because there is no ellipsis. Of before the possessive case, governs the noun which is understood after this case; and is always taken in a partitive sense, and not as the sign of the possessive relation:  as, “When we say, ’a soldier of the king’s’, we mean, ’one of the king’s soldiers.’”—­Webster’s Improved Gram., p. 29.  There is therefore an ellipsis of the word soldiers, in the former phrase.  So, in the following example, mine is used elliptically for my feet; or rather, feet is understood after mine, though mine feet is no longer good English, for reasons before stated:—­

   “Ere I absolve thee, stoop I that on thy neck
    Levelled with earth tins foot of mine may tread.”—­Wordsworth.

OBS. 5.—­Respecting the possessive case of the simple personal pronouns, there appears among our grammarians a strange diversity of sentiment.  Yet is there but one view of the matter, that has in it either truth or reason, consistency or plausibility.  And, in the opinion of any judicious teacher, an erroneous classification of words so common and so important as these, may well go far to condemn any system of grammar in which it is found.  A pronoun agrees in person, number, and gender, with the noun for which it is a substitute; and, if it is in the possessive case, it is usually governed by an other noun expressed or implied after it.  That is, if it denotes possession, it stands for the name of the possessor, and is governed by the name of the thing possessed.  Now do not my, thy, his, her, our, your, their, and mine, thine, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs, all equally denote possession? and do they not severally show by their forms the person, the number, and sometimes also the gender, of whomever or whatever they make to be the possessor?  If they do, they are all of them pronouns, and nothing else; all found in the possessive case, and nowhere else.  It is true, that in Latin, Greek, and some other languages, there are not only genitive cases corresponding to these possessives, but also certain declinable adjectives which we render in English by these same words:  that is, by my or mine, our or ours; thy or thine, your or yours; &c.  But this circumstance affords no valid argument for considering any of these English terms to be mere adjectives; and, say what we will, it is plain that they have not the signification of adjectives, nor can we ascribe to them the construction of adjectives, without making their grammatical agreement to be what it very manifestly is not.  They never agree, in any respect, with the nouns which follow them, unless it be by mere accident.  This view of the matter is sustained by the authority of many of our English grammars; as may be seen by the declensions given by Ash, C. Adams, Ainsworth, R. W. Bailey, Barnard, Buchanan, Bicknell, Blair, Burn, Butler, Comly, Churchill, Cobbett, Dalton, Davenport, Dearborn, Farnum, A. Flint, Fowler, Frost, Gilbert, S. S. Green, Greenleaf, Hamlin, Hiley, Kirkham, Merchant, Murray the schoolmaster, Parkhurst, Picket, Russell, Sanborn, Sanders, R. C. Smith, Wilcox.