After this, under the titles nominative verb, accusative, give him examples of verbs transitive; as I see you, you see me, the fire burns the wood, the boy makes the fire, the cook roasts the meat, the butler lays the cloth, we eat our dinner.
Or even with a double accusative; as, you teach me writing or to write, John teacheth me to dance, Thomas, tell me a tale, &c.
After this you may teach him the flexion or conjugation of the verb, or what is equivalent thereunto; for in our English tongue each verb hath but two tenses, the present and the preter; two participles, the active and the passive; all the rest is performed by auxiliaries, which auxiliaries have no more tenses than the other verbs.
Those auxiliaries are, do, did, will, would, shall, should, may, might, can, could, must, ought, to, have, had, am, be, was. And if by examples you can insinuate the signification of these few words, you have taught him the whole flexion of the verb.
And here it will be convenient, once for all, to write him out a full paradigm of some one verb, suppose 'to see,' through all those auxiliaries.
The verb itself hath but these four words to be learned, see, saw, seeing, seen, save that after thou, in the second person singular, in both tenses, we add est, and in the third person singular, in the present tense, eth or es, or instead thereof, st, th, s, and so in all verbs.
Then to the auxiliaries, do, did, will, would, shall, should, may, might, can, could, must, ought, to, we join the indefinite see. And after have, had, am, be, was, the passive particle seen, and so for all other verbs.
But the auxiliary, 'am,' or 'be,' is somewhat irregular in a double form.
Am, art, is; plural are; was, wast, was; plural were.
Be, beest, be; plural be; were, wert, were; plural were.