"
Instead of, "I _remember_ the family more than twenty years;" it should
be, "I _have remembered_ the family more than twenty years."
2. The best rule that can be given for the management of the tenses, and
of words and phrases which, in point of time, relate to each other, is
this very general one; _Observe what the sense necessarily requires_.
To say, "I _have_ visited Washington last summer; I _have seen_ the work
more than a month ago," is not good _sense_. The constructions should
be, "I _visited_ Washington, &c.; I _saw_ the work, &c." "This mode of
expression _has been_ formerly much admired:"--"_was_ formerly much
admired." "If I _had have_ been there;" "If I _had have_ seen him;"
"_Had_ you _have_ known him," are solecisms too gross to need
correction. We can say, I _have_ been, I _had_ been; but what sort of a
tense is, _had have been_? To place _had_ before the _defective_ verb
ought, is an error equally gross and illiterate:--"_had_ ought, _hadn't_
ought." This is as low a vulgarism as the use of _theirn_, _hern_, and
_hizzen_, _tother_, _furder_, _baynt_, _this ere_, I _seed_ it, I
_tell'd_ him.
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