or help to degrade, our English tongue?
The following examples, cited from some
of the most noted English periodicals of the
present day, will serve to show how
unnecessary, as well as how inelegant and
incorrect, is the use of "had" instead of "would,"
in phrases which imply preference for the
doing of one thing instead of another, and in
which an exercise of the will is always latent
and presupposed.

Next to the great authority of Shakespeare
comes that of Milton for the colloquial use of
had instead of would, as in Comus:

But had we best retire? I see a storm.

This sentence means, " would it not be best
that we should retire?" And there can be no
denying that the word " had," if strictly
admissible, conduces to brevity. But brevity is
not to be purchased at the expense of
elegance and accuracy, even by so great a master
of the language as Milton.

The following are more recent examples
of the unnecessary substitution of "had" for
"would ":

"I had as lief, she (Queen Caroline) added,
be Elector of Hanover as King of England."—
Lord Hervey's Letters, Blackwood's Magazine,
February, 1868. This should be, " I would as
lief."

"The man who touches them had better have
put his head into a hornets' nest."—Hereward
the Wake, by the Rev. Charles Kingsley. [It
would have been better for the man who touches
them to have put, &c.]

"Conway Dalrymple knowing that he had
better not argue any question with a drunken
man."—Last Chronicle of Barset, by Anthony
Trollope. [Knowing it would be better not to
argue, &c.]

"Had the author done so, even under such
professional revision, there had doubtless been
fewer misdemeanours against nature, good
taste, and propriety."—Douglas Jerrold,
Weekly News, October 15, 1854. [There
would doubtless have been, &c.]

"The case was one which at all events in the
interest of the defendant, had far better not
have been brought into court."—Speech of Mr.
Coleridge, Q.C., in the Court of Queen's
Bench, February 1, 1868. [It would have been
far better in the interests of the defendant if
the case had not been brought into court.]

"Her fearless crew confess, that they had
rather not make the voyage again."—Daily
Telegraph, August 22, 1866: in an article on
the arrival of the Red, White, and Blue, from
New York. [The substitution of would for had
is all that is necessary to convert this quotation
into correct English.]

"The account of the suggestion, however,
had better be given in Richardson's own
words."—Blackwood's Magazine, March, 1869.
[The account would be better if given in Rich-
ardson's own words.]

It must he said for the writers of the present
day, that though great offenders in the use of
these colloquialisms, they are but the copyists of
their predecessors in the eighteenth century.
In No. 71 of the Tatler, Sir Richard Steele
writes: " Mr. Bickerstaffe," said he, " had you
been to-night at the play you had (would have)
seen the force of action in perfection," and in
No. 45, the same writer says, " Had the family
of the Beadlestaffs known of your being lately
at Oxon, we had in our own names and in the
University's made you a compliment?" instead
of, " we would in our own name have made you
a compliment." Addison, whose reputation, as
one of the correctest and most elegant of
English writers, has not been impaired by the
lapse of more than a century and a half,
constantly makes use of " had" for " would have."
Telling, in No. 407 of the Spectator, the story
of a barrister who was accustomed to twist
and untwist a piece of thread around his finger
when pleading in Westminster Hall, he adds,
"one of his clients, who was more merry than
wise, stole the thread from him in the midst of
his pleading; but he had better have let it alone,
for he lost his cause by this jest."

So many examples, old and new, are
sufficient to show that, rightly or wrongly, the
substitution of " had" for "would" and " would
have" has been accepted in English literature.
Whether this short form is a gain to the
language is a question that might be profitably
discussed. Whatever may be the advantage
in brevity in some of the instances cited, it
can scarcely be alleged that either in brevity or
in elegance " I had rather" is an improvement
upon " I would rather," and that the actors
would not do well, when they address the
players in that memorable piece of good advice,
to say, " I would as lief the town crier spoke
my lines," instead of "I had as lief." This
last unfortunate expression seems to be the
fount and origin of what must be considered a
perversion of the word had from its true
meaning, and which has thence spread into
literature, and produced other perversions,
made after its own image. Great writers lead
and the people preserve, though they do not
create the language; and our great writers as
well as the small should look to it, that they
do not corrupt the very noble inheritance of
language which they have derived from their
ancestors.

AN EXPERIENCE.

IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.

IT was on a warm, early June afternoon
that I was called into the consulting-room
to see her.

It was out of the usual hours for seeing
patients, and I remember that I resented
the interruption, and the irregularity; for
I was busy in the anatomical department
of the hospital, deep in the study of an
extraordinarily interesting specimen of—- but,
you won't care for these details.

However, when I read the note of
introduction she had brought with her, I