The Perfect Tense declares a thing to have been done at some time, though an indefinite one, antecedent to the present time. That, however, which the Perfect Tense represents as done, is completely, or, as we say of John Bull, when he is humbugged by the thimble-rig people, regularly done; as, “I have been out on the river.” “I have caught a crab.”
Catching a crab is a thing regularly (in another sense than completely) done, when civic swains pull young ladies up to Richmond. We beg to inform persons unacquainted with aquatic phraseology, that “pulling up” young ladies, or others, is a very different thing from “pulling up” an omnibus conductor or a cabman. What an equivocal language is ours! How much less agreeable to be “pulled up” at Bow Street than to be “pulled up” in a wherry! how wide the discrepancy between “pulling up” radishes and “pulling up” horses!
The Pluperfect Tense represents a thing as doubly past; that is, as past previously to some other point of time also past; as, “I fell in love before I had arrived at years of discretion.”
The First Future Tense represents the action as yet to come, either at a certain or an uncertain time; as, “The tailor will send my coat home to-morrow; and when I find it perfectly convenient, I shall pay him.”
The Second Future intimates that the action will be completed at or before the time of another future action or event; as, “I wonder how many conquests I shall have made by to-morrow morning.”
N.B. One ball is often the means of killing a great many people.
The consideration of the tenses suggests various moral reflections to the thinking mind.
A few examples will perhaps suffice:—
1. Present, though moderate fruition, is preferable to splendid, but contingent futurity; i. e. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.