Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/40

30 analogous had rather, though still retaining its full hold upon colloquial speech, began to appear less frequently in written. The change which has taken place in the employment of the two idioms may be indicated by the result of an examination of representative novels of two of the greatest novelists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries respectively. The first is Fielding's Tom Jones. That work appeared in 1749. In it had rather occurs just fifteen times. It is used indifferently by characters of every station, including the author himself when speaking in his own person. On the other hand had better is used but twice. Nearly a hundred years later—in 1848—Thackeray's Vanity Fair (Thackeray) was published in book form. In that work had better occurs twenty-three times, while had rather occurs only once, if we leave out of account locutions beginning with contracted and therefore doubtful forms like I'd. The situation had been completely reversed. It may further be added that in neither of these novels, largely representing, as they do, colloquial usage, does had liefer appear at all; though in Tom Jones this idiom with the double comparative—giving us had lieferer—is in one instance put in the mouth of an illiterate person.

Facts of this sort do not justify the formation of sweeping generalizations. They represent nothing more than an incomplete and necessarily one-sided investigation of usage. Inferences based upon them must therefore always be given subject to correction. Yet it is not likely that fuller examination would yield results essentially different. Certainly all the evidence which has so far ever been adduced points to the conclusion that distinct preference is now exhibited in literature for had better over had rather. Take, as a further illustration of the prevalence of the feeling, Disraeli's novel of Sybil. This appeared in 1845. In it the former locution occurs thirteen times, the latter not once.

It is no difficult matter to explain the present comparative infrequency in literature of had rather, once so much more common than had better. The place of the former can be easily taken in most instances by would rather. This latter locution had appeared in the language as early at least as the twelfth century. It consequently preceded had rather; furthermore, it had always existed alongside of it, and had generally been interchangeable with it. If less idiomatic, it served the purpose well enough to be adopted by the timid as soon as the outcry against the assumed ungrammatical character of the almost synonymous expression made itself distinctly noticeable. This first began to be heard in the second half of the eighteenth century. From that time on the use of had rather became less frequent in the literary speech. But the case is different with had better. In no such easy way could men escape from the employment of that locution. Would rather says, even if sometimes imperfectly, just what it means; would better is forced to have a sense imposed upon it in order to mean anything at all. The use of it is so distinctly repugnant to our idiom, not to call it absolutely improper, that, when met with, it is apt to provoke a cry of pain from him who has been nurtured upon the great classics of our literature.

It cannot be stated positively where and when would better came first to be employed; but the vogue it has now, such as it is, it owes largely to the influence and example of Walter Savage Landor. We may entertain what view we choose of that author's style; but there can hardly be two opinions, among those who have studied the subject, as to the value of his pronouncements upon points of usage. In his observations upon language no man of equal abilities ever surpassed him in the combination of limited knowledge of the facts with unlimited wrong-headedness in drawing conclusions from them. In the hostility he entertained towards had better, of the origin of which he adopted and repeated an entirely erroneous account, he resorted on more than one occasion to the use of the inadequate and improper would better. Nor did he stop with this. Landor had always the courage of his perversities. In his devotion to what he fancied correctness he was capable of writing had better left for had better have left. All sorts of linguistic atrocities have been perpetrated in the name of grammar; but perhaps none can be found that equals this in defiance of the English idiom.

In consequence of the modern wide use