Shakespear.
If the Poet had said he instead of it, he would have avoided a confusion of Genders, and happily compleated the spirited and elegant Prosopopœia, begun by the Personal Relative who. The Neuter Relative which would have made the sentence more strictly grammatical, but at the same time more prosaic.
[12] So the Saxon Ic hath the Possessive Case Min; Thu, Possessive Thin; He, Possessive His: from which our Possessive Cases of the same Pronouns are taken without alteration. To the Saxon Possessive Cases hire, ure, eower, hira, (that is, her’s, our’s, your’s, their’s) we have added the s, the Characteristic of the Possessive Case of Nouns. Or our’s, your’s, are directly from the Saxon ures, eoweres; the Possessive Case of the Pronominal Adjectives ure, eower; that is, our, your.
[13] Whose is by some authors made the Possessive Case of which, and applied to things as well as persons; I think, improperly.
“The question, whose solution I require,
Is, what the sex of women most desire.”
Dryden.
“Is there any other doctrine, whose followers are punished?” Addison.
[14] So the Saxon hwa hath the Possessive Case hwæs. Note, that the Saxons rightly placed the Aspirate before the w: as we now pronounce it. This will be evident to any one that shall consider in what manner he pronounces the words what, when; that is, hoo-àt, hoo-èn.
[15] Adjectives are very improperly called Nouns; for they are not the Names of things. The Adjectives good, white, are applied to the Nouns man, snow, to express the Qualities belonging to those Subjects; but the Names of those Qualities in the Abstract, (that is, considered in themselves, and without being attributed to any Subject) are goodness, whiteness; and these are Nouns, or Substantives.