OBS. 9.—­Dr. Priestley says, “Some would say, ’I left the parcel at Mr. Smith’s, the bookseller;’ others, ‘at Mr. Smith the bookseller’s;’ and perhaps others, at ‘Mr. Smith’s the bookseller’s.’  The last of these forms is most agreeable to the Latin idiom, but the first seems to be more natural in ours; and if the addition consist [consists, says Murray,] of two or more words, the case seems to be very clear; as, ’I left the parcel at Mr. Smith’s the bookseller and stationer;’ i. e. at Mr. Smith’s, who is a bookseller and stationer.”—­Priestley’s Gram., p. 70.  Here the examples, if rightly pointed, would all be right; but the ellipsis supposed, not only destroys the apposition, but converts the explanatory noun into a nominative.  And in the phrase, “at Mr. Smiths, the bookseller’s,” there is no apposition, except that of Mr. with Smith’s; for the governing noun house or store is understood as clearly after the one possessive sign as after the other.  Churchill imagines that in Murray’s example, “I reside at Lord Stormont’s, my old patron and benefactor,” the last two nouns are in the nominative after “who was” understood; and also erroneously suggests, that their joint apposition with Stormont’s might be secured, by saying, less elegantly, “I reside at Lord Stormont’s, my old patron and benefactor’s.”—­ Churchill’s New Gram., p. 285.  Lindley Murray, who tacitly takes from Priestley all that is quoted above, except the term “Mr.,” and the notion of an ellipsis of “who is,” assumes each of the three forms as an instance of apposition, but pronounces the first only to be “correct and proper.”  If, then, the first is elliptical, as Priestley suggests, and the others are ungrammatical, as Murray pretends to prove, we cannot have in reality any such construction as the apposition of two possessives; for the sign of the case cannot possibly be added in more than these three ways.  But Murray does not adhere at all to his own decision, as may be seen by his subsequent remarks and examples, on the same page; as, “The emperor Leopold’s;”—­“Dionysius the tyrant’s;”—­“For David my servant’s sake;”—­“Give me here John the Baptist’s head;”—­“Paul the apostle’s advice.”  See Murray’s Gram., 8vo, p. 176; Smith’s New Gram., p. 150; and others.

OBS. 10.—­An explanatory noun without the possessive sign, seems sometimes to be put in apposition with a pronoun of the possessive case; and, if introduced by the conjunction as, it may either precede or follow the pronoun:  thus, “I rejoice in your success as an instructer.”—­ Sanborn’s Gram., p. 244. “As an author, his ‘Adventurer’ is his capital work.”—­Murray’s Sequel, p. 329.