e active_;"
yet he divides them "into _active transitive, active intransitive_, and
_participial verbs_."--_Grammar and Parser_, p. 31. Some grammarians,
appearing to think all the foregoing modes of division useless, attempt
nothing of the kind. William Ward, in 1765, rejected all such
classification, but recognized three voices; "Active, Passive, and Middle;
as, _I call, I am called, I am calling_." Farnum, in 1842, acknowledged the
first two of these voices, but made no division of verbs into classes.

OBS. 12.--If we admit the class of _active-intransitive_ verbs, that of
verbs _neuter_ will unquestionably be very small. And this refutes Murray's
objection, that the learner will "_often_" be puzzled to know which is
which. Nor can it be of any consequence, if he happen in some instances to
decide wrong. To _be_, to _exist_, to _remain_, to _seem_, to _lie_, to
_sleep_, to _rest_, to _belong_, to _appertain_, and perhaps a few more,
may best be called _neuter_; though some grammarians, as may be inferred
from what is said above, deny that there are any neuter verbs in any
language. "Verba Neutra, ait Sanctius, nullo pacto esse possunt; quia,
teste Aristotele, omnis motus, actio, vel passio, nihil medium
est."--_Prat's Latin Gram._, p. 117. John Grant, in his Institutes of Latin
Grammar, recognizes in the verbs of that language the distinction which
Murray supposes to be so "very difficult" in those of our own; and, without
falling into the error of Sanctius, or of Lily,[228] respecting neuter
verbs, judiciously confines the term to such as are neuter in reality.

OBS. 13.--Active-transitive verbs, in English, generally require, that the
agent or doer of the action be expressed _before_ them in the nominative
case, and the object or receiver of the action, _after_ them in the
objective; as, "Caesar _conquered_ Pompey." Passive verbs, which are never
primitives, but always derived from active-transitive verbs, (in order to
form sentences of like import from natural opposites in voice and sense,)
reverse this order, change the cases of the nouns, and denote that the
subject, named before them, is affected by the action; while the agent
follows, being introduced by the preposition _by_: as, "Pompey _was
conquered_ by Caesar." But, as our passive verb always consists of two or
more separable parts, this order is liable to be varied, especially in
poetry; as,

"How many things _by season seasoned are_
To their rig