first place, the old mode of expression is a well established usage of the language, being found in our best and most correct writers.  Secondly, is being built does not convey the idea intended, [;] namely [,] that of progressive action.  Is being, taken together, means simply is, just as is writing means writes; therefore, is being built means is built, a perfect and not a progressive ACTION.  Or, if being [and] built be taken together, they signify an ACTION COMPLETE, and the phrase means, as before, the house is (EXISTS) being built.”—­Hart’s Gram., p. 76.  The last three sentences here are liable to many objections, some of which are suggested above.

OBS. 26.—­It is important, that the central phraseology of our language be so understood, as not to be misinterpreted with credit, or falsely expounded by popular critics and teachers.  Hence errors of exposition are the more particularly noticed in these observations.  In “being built,” Prof.  Hart, like sundry authors named above, finds nothing but “ACTION COMPLETE.”  Without doubt, Butler interprets better, when he says, “’The house is built,’ denotes an existing state, rather than a completed action.”  But this author, too, in his next three sentences, utters as many errors; for he adds:  “The name of the agent cannot be expressed in phrases of this kind.  We cannot say, ‘The house is built by John.’  When we say, ‘The house is built by mechanics,’ we do not express an existing state.”—­Butler’s Practical Gram., p. 80.  Unquestionably, “is built by mechanics,” expresses nothing else than the “existing state” of being “built by mechanics,” together with an affirmation:—­that is, the “existing state” of receiving the action of mechanics, is affirmed of “the house.”  And, in my judgement, one may very well say, “The house is built by John;” meaning, “John is building the house.” St. Paul says, “Every house is builded by SOME MAN.”—­Heb., iii, 4.  In this text, the common “name of the agent” is “expressed.”

OBS. 27.—­Wells and Weld, whose grammars date from 1846, being remarkably chary of finding anything wrong in “respectable writers,” hazard no opinion of their own, concerning the correctness or incorrectness of either of the usages under discussion.  They do not always see absurdity in the approbation of opposites; yet one should here, perhaps, count them with the majorities they allow.  The latter says, “The participle in ing is sometimes used passively; as, forty and six years was this temple in building; not in being built.”—­Weld’s English Gram., 2d Ed., p. 170.  Here, if he means to suggest, that “in being built” would “not” be good English, he teaches very erroneously; if his thought is, that this phrase would “not” express the sense of the former