Blair?  “A mother accusing her son, and accusing him of such actions, as having first bribed judges to condemn her husband, and having afterwards poisoned him, were circumstances that naturally raised strong prejudices against Cicero’s client.”—­Blair’s Lectures, p. 274.  Would they say.  “A mother’s accusing her son, &c., were circumstances,” &c.?  Is this their “common mode of expression?” and if it is, do they not make “common” what is no better English than the Doctor’s?  If, to accuse a son, and to accuse him greatly, can be considered different circumstances of the same prosecution, the sentence may be corrected thus:  “A mother’s accusing of her son, and her charging of him with such actions, as those of having first bribed judges to condemn her husband, and having afterwards poisoned him, were circumstances that naturally raised strong prejudices against Cicero’s client.”

OBS. 36.—­On several occasions, as in the tenth and twelfth observations on Rule 4th, and in certain parts of the present series, some notice has been taken of the equivalence or difference of meaning, real or supposed, between the construction of the possessive, and that of an other case, before the participle; or between the participial and the substantive use of words in ing.  Dr. Priestley, to whom, as well as to Dr. Lowth, most of our grammarians are indebted for some of their doctrines respecting this sort of derivatives, pretends to distinguish them, both as constituting different parts of speech, and as conveying different meanings.  In one place, he says, “When a word ending in ing is preceded by an article, it seems to be used as a noun; and therefore ought not to govern an other word, without the intervention of a preposition.”—­Priestley’s Gram., p. 157.  And in an other:  “Many nouns are derived from verbs, and end in ing, like participles of the present tense.  The difference between these nouns and participles is often overlooked, and the accurate distinction of the two senses not attended to.  If I say, What think you of my horse’s running to-day, I use the NOUN running, and suppose the horse to have actually run; for it is the same thing as if I had said, What think you of the running of my horse.  But if I say, What think you of my horse running to-day, I use the PARTICIPLE, and I mean to ask, whether it be proper that my horse should run or not:  which, therefore, supposes that he had not then run.”—­Ib., p. 122.  Whatever our other critics say about the horse running or the horse’s running, they have in general borrowed from Priestley, with whom the remark originated, as it here stands.  It appears that Crombie, Murray, Maunder, Lennie, Bullions, Ingersoll, Barnard, Hiley, and others, approve the doctrine thus taught, or at least some part of it; though some of them, if not all, thereby contradict themselves.