(Vol. vii., p. 578.)
I am sorry to intrude upon your valuable space again in reference to this
little word, but the inquiry of MR. RYE (p. 578.), and other reasons,
render it desirable. The truth is that MR. KEIGHTLEY, MR. RYE and myself,
are more or less mistaken. 1. MR. KEIGHTLEY, in his quotation from
Fairfax's _Tasso_ (MR. SINGER's accurate reprint, 1817), has _his_ in both
lines. 2. MR. RYE, in understanding me to refer to any translation proper;
unless Sternhold and Hopkins are to be considered as having produced one.
3. Myself, in supposing the old metrical version in the Book of Common
Prayer originally had the word _its_. I copied from the Oxford edition in
fol. of 1770; but a 4to. edition, "printed by Iohn Daye, dwelling over
Aldersgate, anno 1574," does not exhibit the word in the places specified;
we have instead _her_ in both places.
Hitherto, then, the oldest examples of the use of this word have been
adduced from Shakspeare. These are to be found in the first folio, 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_.