soon as it was
formed, nay even whilst it _was forming_."--_Ib._, p. 163. "Strange schemes
of private ambition _were formed and forming_ there."--_Ib._, p. 291. "Even
when it _was making and made_."--_Ib._, 299. "Which have been made and _are
making_."--HENRY CLAY: _Liberator_, ix, p. 141. "And they are in measure
_sanctified_, or _sanctifying_, by the power thereof."--_Barclay's Works_,
i, 537. "Which _is_ now _accomplishing_ amongst the uncivilized countries
of the earth."--_Chalmers, Sermons_, p. 281. "Who _are ruining_, or
_ruined_, [in] this way."--_Locke, on Ed._, p. 155. "Whilst they _were
undoing_."--_Ibid._ "Whether he was employing fire to consume [something,]
or _was_ himself _consuming_ by fire."--_Crombie, on Etym. and Syntax_, p.
148. "At home, the greatest exertions _are making_ to promote its
progress."--_Sheridan's Elocution_, p. iv. "With those [sounds] which _are
uttering_."--_Ib._, p. 125. "Orders _are now concerting_ for the dismissal
of all officers of the Revenue marine."--_Providence Journal_, Feb. 1,
1850. Expressions of this kind are condemned by some critics, under the
notion that the participle in _ing_ must never be passive; but the usage is
unquestionably of far better authority, and, according to my apprehension,
in far better taste, than the more complex phraseology which some late
writers adopt in its stead; as, "The books _are_ now _being sold_."--"In
all the towns about Cork, the whiskey shops _are being closed_, and soup,
coffee, and tea houses [are] _establishing_ generally."--_Dublin Evening
Post_, 1840.

OBS. 3.--The question here is, Which is the most correct expression, "While
the bridge _was building_,"--"While the bridge was _a_ building,"--or,
"While the bridge _was being built_?" And again, Are they all wrong? If
none of these is right, we must reject them all, and say, "While _they were
building_ the bridge;"--"While the bridge _was in process of
erection_;"--or resort to some other equivalent phrase. Dr. Johnson, after
noticing the compound form of active-intransitives, as, "I _am
going_"--"She _is dying_,"--"The tempest _is raging_,"--"I _have been
walking_," and so forth, adds: "There is another manner of using the active
participle, which gives it a _passive_ signification:[266] as, The grammar
is now printing, _Grammatica jam nunc chartis imprimitur_. The brass is
forging, _AEra excuduntur_. This is, in my opinion," says he, "a _vitious_
expression, probably corrupted fr