Prior.
“His wrath, which one day will destroy ye both.”
Milton, P. L. ii. 734.
Dr. Bently has corrected this mistake, which is probably an error of the Press, or of the Editor of whom he talks so much. But he has done it, without taking the least notice of the matter, or assuming any merit to himself from an emendation, which is one of the very few that are really such in his whole performance.
[11] The Neuter Pronoun of the Third Person had formerly no variation of Cases. Instead of the Possessive its they used his, which is now appropriated to the Masculine. “Learning hath his infancy, when it is but beginning, and almost childish; then his youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then his strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and lastly his old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust.” Bacon, Essay 58. In this example his is evidently used as the Possessive Case of it: but what shall we say to the following, where her is applied in the same manner, and seems to make a strange confusion of Gender? “He that pricketh the heart maketh it to shew her knowledge.” Ecclus. xxii. 19.
“Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,
Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,
Being all descended to the lab’ring heart,
Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy.”