We show him, that of these tenses there are several that are entitled perfect; as,

1st Perfect. I loved.

2nd Perfect. I have loved.

3rd Perfect.
I did love.

4th Perfect. I had loved.

The signs that ought to express them, present themselves naturally: after having carried the hand to the shoulder, the general sign for a perfect, we make the sign for first, or second, or third, or fourth, by the method given for nouns of number, and so indicate which perfect we mention, and which our pupil is to write, if we are dictating to him; and we find that he is never deceived.

We do not leave him in ignorance of the use of these different perfects, some of which express a definite, some an indefinite time past; and others, a definite or indefinite time past, anterior to another time that is past.

ART II.

Of the Application of Signs to the Moods of Verbs.

THE mood, means the manner of conjugating a verb. These moods are the indicative, the imperative, the subjunctive, and the infinitive, to which we join the participle, because it has a present, a past, and a future, as other moods have.

To avoid multiplying signs unnecessarily, we give none to the indicative, it being sufficient that no sign indicates another mood, to know that the verb we are considering is in this.

The pupil has remarked a certain sign of the hand and the eye being always made to him, and which he has occasionally made himself, to express a command, we reserve this sign to indicate the imperative. In

stead of this, however, the two hands joined together, is to indicate the supplicative if declaratory of entreaty.

We very frequently in discourse meet with two verbs joined together by the particle that, the first of which expresses a mood of being or acting that has an influence direct or indirect upon the latter. The first announces in some degree a cause, of which the latter will express the effect. This connection of cause and effect, which is expressed in English by the conjunction that, and in other languages by terms respectively correspondent, has given rise to a mood, that is manner, of conjugating different from the mood used which expresses simple affirmation.

But it is proper to observe, that the verb which precedes that, always announces an absolute or a conditional futurition, as the following example will evince :- In order to acquit yourself well on the day of 'public exercise, it would be necessary that

your

you learned,' or ' It will be necessary that you

learn,' or it would have been necessary that

you had learned thoroughly the themes ' delivered to you.' It is evident in all three examples, that the action of learning is announced as either being or having been necessary to precede the good effect which it will produce, or would produce, or might have produced, supposing the accomplishment of the condition.

It is easy to indicate signs conformable to the above statement, to be made use of in dictating or expressing the grammatical persons of this mood; example ;-I desire that you write; to dictate the word that, the general sign for a conjunction must be made; for the word you, the pronominal personal sign; and for the word write, (scribas,) 1. The general sign agreeing to all parts of the verb to write; 2. The sign for the present tense; 3. The two forefingers hooked like a clasp, which being

1

immediately after the sign for present tense,

no longer signifies a simple conjunction, but a conjunctive mood.

There are three other tenses or times not of the subjunctive, called by Restaut, the future past, the conditional present, the conditional past, which we nevertheless put under the subjunctive, in order that we may conform in parsing, to use a scholastic term, to the distribution of the Latin grammar which places them there; amarem, signifying equally in that language, I would love, and I would have loved. Having remarked that they are not really of this mood in our language, we characterize them by appropriate signs.

We take this method to explain them :I write upon the table, I move from the • window and I go to the door; when I shall be at the door, I shall have given to the person who stands between them this snuff'box, which I have in my hand.' When I set out, the donation is future; it becomes present when I give; but it is past when I