RULE XIV.
Participles have the same power of government with that of the verbs from which they are derived: as, “Oh, what an exquisite singer Rubini is! I am so fond of hearing him.” “Look at that horrid man; I declare he is quizzing us!” “No, he is only taking snuff.” “See, how that thing opposite keeps making eyes.” “Yes, she is ogling Lumley; I should so like to pinch her!” “How fond they all are of wearing mustaches! Don’t you like it?” “Oh, yes! there is no resisting them.” “Heigho! I am dying to have an ice—”
——Young man for a husband, Miss?
For shame, Sir! don’t be rude!
Participles are sometimes used as substantives: as, “The French mouth is adapted to the making of grimaces.” “The cobbler is like the parson; he lives by the mending of soles.” “The tailor reaps a good harvest from the sewing of cloth.” “Did you ever see a shooting of the moon?”
Is this what the witches mean when they sing, in the acting play of Macbeth,
“We fly by night?”
If they “shoot the moon,” they are shooting stars.
There is a mode of using the indefinite article a before a participle, for which there is no occasion, as it does not convert the participle into a substantive, and makes no alteration in the sense of what is said; in this case the article, therefore, is like a wart, a wen, or a knob at the end of the nose, neither useful nor ornamental: as, “Going out a shooting.” “Are you a coming to-morrow?” “I was a thinking about what Jem said.” “Here you are, a going of it, as usual!”
A liberty not unfrequently taken with the English Language, is the substitution of the perfect participle for the imperfect tense, and of the imperfect tense for the perfect participle: as, “He run like mad, with the great dog after him.” “Maria come and told us all about it.” “When I had wrote the Valentine, I sealed it with my thimble.” “He has rose to (be) a common-councilman.” “I was chose Lord Mayor.” “I’ve eat (or a eat) lots of venison in my time.” “I should have spoke if you hadn’t put in your oar.” “You were mistook.” “He sent her an affecting copy of verses, which was wrote with a Perryian pen.”
RULE XV.