Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/271

261 On English Preterites and Genitives. 261 source of the corruption be found in the practice, which is not uncommon, when a person cannot write himself, to put John Tomkins^ his mark^ over against his signature ? and in the analogous one of those who, not content with writing their names in their books, in the pride of property add his or her book ? If the first appearance of the phrase was on titlepages, we should have less difficulty in accounting for it. There is still another idiom mentioned by G. C. L., that in which we subjoin the genitive to the preposition of. This he explains in the usual way, namely that a picture of the king's stands for a picture of the king'^s pictures. I confess however that I feel some doubt whether this phrase is indeed to be regarded as elliptical, that is, whether the phrase in room of which it is said to stand, was ever actually in use. It has sometimes struck me that this may be a relic of the old practice of using the genitive after nouns as well as be- fore them, only with the insertion of the preposition of One of the passages quoted above from Arnold's chronicle supplies an instance of a genitive so situated : and one cannot help thinking that it was the notion that of governed the genitive, that led the old translators of Virgil to call his poem the hooke of Eneidos^ as it is termed by Phaer, and Gawin Douglas, and in the translation printed by Caxton, Else it may be that we put the genitive after the noun in such cases, in order to express those relations which are most ap- propriately exprest by the genitive preceding it. A picture of the king is something very different from the kings picture : and so many other relations are designated by of with the objective noun, that, if we wish to denote possession thereby, it leaves an ambiguity : so for this purpose, when we want to subjoin the name of the possessor to the thing possest, we have recourse to the genitive, by prefixing which we are wont to express the same idea. At all events as, if we were askt whose castle Alnwick is, we should answer, the Duke of Nor- thumherland'^s^ so we should also say what a grand castle that is of the Duke of Northumberland's ! without at all takin^c into account whether he had other castles besides : and and our expression would be equally appropriate whether he had or not.