"The genitive its is of late introduction into our language. Though used by our dramatists and many of their cotemporaries, it does not occur in the versions of our Bible, the substitute being his or the compound term thereof."—Phil. Trans., No. 25.
[§ 511]. For the archaic and provincial use of him and he for it see ibid.; remembering that the two cases are different. His for its is an old form retained: him and he for it are really changes of gender.
[§ 512]. Take them things away.—Here we have them for those. The expression, although not to be imitated, is explained by the originally demonstrative power of them.
Sometimes the expression is still more anomalous, and we hear the so-called nominative case used instead of the accusative. In the expression take they things away, the use of they for them (itself for those) is similarly capable of being, down to a certain period of our language, explained as an archaism. The original accusative was þa, and þo: the form in -m being dative.
[§ 513]. This and that.—The remarks upon the use of these words in certain expressions is brought at once to the Latin scholar by the quotation of the two following lines from Ovid, and the suggestion of a well-known rule in the Eton Latin Grammar.
Quocunque aspicies nihil est nisi pontus et aer;
Nubibus hic tumidus, fluctibus ille minax.
Here hic (=this or the one) refers to the antecedent last named (the air); whilst ille (=that or the other) refers to the antecedent first named (the sea).
Now on the strength of this example, combined with others, it is laid down as a rule in Latin that hic (this) refers to the last-named antecedent, ille to the first-named.