Note 57 — SENTENCES.
Reading edition
It is not easy to give particular rules for the management of the Modes and Times of Verbs with respect to one another, so that they may be proper and consistent: nor would it be of much use; for the best rule that can be given is this very general one, To observe what the sense necessarily requires. But it may be of use to consider one or two examples, that seem faulty in these respects, and to examine where the fault lies.
“Some who the depths of eloquence have found, In that unnavigable Stream were drown’d.” Dryden, Juv. Sat. x.
The event mentioned in the first line is plainly prior in time to that mentioned in the second; this is subsequent to that, and a consequence of it. The first event is mentioned in the Present Perfect Time; it is present and compleated; “they have [now] found the depths of eloquence.” The second event is expressed in the Past Indefinite Time; it is past and gone, but, when it happened, uncertain: “they were drown’d.” We observed, that the last mentioned event is subsequent to the first: but how can the Past Time be subsequent to the Present? It therefore ought to be in the second line are drown’d, in the Present Perfect, which is consistent with the same Time in the first line: or in the first line had found in the Past Perfect, which would be consistent with the Past Indefinite in the second line.⸺There seems to be a fault of the like nature in the following passage:
“But oh! ’twas little that her life O’er earth and waters bears thy fame:”⸺ Prior.
It ought to be bore in the second line.
Again;
“Him portion’d maids, apprentic’d orphans blest, The young who labour, and the old who rest.” Pope, Moral Ep. iii. 267.
The Verb in the first line ought to be in the same Time with those in the last.
“Had their records been delivered down in the vulgar tongue,⸺they could not now be understood, unless by Antiquaries, who made it their study to expound them.” Swift, Letter, on the English Tongue. Here the latter part of the sentence depends intirely on the Supposition expressed in the former, “of their records being delivered down in the vulgar tongue:” therefore made in the Indicative Mode, which implies no supposition, and in the Past Indefinite Time, is improper: it would be much better in the Past Definite, had made; but indeed ought to be in the Subjunctive Mode, Present or Past Time, should make, or should have made.