce, “am being, is being,” &c., is an innovation much worse.

[258] Hiley borrows from Webster the remark, that, “Need, when intransitive, is formed like an auxiliary, and is followed by a verb, without the prefix to; as, ‘He need go no farther.’”—­Hiley’s Gram., p. 90; Webster’s Imp.  Gram., p. 127; Philos.  Gram., p. 178.  But he forbears to class it with the auxiliaries, and even contradicts himself, by a subsequent remark taken from Dr. Campbell, that, for the sake of “ANALOGY, ‘he needs,’ he dares,’ are preferable to ‘he need,’ ’he dare,’”—­Hiley’s Gram., p. 145; Campbell’s Rhet., p. 175

[259] This grammarian here uses need for the third person singular, designedly, and makes a remark for the justification of the practice; but he neither calls the word an auxiliary, nor cites any other than anonymous examples, which are, perhaps, of his own invention.