16. “Present, loving, Past, loved, Compound, having loved.”—­S.  W. Clark’s Practical Gram., of 1848, p. 71.  “ACT.  VOICE.—­Present ...  Loving [;] Compound [,] Having loved...... Having been loving.”--Ib., p. 81.  “PAS.  VOICE.--Present.....  Loved, or, being loved [;] Compound.....  Having been loved.”--Ib., p. 83.  “The Compound Participle consists of the Participle of a principal verb, added to the word having, or being, or to the two words having been.  Examples—­Having loved—­being loved—­having been loved.”—­Ib., p. 71.  Here the second extract is deficient, as may be seen by comparing it with the first; and the fourth is grossly erroneous, as is shown by the third.  The participles, too, are misnamed throughout.

The reader may observe that the punctuation of the foregoing examples is very discrepant.  I have, in brackets, suggested some corrections, but have not attempted a general adjustment of it.

[303] “The most unexceptionable distinction which grammarians make between the participles, is, that the one points to the continuation of the action, passion, or state denoted by the verb; and the other, to the completion of it.  Thus, the present participle signifies imperfect action, or action begun and not ended:  as, ‘I am writing a letter.’  The past participle signifies action perfected, or finished:  as, ’I have written a letter.’—­’The letter is written.’”—­Murray’s Grammar, 8vo, p. 65.  “The first [participle] expresses a continuation; the other, a completion.”—­W.  Allen’s Grammar, 12mo, London, 1813.  “The idea which this participle [e.g. ‘tearing’] really expresses, is simply that of the continuance of an action in an incomplete or unfinished state.  The action may belong to time present, to time past, or to time future.  The participle which denotes the completion of an action, as torn, is called the perfect participle; because it represents the action as perfect or finished.”—­Barnard’s Analytic Gram., p. 51.  Emmons stealthily copies from my Institutes as many as ten lines in defence of the term ‘Imperfect’ and yet, in his conjugations, he calls the participle in ing, “Present.”  This seems inconsistent.  See his “Grammatical Instructer,” p. 61.

[304] “The ancient termination (from the Anglo-Saxon) was and; as, ’His schynand sword.’  Douglas.  And sometimes ende; as, ’She, between the deth and life, Swounende lay full ofte.’  Gower.”—­W.  Allen’s Gram., p. 88.  “The present Participle, in Saxon, was formed by ande, ende, or onde; and, by cutting off the final e, it acquired a Substantive signification, and extended the idea to the agent:  as, alysende, freeing, and alysend, a redeemer; freonde, loving or friendly, and freond, a lover or a friend.”—­Booth’s Introd. to Dict., p. 75.