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.”