(B.) BOSWORTH (A. S. Dict. p. cxc.) calls the two ordinary A. S. tenses "the indefinite and the perfect." Dr. Pritchard (ib. p. 171) gives the future form of the Welsh verb-substantive thus: Sing. bydhav, bydhi, bŷdh. Plur. bydhwn, bydhwch, bydhant. Zeus (Gramm. Celt. vol. i. p. 482) says of the Irish future, "Sing. 1 & 2 pers. non obvia exempla ;" the third person sing. he gives as bieid, bied, and sometimes bid. He states that "beth" was the Cornish and Armoric form for the future and subjunctive, as well as the root of the verb (p. 539). From this writer's mode of speaking I should infer that in his opinion a future tense, properly so called, had originally belonged to the system of the Celtic verb generally, but I am not competent to discuss such a question (see p. 411). The Attic use of elu, ibo, with its future sense, may perhaps be held to have some connexion with the future sense of one form of the verb-substantive (see Grimm, Gesch. der Deutschen Spr., b. ii. s. 892). At any rate, the wide-spread tendency to assign this future meaning to the form which corresponds with our "be" is very remarkable, and must go back to remote times in the history of all these kindred languages. It appears to give great additional probability to the conjecture that the syllable "bo" in the Latin futures of the 1st and 2nd conjugations, as well as in those of some other verbs, was in its origin only an application of this very root of the verb-substantive as a suffix. Fui, fueram, forem, fuere, or fore, are of course all derived from this root, and it is curious that the infinitive "fore" still retains its future sense as equivalent to "futurum esse." I think this theory at any rate more probable than Professor Key's conjecture that in the Latin conjugation the suffixes ēba and eb may have some connexion "with the verb habe, "have, which is so common an auxiliary in all languages (see Latin Grammar, p. 64, note). 66 We know from such forms as "scibo" ("Nemo ex me "scibit," Terent. Phormio, vol. i. 38) and “ibo,” that the termination "bo," for the future, probably extended much further than it appears to do in our ordinary Latin Grammars. Compare Zumpt, Lat. Gramm. § 215; Facciolati, in vv. scio et eo. Bopp (Comparative Grammar, Transl. p. 889, § 662) assumes it as certain that the 3rd and 4th conjugations in Latin did originally form their futures in "bo." The ordinary futures in "am" are evidently allied to the subjunctive (compare Philolog. Museum, vol. ii. p. 218). It will be observed from what is said in the text that the subjunctive was used for the future occasionally by Ulfilas, and I believe that the same relation is to be traced in Sanscrit. See Bopp, Compar. Gramm. Transl. vol. ii. pp. 887, 891; Zeuss, Gramm. Celt. vol. i. p. 539; Grimm, Deutsche Gramm. b. iv. s. 177, n. 2; Trans. of Philological Society, 1845, No. 38; 1846, No. 44. Mr. Guest, in the Transactions (vol. ii. p. 223), tells us that the verb "be" was long retained for the expression of future time in English, more particularly in the North, and he quotes examples from Lyndsay and other writers in support of this view. On the verb "be "in general, and its equivalents, the reader may consult Mr. Francis Newman's paper in the Classical Museum, No. xxv. p. 254. (C.) THE Scotch and North country words are "aw,” “awin,” “ain,” “awingis" (debts). These forms approach still nearer than our own to the Gothic, of which the first person indicative was "aih" (see Jameson's Scottish Dict. in vv.). "He says yon foreste is his awin, "He wan it frae the Southronrie." Song of the Outlaw Murray (Border Minstrelsy). And so in the humorous stanza in which the king rebukes the zeal of the Laird of Buccleuch, who was eager to punish the man who "lived by reif and felonie." "Then out and spak the nobil king, "Now haud thy tongue, Sir Walter Scott, "For had every honest man his awin kye, Grimm (Gesch. der D. Spr. b. ii. s. 905) considers "aih" is the præterite of "eigan," 66 'to labour" or "make""schaffen." The word, therefore, which originally meant "I have made" or 66 acquired by my own labour," assumed, like kékτημaι, the present sense of "I possess," or "have as my own." دو This verb, according to Grimm's view, is thus what he calls a "verschobenes præteritum," or, as Dr. Latham denominates it, "a transformed præterite," of which I have had to speak in the text under the verbs "skulan and " muna." There are so many curious points connected with our verb "to owe," and its perfect "ought," and it affords so excellent an illustration of the process of transformation of these præterites, that the reader must excuse me if I lengthen this note for the purpose of discussing them. In the first place, there is little doubt, I conceive, that the earliest meaning of "owe was that of " agan,' "" to own," or "have as one's own." Shakspere says "I am not worthy of the wealth I owe." All's Well that Ends Well, ii. 5— and the instances are innumerable. Compare Comedy of Errors (act iii. sc. 1), Macbeth (act v. sc. 4), Othello (act iii. sc. 3). 66 Not poppy nor mandragora "Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep In the second place, there is no doubt that "ought" is a regular "weak" præterite of "owe." Thus in Henry IV. Part I. iii. 3, “He said the other day you ought him a thou "sand pounds." So in Donne's letters (Southey's Commonplace Book, i. 336), "They ought the world no more." Chaucer uses "ought" impersonally "Well ought us werke." Second Nun's Tale, 1. 15,482 but I am inclined to think that this is an imitation of the idiom of such Latin words as 66 oportet," or it is analogous to the construction (Richard II. act iii. sc. 3). 66 me rather had" for "I had rather 'Ought" itself has thus in some sense become in English one of the promoted or transformed perfects, and acquired the present sense of duty; but it has not acquired a second weak præterite of its own, nor has it formed a present infinitive and participle. The want of these last is often very inconvenient: we cannot say, “he was known to ought,” for "he was known to be bound in duty," and the original present "owe" will not express what we want. We have no difficulty in seeing how a word which signifies that a debt of any kind, whether moral or pecuniary, has been due, may be applied to the present obligation of discharging either: but I confess that I have always felt the greatest difficulty in explaining how a verb which meant originally "to have as one's own," ," "to own," came to signify "to be bound to pay." A curious example of the two senses of the verb in close contact may be found in the common text of Shakspere's King John (act ii. sc. 1)— That is, "pay the homage which you owe to the prince to whom it belongs." If the word " owe "bore the same sense in both lines, it would follow that the debtor was to pay to the debtor-a process difficult to understand, though constantly recognised as possible and praiseworthy in the conventional phrase "I owe it to myself;" the real meaning of which generally is, "I have no reason which I like to give "for something which I choose to do or say." 66 666 Mr. Edwin Guest (Trans. of Philolog. Society, 1845, p. 157) says, "The phrases he owes me ten pounds,' and 'he "has ten pounds for me,' may have a closer etymological "connection than our knowledge of the world would lead us to expect; and the use of the verb without the dative, 'he owes me ten pounds,' may be founded on a merely deriva"tive meaning." I do not doubt the fact, but I wish Mr. Guest in this passage had explained a little more clearly what the process is which he supposes to have taken place. It seems a singular state of things when the assertion that a man has a thing" carries with it the notion that he "has it "for some one else to whom he is bound to pay it!" Is it founded on the principle that all property is a trust; or on the Communist maxim, "La propriété c'est le vol"? or does Mr. Guest mean to imply that the modern sense of owing a debt was attached to these verbs before they acquired that of having or owning?— -a supposition inconsistent with the meaning of the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon forms. If indeed in the early times of our language owe" and 'ought" were used only as in the phrase "he ought to do "it," we might suppose that such a sentence was literally equivalent to "he had to do it," and was based on the original sense of "have:" but it so happens that in one of the earliest relics of the English tongue-the writ or proclamation of Henry III. in 1258—the King speaks of "the "treowthe that heo us ogen "-that is, "the allegiance that "they (our subjects) owe to us." In the version of the same document given by Henry in his History of England (but not in Palgrave's), the præterite ogt" further appears in the sense of our modern “ought." (Compare Latham on the English Language, p. 65; Henry's History of England, vol. viii. Ap. 4; Palgrave's Proofs and Illustrations, p. cccxlviii.) Again in Chaucer we find 66 66 By God we owen fourty pounds for stones." Sompnoure's Tale, 1. 7688. According to the original meaning of "agan" and "owe,” this ought to mean, we have forty pounds-they belong to "us" whereas it really means directly the reverse, "they |