OBS. 18.—­It is from an improper extension of the principles of these “learned languages” to ours, that much of the false teaching which has so greatly and so long embarrassed this part of English grammar, has been, and continues to be, derived.  A late author, who supposes every infinitive to be virtually a noun, and who thinks he finds in ours all the cases of an English noun, not excepting the possessive, gives the following account of its origin and nature:  “This mood, with almost all its properties and uses, has been adopted into our language from the ancient Greek and Latin tongues. * * * The definite article [Greek:  to] [,] the, which they [the Greeks] used before the infinitive, to mark, in an especial manner, its nature of a substantive, is evidently the same word that we use before our infinitive; thus, ‘to write,’ signifies the writing; that is, the action of writing;—­and when a verb governs an infinitive, it only governs it as in the objective case.”—­Nixon’s English Parser, p. 83.  But who will believe, that our old Saxon ancestors borrowed from Greek or Latin what is now our construction of the very root of the English verb, when, in all likelihood, they could not read a word in either of those languages, or scarcely knew the letters in their own, and while it is plain that they took not thence even the inflection of a single branch of any verb whatever?

OBS. 19.—­The particle to, being a very common preposition in the Saxon tongue, has been generally used before the English infinitive, ever since the English language, or any thing like it, existed.  And it has always governed the verb, not indeed “as in the objective case,” for no verb is ever declined by cases, but simply as the infinitive mood.  In the Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels, which was made as early as the eleventh century, the infinitive mood is sometimes expressed in this manner, and sometimes by the termination on without the preposition.  Dr. Johnson’s History of the English Language, prefixed to his large Dictionary, contains, of this version, and of Wickliffe’s, the whole of the first chapter of Luke; except that the latter omits the first four verses, so that the numbers for reference do not correspond.  Putting, for convenience, English characters for the Saxon, I shall cite here three examples from each; and these, if he will, the reader may compare with the 19th, the 77th, and the 79th verse, in our common Bible.  SAXON:  “And ic eom asend with the sprecan. and the this bodian.”—­Lucae, i, 19.  WICKLIFFE:  “And Y am sent to thee to speke and to evangelise to thee these thingis.”—­Luk, i, 15.  SAXON:  “To syllene his folce haele gewit on hyra synna forgyfnesse.”—­Lucae, i, 77.  WICKLIFFE:  “To geve science of heelth to his puple into remissioun of her synnes.”—­Luk, i, 73.  SAXON:  “Onlyhtan tham