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In his monumental work An Historical Syntax of the English Language, Volume 1, Visser devotes quite a few pages to this construction. On page 858 he writes:

In his monumental work An Historical Syntax of the English Language, Volume 1, F.Th. Visser devotes quite a few pages to this construction. On page 858 he writes:

• If would be better if he were here when Jane was.

• It would be better if he were here when Jane was.

He then cites Jespersen opining that in certain common cases it was probably never used at all. Visser also mentions that although French has the same idiom of marking the verb, that it would be rash to look upon this usage as the origin of the English usage, since latter was already fully developed in Old English.

• “If you should see a man, who were to cross from Dover to Calais, run about very busy and and solicitous, and trouble himself many weeks before in making provisions for his voyage, would you commend him for a cautious and discreet person, or laugh at him for a timorous and impertinent coxcomb?”
  —Abraham Cowley

He then cites Jespersen opining that in certain common cases it was probably never used at all. Visser also mentions that although French has the same idiom of marking the verb, that it would be rash to look upon the French usage as the origin of the English usage, since the latter was already fully developed in Old English long before the French invasion in 1066.

• “If you should see a man, who were to cross from Dover to Calais, run about very busy and solicitous, and trouble himself many weeks before in making provisions for his voyage, would you commend him for a cautious and discreet person, or laugh at him for a timorous and impertinent coxcomb?”
  —Abraham Cowley