17.With an adverb of comparison or preference, as better, rather, best, as lief, or as lieve, the auxiliary had seems sometimes to be used before the infinitive to form the potential imperfect or pluperfect: as, "He that loses by getting, had better lose than get.

The subjunctive imperfect, suggesting the idea of what is not, and known by the sense, is sometimes introduced without any of the usual signs; as, "In a society of perfect men, where all understood what was morally right, and were determined to act accordingly, it is obvious, that human laws, or even human organization to enforce God's laws, would be altogether unnecessary, and could serve no valuable purpose.

Here had is a principal verb of the indicative imperfect.

How patiently she toiled to render her work in all its details as little imperfect as might be!

N. Butler, in his Practical Grammar, of 1845, names, and counts, and orders, the participles very oddly: "Every verb," he says, "has two participlesthe imperfect and the perfect.