Note 55 — Chapter V · OF THE VERB.
Reading edition
The preterite would is frequently employed, like the Latin preterimperfect tense, to denote what is usual or customary. Thus,
Quintilio si quid recitares, corrige, sodes, Hoc, aiebat, et hoc; melius te posse negares, Bis terque expertum frustra; delere jubebat, Et malè tornatos incudi reddere versus: Si defendere delictum quàm vertere, malles, Nullum ultra verbum, aut operam insumebat inanem. Horace.
where the verbs aiebat, jubebat, insumebat, may be translated, “he would say,” “he would desire,” “he would spend.” Thus also in English,
Pleas’d with my admiration, and the fire His speech struck from me, the old man would shake His years away, and act his young encounters: Then having show’d his wounds, he’d sit him down.