The infinitive mood is used with or without _to_ differently from the present usage--prefixed where we omit, omitted where we prefix. It is also employed, like the Hebrew infinitive absolute, where we use the present participle active, sometimes with a preposition, _ex. gr._, Copious in words, and one that much time spent _To jest_. Lydgate, Book of Troy. Even in Cowley we meet with The sun himself, although all eye he be, Can find in love more pleasure than _to see_. The Gazers. Here it is plain we should use the participle _in seeing_. In "He is grown too proud to be so valiant," Cor. i. l, "to be" seems to be _i. q._ being; _too_ being apparently used in the sense of _trop_, Fr., _i.e._ excessively. The passive participle was continually used in the place of the present or past participle active or of the future. Chapman, for instance, is profuse in his use of it in his Homer. Of this, as of the former, we have some remains among us still, but few indeed compared with what our forefathers had. The perfect was also frequently used as a part. past, and of this also we have still some remains. In imitation of the Latin and French, the writers of the sixteenth century--for we do not meet with it in Chaucer or Gower--used the verb as a noun, as _dispose_ for _disposal_, _suspect_ for _suspicion_. A further peculiarity was the use of what grammarians call collectives, _i.e._, the singular noun used for the plural. We still retain this in _sheep_, _swine_, _fowl_, and partially in _year_, _day_; but in our older writers we meet with it in _horse_ (Much Ado, i. 1, Hen. V. iv. 1, and in Chapman's Homer continually), _pearl_ (Macb. _ad fin._), _tree_, _corpse_, _witness_, _business_, _subject_, _princess_ (Temp. i. 2), and other words. Writers of those days--and Shakespeare more than any--were fond of using verbs in a causative sense, as _fall_ for cause to fall, let fall, _fear_ for make fear. In these plays we meet, in a causative sense, with _cease_, _linger_, _neglect_, _silence_, _faint_, _perish_, &c. Thus _learn_ became _teach_, _take give_. It is only thus that "_smiles_ his cheek in years" (L. L. L. v. 2) becomes sense. 13. There was a peculiarity of the grammar of those days which is now confined to the vulgar, namely, that of joining a plural nominative with a singular verb, _ex. gr._, That in this spleen ridiculous _appears_, To check their folly, passions solemn _tears_. L. L. L. v. 2.