"There _was_ a God, two young men have made that discovery." "Men _did_ God acceptable service, by abstracting themselves, &c. they have been taught this; it _was_ their duty, they have been taught this." "The taxes we _had_ to pay to government, if these were the only ones." This will not make sense to a man who _has_ taxes _still_ to pay; the writer's _had to pay_ will not discharge the public debt. But it is unnecessary to multiply examples and arguments; the reader must be already convinced that these errors exist, and that I ought not to have been the first to notice them. Sometimes this hypothetical tense is used with an infinitive for the future. In the following passage it seems to be correct. "I wish I _were_ to go to the Elysian fields, when I die, and then I should not care if I _were_ to leave the world tomorrow."----Pope. But the following are hardly vindicable. "Suppose they _marched_ up to our mines with a numerous army, how could they subsist for want of provision."----Moyle, Diss. on the Rev. of Athens. "If they _foraged_ in small parties."----Same. The sense is future, and therefore _should march_, _should forage_, would have been more correct. "I should not act the part of an impartial spectator, if I _dedicated_ the following papers to one who is not of the most consummate and acknowleged merit."----Spect. Dedic. _If I should dedicate_, would have been more accurate. A similar fault occurs in the following passage. "If nature _thunder'd_ in his opening ears, And _stunn'd_ him with the music of the spheres." Pope, Essay on Man. If nature _should thunder_ and _stun_ him, is the meaning. There is another article that deserves to be mentioned; which is, the use of a verb after _as_ or _than_, apparently without a nominative. "This unlimited power is what the best legislators of all ages have endeavored to deposit in such hands, as _would preserve_ the people from rapine."----Swift, vol. 2. Contests, &c. "_Would preserve_" seems to have no nominative, for _hands_ cannot be inserted without changing the form of the sentence; _in those hands which would preserve_. "A hypocrite hath so many things to attend to, _as make_ his life a very perplexed and intricate thing."----Tillotson. This mode of expression is however well established and occasions no obscurity. The truth is, _as_ is an article or relative equivalent to _that_ or _which_; and the criticisms of Lowth on the conjunctions, where he condemns the use of _as_ and _so_ in a number of instances, prove that he knew nothing about the true meaning of these words. See Diversions of Purley, page 283.