but are
in each case printed with the apostrophe after the _t_,--_it's_. This
method of writing the word, however, soon disappeared, for in a treatise of
Pemble's, printed 1635 (the author died in 1623), it appears as we write it
now:

"If faith alone by _its_ own virtue and force."--_Works_, fol. p. 171.

I have not observed the fact remarked, that besides the use of _his, her,
hereof, thereof, of it_, and _the_, it was customary to employ the
unchanged word _it_ for the possessive case. I will give an example or two.
In the Genevan version, at Rom. viii. 20., we read "Not of _it_ owne
wille." This passage is thus quoted in 1611 and in 1622, but in a later
edition of the same work, 1656, _its_ is substituted for _it_. I have a
note of one other instance from Perkins on Rev. ii. 28. (ed. 1606): "For as
the sunne in the spring time quickeneth by _it_ warme beames."

In conclusion, may I request that if any genuine instance of the use of
this word _its_, is observed by any of your many contributors, they will
communicate the fact to you? At present we can only go back to Shakspeare,
in his _Winter's Tale_ and _Henry VIII_.

B. H. C.

* * * * *

FAMILY OF MILTON'S WIDOW.

(Vol. vii., p. 596.)

As your correspondent CRANMORE has long been a deserter from the ranks of
"N. & Q.," I may perhaps, without presumption, for once "stand in his
shoes," and reply to the challenge addressed to him by V. M.

Much obscurity has all along prevailed among the many biographers of
Milton, in reference to the family of Elizabeth Minshull, his third wife,
and eventually, for more than fifty years, his widow. Philips, Warton,
Todd, and numerous others, state her to have been "the daughter of Mr.
Minshull, of Cheshire,"--a very vague assertion when we consider that there
were at least three or four different families of that name then existing
in the county. Pennant, who delighted in particularities, sometimes even at
the expense of historical fact, tells us, for the first time, in 1782, that
she was the daughter of Mr. (or Sir) Edward Minshull, of Stoke, near
Nantwich, and that she died at the latter town in March, 1726, at an
advanced age. Mr. Ormerod, again, whose splendid _History of Cheshire_ will
be the standard authority of the county for ages after he himself is
carried to his fathers, has unfortunately adopted the same conclusion, and
so given a colour, as it were, to this erroneous stateme