174. Many writers use an before h, even when not silent, when the word is not accented on the first syllable.
An historian, such as we have been attempting to describe, would indeed be an intellectual prodigy.—Macaulay.
The Persians were an heroic people like the Greeks.—Brewer.
He [Rip] evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to anything else but his business.—Irving.
An habitual submission of the understanding to mere events and images.—Coleridge.
An hereditary tenure of these offices.—Thomas Jefferson.
Definition.
175. An article is a limiting word, not descriptive, which cannot be used alone, but always joins to a substantive word to denote a particular thing, or a group or class of things, or any individual of a group or class.
Kinds.
176. Articles are either definite or indefinite.