, still these forms and
usages must now be rapidly growing fewer; and there are forces, moral
and material, at work in England, which will probably cause that of
those which now survive the greater part will within the next fifty
years have disappeared{146}.

{Sidenote: _'Its' of Late Introduction_}

Before quitting this subject, let me instance one example more of that
which is commonly accounted ungrammatical usage, but which is really the
retention of old grammar by some, where others have substituted new; I
mean the constant application by our rustic population in the south, and
I dare say through all parts of England, of 'his' to inanimate objects,
and to these not personified, no less than to persons; where 'its' would
be employed by others. This was once the manner of speech among all; for
'its' is a word of very recent introduction, many would be surprised to
learn of how recent introduction, into the language. You will look for
it in vain through the whole of our Authorized Version of the Bible;
the office which it now fulfils being there accomplished, as our rustics
accomplish it at the present, by 'his' (Gen. i. 11; Exod. xxxvii. 17;
Matt. v. 15) or 'her' (Jon. i. 15; Rev. xxii. 2) applied as freely to
inanimate things as to persons, or else by 'thereof' (Ps. lxv. 10) or
'of it' (Dan. vii. 5). Nor may Lev. xx. 5 be urged as invalidating this
assertion; for reference to the exemplar edition of 1611, or indeed to
any earlier editions of King James' Bible, will show that in them the
passage stood, "of _it_ own accord"{147}. 'Its' occurs very rarely in
Shakespeare, in many of his plays it will not once be found. Milton also
for the most part avoids it, and this, though in his time others freely
allowed it. How soon all this was forgotten we have striking evidence in
the fact that when Dryden, in one of his fault-finding moods with the
great men of the preceding generation, is taking Ben Jonson to task for
general inaccuracy in his English diction, among other counts of his
indictment, he quotes this line from _Catiline_

"Though heaven should speak with all _his_ wrath at once",

and proceeds, "_heaven_ is ill syntax with _his_"; while in fact up to
within forty or fifty years of the time when Dryden began to write, no
other syntax was known; and to a much later date was exceedingly rare.
Curious also, is it to note that in the earnest controversy which
followed on Chatterton's publication of the poems asc