"If she _has_ stolen the color of her ribbons from another."----Spect. No. 4. "If we _are_ rightly informed."----Same, No. 8. "If she _is_ tall enough, she is wife enough."----No. 66. "If you _are_ in such haste, how came you to forget the miscellanies?"----Swift's Letter to Mr. Tooke. "If men's highest assurances _are_ to be believed."----Same. Shall we say that the use of the indicative after _if_ in the foregoing examples is improper or ungrammatical? By no means. Yet the verbs express something conditional or doubtful; and therefore Lowth's rule cannot be well founded. Let the foregoing passages be contrasted with the following. "But if he _say_ true, there is but one government in the world that can have any thing of justice in it."----Sidney, sect. 1. "If he _have_ any knowlege of actual existence, he must be satisfied."----Priestley, let. 8. "But tho criticism _be_ thus his only declared aim, he will not disown," &c.---- Introd. to Elements of Criticism. "But if a lively picture, even of a single emotion, _require_ an effort of genius, how much greater the effort to compose a passionate dialogue, with as many different tones of passion as there are speakers?"----Elements of Criticism, vol. 1. chap. 16. "Here we must also observe, that tho THOU _be_ long in the first part of the verse, it becomes short when repeated in the second."---- Sheridan's Art of Reading. The Scotch writers, who learn the English language grammatically, are the most particular in the use of this subjunctive form of the verb; in consequence of which their stile generally appears stiff and fettered. In all the foregoing examples, and in every instance where the affirmation respects present time, the indicative form is the most correct, and the only form that corresponds with the actual present state of the language. _If he says_, _if he has_, _if he requires_, are the true expressions universally used in speaking; and grammars should exhibit and enforce this practice, rather than amend it. There are few or no English writers, who seem to have adhered uniformly to any rule in the use of the verbs after the conjunctions. In consequence, either of ignorance or inattention, the most correct writers have fallen into inconsistencies, even in the same sentence. This will appear by the following examples. "If life and health enough _fall_ to my share, and I _am_ able to finish what I meditate."----Bolingbroke, let. 4, on History. The author intended the verbs, _fall_ and _am_, to be in the present time; but this would make him write nonsense; for the events were future at the time of writing. The first part of the sentence, to make sense, must be considered as elliptical, "if life and health enough _shall_ or _should fall_ to my share;" in the last part therefore _be_ should be substituted for _am_, _if I shall be able_: This would make the whole sentence correct and consistent.