204
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. x. SEPT. 12,
THE "MONSTROUS" POSSESSIVE
CASE AND BEX JOXSOX.
DR. LOWTH in his ' Short Introduction to English Grammar,' published in 1762, writes as follows on pp. 25-7 :
" For instance, the relation of possession, or belonging, is often expressed by a case, or a different ending of a substantive. This case answers to the genitive case in Latin, and may still be so called ; though perhaps more properly "the possessive case. Thus, ' God's grace,' which may also be expressed by the preposition, as, ' the grace of God.' It was formerly written ' Godis grace ' : we now very improperly always shorten ft with an apostrophe, even though we are obliged "to pronounce it fully ; as, ' Thomas's book,' that is, ' Thomasis book,' not, ' Thomas his book,' as it is commonly supposed." To his text the author adds this very inter- esting note :
" ' Christ his sake ' in our Liturgy, is a mistake, either of the printers, or of the compilers. ' My paper is the Ulysses his bow, in which every man of wit or learning may try his strength.' Addi- son, Guardian, No. 98. This is no slip of Mr. Addison's pen ; he gives us his opinion upon this point very explicitly in another place. ' The j?ame single letter [s] on many occasions does "the office of a whole word, and represents the his and her of our forefathers.' Addison, Spectator, No. 135. The latter instance might have shewn him how groundless this notion is, for it is not easy to conceive how the letter s added to a feminine noun should represent the word her, any more than it should the word their, added to a plural noun, as ' the children's bread.' But the direct derivation of this case from the Saxon genitive case is sufficient of itself to decide this matter."
Dr. Lowth says on p. v of the Preface to his book :
" The last English Grammar that hath been presented to the public, and by the person best qualified to have given us a perfect one, com- -prises the whole Syntax in ten lines. The reason, which he assigns for being so very concise in this part, is because our language has so little inflec- tion that its construction neither requires nor admits many rules."
No reference is given for this quotation, but the words are Samuel Johnson's, and occur in the short ' Grammar ' prefixed to his ' Dictionary,' first published in 1755. In the third or fourth edition, which was the last corrected by the author, Johnson men- tions Dr. Lowth's name in commendatory terms more than once. The latter does not seem to have borrowed from the former when treating of the subject about which these notes are written.
" These genitives [Johnson says] are always written with a mark of elision, master's, scholars, according to an opinion long received, that the ' Is a contraction of his, as the soldier's valour, for the soldier his valour ; but this cannot be the
Sing.
true original, because ' is put to female nouns,
woman's beauty, the virgin's delicacy ; haughty
Jtmo's unrelenting hate ; and collective nouns as
teamen's passions, the rabble's insolence, the
multitude's folly : in all these cases it is apparent
that his cannot be understood."
Addison and Dr. Lowth were evidently unacquainted with Ben Jonson's ' English Grammar,' but our great lexicographer was not, for he somewhat contemptuously refers to it in his own. And yet Ben Jonson was one of the first to expose the absurdity of this possessive, and it is from him I have borrowed the epithet " monstrous " at the head of this paper. In chap. xiii. he says :
" Nouns ending in z, s, sh, g, and ch, in the declining take to the genitive singular i, and to the plural e ; as
prince, plnr princes,
princis, -princes,
so rose, bush, afje, breech, &c., which distinctions not observed, brought in first the monstrous syntax of the pronoun his joining with a noun betokening a possessor ; as the prince his house, for the princi's house."
This sketch of an ' English Grammar ' was published in 1640, some years after the author's death. If, as he says in his poem entitled ' An Execration on Vulcan,' this work in its completed state was destroyed by the fire that caused so much damage to his library, we have lost what would have been a most valuable book. The fragments that remain and his finished productions show that no one in his time was more com- petent to write an authoritative treatise on the language which he knew so well.
I have quoted Ben Jonson's vigorous condemnation of the false possessive case about which these notes are written. It is, therefore, with much surprise that I find his own rule is not observed in one of his posthumous works. I have lately been reading again his 'Timber; or, Discoveries/ in the beautiful little volume edited for Dent & Co. by Prof. Israel Gollancz. This interesting opusculum was printed for the first time in 1641, about four years after the author's death.
Taking proper nouns, I have made a list which shows when he uses the possessive,
- orrectly or otherwise
I.
" He is like Homer's Thersites." P. 21.
" Heath's epigrams and the Sculler's poems, he Water-rhymer's works against Spenser's." P. 34.
" Virgil's felicity left him in prose, as Tully's 'orsook him in verse. Sallust's orations are read n the honour of story, yet the most eloquent ^lato's, which he made for Socrates, is neither worthy of the patron nor the person defended." P. 44.
