x libris Joannis_. But these simple suppositions
cannot satisfy men of science, who require a discovery to explain what
other men think they understand without one:--

"We can now account for what has hitherto puzzled all grammarians,
namely, the double possessive. This book of John's means, this
book of all John's; that is, this book forming a part of all
John's, of all things belonging to John."

"And how rich and full the meaning of this new possessive! What
an image it brings before the mind, compared to the wretched
meaning our ignorance of this noble science has hitherto taught
us to allow it to have! This book is John's, means, we have been
told, this book is John's book. How frivolous, how poor, compared
to, 'this book is part of all things corporeal and ideal
belonging to John.' How useless this repetition of the same word
book! and how incorrect! since if John possessed only one book,
and that we said, 'this book of John's is better than mine,' we
were immediately stopt, as we cannot say, this book of John's
book is better than mine. But now we know that this book of
John's, &c., means, 'this book is a part of all John's,' &c."

Our discoverer thereafter proceeds to analyse the personal
terminations of verbs, of which he seems to give an elucidation highly
satisfactory to himself, and which, we hope, will be equally so to his
readers. It is obviously of oriental origin, being analogous to the
astronomical theory of the elephant and tortoise, by which the Hindoos
are said so clearly to account for the support of our terrestrial
planet. "_Love_, _lovest_, _loveth_, or _loves_," &c., have been
formed by combining the root with the inflections of the auxiliary
verb, _to have_. He gives a very distinct table by which

"We see that _love hast_ has been shortened to _lovest_; _love
has_, to _loves_; _love hath_ to _loveth_; _love had_ to _loved_;
and _love hadst_ to _lovedst_. The _ha_ has been omitted
throughout, as, love [ha]st; love [ha]s; love [ha]th; love [ha]d;
love [ha]dst."

This is remarkably ingenious, and it must be from a very
unphilosophical curiosity that ignorant persons like ourselves are
tempted to ask how Mr Kavanagh explains the origin of the inflections
_have_, _hast_, _hath_, _had_, &c. We have been accustomed to regard
these terminations, though in a contracted form, as having the sa