case occurs without it, that on the contrary it is sometimes retained where there is an actual suppression of the noun to which it belongs. This appears to be the case whenever the pronominal adjectives former and latter are inflected, as above. The inflection of these, however, seems to be needless, and may well be reckoned improper. But, in the following line, the adjective elegantly takes the sign; because there is an ellipsis of both nouns; poor's being put for poor man's, and the governing noun joys being understood after it: "The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay."--Goldsmith. So, in the following example, guilty's is put for guilty person's:
"Yet, wise and righteous ever, scorns to hear
The fool's fond wishes, or the guilty's prayer."
--Rowe's Lucan, B. v, l. 155.
This is a poetical license; and others of a like nature are sometimes met with. Our poets use the possessive case much more frequently than prose writers, and occasionally inflect words that are altogether invariable in prose; as,
"Eager that last great chance of war he waits,
Where either's fall determines both their fates."
--Ibid., B. vi, l. 13.
OBS. 28.--To avoid a concurrence of hissing sounds, the s of the possessive singular is sometimes omitted, and the apostrophe alone retained to mark the case: as, "For conscience' sake."--Bible. "Moses' minister."--Ib. "Felix' room."--Ib. "Achilles' wrath."--Pope. "Shiraz' walls."--Collins. "Epicurus' sty."--Beattie. "Douglas' daughter."--Scott. "For Douglas' sake."--Ib. "To his mistress' eyebrow."--Shak. This is a sort of poetic license, as is suggested in the 16th Observation upon the Cases of Nouns, in the Etymology. But in prose the elision should be very sparingly indulged; it is in general less agreeable, as well as less proper, than the regular form. Where is the propriety of saying, Hicks' Sermons, Barnes' Notes, Kames' Elements, Adams' Lectures, Josephus' Works, while we so uniformly say, in Charles's reign, St. James's Palace, and the like? The following examples are right: "At Westminster and Hicks's Hall."--Hudibras. "Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism."--Murray's Sequel, p. 331. "Of Rubens's allegorical pictures."--Hazlitt. "With respect to Burns's early education."--Dugald Stewart. "Isocrates's pomp;"--"Demosthenes's life."--Blair's Rhet., p. 242. "The repose of Epicurus's gods."--Wilson's Heb. Gram., p. 93.
"To Douglas's obscure abode."--Scott, L. L., C. iii, st. 28.
"Such was the Douglas's command."--Id., ib., C. ii, st. 36.
OBS. 29.--Some of our grammarians, drawing broad conclusions from a few particular examples, falsely teach as follows: "When a singular noun ends in ss, the apostrophe only is added; as, 'For goodness' sake:' except the word witness; as, 'The witness's testimony.' When a noun in the possessive case ends in ence, the s is omitted, but the apostrophe is retained; as, 'For conscience' sake.'"--Kirkham's Gram., p. 49; Hamlin's, 16; Smith's New Gram., 47.[350] Of principles or inferences very much like these, is the whole system of "Inductive Grammar" essentially made up. But is it not plain that heiress's, abbess's, peeress's, countess's, and many other words of the same form, are as good English as witness's? Did not Jane West write justly, "She made an attempt to look in at the dear dutchess's?"--Letters to a Lady, p. 95. Does not the Bible speak correctly of "an ass's head," sold at a great price?--2 Kings, vi, 25. Is Burns also wrong, about "miss's fine lunardi," and "miss's bonnet?"--Poems, p. 44. Or did Scott write inaccurately, whose guide "Led slowly through the pass's jaws?"--Lady of the Lake, p. 121. So much for the ss; nor is the rule for the termination ence, or (as Smith has it) nce, more true. Prince's and dunce's are as good possessives as any; and so are the following:
"That vice should triumph, virtue vice obey; This sprung some doubt of Providence's sway."--Parnell.
"And sweet Benevolence's mild command."--Lord Lyttleton.
"I heard the lance's shivering crash, As when the whirlwind rends the ash."--Sir Walter Scott.
OBS. 30.--The most common rule now in use for the construction of the possessive case, is a shred from the old code of Latin grammar: "One substantive governs another, signifying a different thing, in the possessive or genitive case."--L. Murray's Rule X. This canon not only leaves occasion for an additional one respecting pronouns of the possessive case, but it is also obscure in its phraseology, and too negligent of the various modes in which nouns may come together in English. All nouns used adjectively, and many that are compounded together, seem to form exceptions to it. But who can limit or enumerate these exceptions? Different combinations of nouns have so often little or no difference of meaning, or of relation to each other, and so frequently is the very same vocal expression written variously by our best scholars, and ablest lexicographers, that in many ordinary instances it seems scarcely possible to determine who or what is right. Thus, on the authority of Johnson, one might write, a stone's cast, or stone's throw; but Webster has it, stones-cast, or stones-throw; Maunder, stonecast, stonethrow; Chalmers, stonescast; Worcester, stone's-cast. So Johnson and Chalmers write stonesmickle, a bird; Webster has it, stone's-mickle; yet, all three refer to Ainsworth as their authority, and his word is stone-smickle: Littleton has it stone-smich. Johnson and Chalmers write, popeseye and sheep's eye; Walker, Maunder,
