nce, of a language in which all the verbs were entirely
destitute of such inflections; the principle, as regards that language,
must drop. Finite verbs, in such a case, would still relate to their
subjects, or nominatives, agreeably to the sense; but they would certainly
be rendered incapable of adding to this relation any agreement or
disagreement. So the concords which belong to adjectives and participles in
Latin and Greek, are rejected in English, and there remains to these parts
of speech nothing but a simple relation to their nouns according to the
sense. And by the fashionable substitution of _you_ for _thou_, the concord
of English verbs with their nominatives, is made to depend, in common
practice, on little more than one single terminational _s_, which is used
to mark one person of one number of one tense of one mood of each verb. So
near does this practice bring us to the dropping of what is yet called a
universal principle of grammar.[235]

OBS. 2.--In most languages, there are in each tense, through all the moods
of every verb, six different terminations to distinguish the different
persons and numbers. This will be well understood by every one who has ever
glanced at the verbs as exhibited in any Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, or
Italian grammar. To explain it to others, a brief example shall be given:
(with the remark, that the Latin pronouns, here inserted, are seldom
expressed, except for emphasis:) "_Ego amo_, I love; _Tu amas_, Thou
lovest; _Ille amat_, He loves; _Nos amamus_, We love; _Vos amatis_, You
love; _Illi amant_, They love." Hence it may be perceived, that the paucity
of variations in the English verb, is a very striking peculiarity of our
language. Whether we are gainers or losers by this simplicity, is a
question for learned idleness to discuss. The common people who speak
English, have far less inclination to add new endings to our verbs, than to
drop or avoid all the remains of the old. Lowth and Murray tell us, "This
scanty provision of terminations _is sufficient_ for all the purposes of
discourse;" and that, "_For this reason_, the plural termination _en_,
(they _loven_, they _weren_,) formerly in use, was laid aside as
_unnecessary_, and has long been obsolete."--_Lowth's Gram._, p. 31;
_Murray's_, 63.

OBS. 3.--Though modern usage, especially in common conversation, evidently
inclines to drop or shun all unnecessary suffixes and inflections, still it
is true, that the English verb i