[112] Lowth's Introduction, p. 39. Note.
[113] "The present tense in English hath often the sense of the future; as when do you go out of town? I go tomorrow: that is, when will you, shall you go? I shall go. If you do well, that is, shall do well, you will be rewarded: As soon as, or when you come there; that is, shall come, turn on your right hand: With these forms of speaking, the verb is always placed in the future in Latin, Greek and Hebrew."——Bayley's Intro. to Lan. Lit. and Phil. 99.
This critical writer has explained this mode of speaking with accuracy; but it would be more correct to call this form of the verb, an elliptical future, than to say, the present tense has the sense of the future.
[114] So in the law stile. "If a man die intestate;" "if a man die seised of an estate in fee;" "if Titius enfeoff Gaius," &c. are future; and in most such phrases used in translations from the Latin and French, the verbs in the original are future. But in law the same form is used in the present very frequently, agreeable to the ancient practice. The reason may be, the convenience and necessity of copying words and phrases with great exactness. But Blackstone, the most accurate and elegant law writer, uses the other form, "if a man has heirs;" "if a good or valuable consideration appears;" and too often, when the sense requires the future. He generally gives be its subjunctive form, as it is called, and most other verbs the indicative.
[115] In some instances, the time is present, and the ellipsis may be supplied by may or some other auxiliary.
[116] In the original, the participle of the present time is employed: ἱνα και εχοντες γυναικας, ὡς μη εχοντες; and so in the other instances. The Greek is correct; "those having wives as not having them." The translation is agreeable enough to the English idiom; but the verbs represent the present time.]
[117] A similar use of the verb occurs after wish; "I wish I had my estate now in possession;" this would be expressed in Latin. Utinam me habere, using the present of the infinitive, or Utinam ut haberem; but this Imperfect tense of the Subjunctive, both in Latin and French, is used to convey the same ideas as English verbs after if; if I had, si haberem, si j'aurois, and whatever may be the name annexed to this form of the verb, it cannot, in the foregoing sense, have any reference to past time.
The common phrases, I had rather, he had better, are said to be a corruption of I would rather, he would better, rapidly pronounced, I'd rather. I am not satisfied that this is a just account of their origin; would will not supply the place of had in all cases. At any rate, the phrases have become good English.
[118] The following translation of a passage in Cicero is directly in point. "Vivo tamen in ea ambitione et labore tanquam id, quod non postulo, expectem."——Cicero ad Quintum. 2. 15.
"I live still in such a course of ambition and fatigue, as if I were expecting what I do not really desire."——Middleton, Life of Cicero, vol. 2. p. 97.