entire clause of a sentence” substantively possessed, is sufficiently like “the meaning of a lady’s dress, &c.” Cobbett despised andsoforths, for their lack of meaning; and I find none in this one, unless it be, “of tinsel and of fustian.”  This gloss therefore I wholly disapprove, judging the position more tenable, to deny, if we consequently must, that either a phrase or a participle, as such, can consistently govern the possessive case.  For whatever word or term gives rise to the direct relation of property, and is rightly made to govern the possessive case, ought in reason to be a noun—­ought to be the name of some substance, quality, state, action, passion, being, or thing.  When therefore other parts of speech assume this relation, they naturally become nouns; as, “Against the day of my burying.”—­John, xii, 7.  “Till the day of his showing unto Israel.”—­Luke, i, 80.  “By my own showing.”—­Cowper, Life, p. 22.  “By a fortune of my own getting.”—­Ib. “Let your yea be yea, and your nay nay.”—­James, v, 12.  “Prate of my whereabout.”—­Shah.

OBS. 16.—­The government of possessives by “entire clauses” or “substantive phrases,” as they are sometimes called, I am persuaded, may best be disposed of, in almost every instance, by charging the construction with impropriety or awkwardness, and substituting for it some better phraseology.  For example, our grammars abound with sentences like the following, and call them good English:  (1.) “So we may either say, ’I remember it being reckoned a great exploit;’ or perhaps more elegantly, ‘I remember its being reckoned a great exploit.’”—­Priestley, Murray, and others.  Here both modes are wrong; the latter, especially; because it violates a general rule of syntax, in regard to the case of the noun exploit.  Say, “I remember it was reckoned a great exploit.”  Again:  (2.) “We also properly say, ’This will be the effect of the pupil’s composing frequently.’”—­Murray’s Gram., p. 179; and others.  Better, “This will be the effect, if the pupil compose frequently.”  But this sentence is fictitious, and one may doubt whether good authors can be found who use compose or composing as being intransitive. (3.) “What can be the reason of the committee’s having delayed this business?”—­Murray’s Key, p. 223.  Say, “Why have the committee delayed this business?” (4.) “What can be the cause of the parliament’s neglecting so important a business?”—­Ib., p. 195.  Say, “Why does the parliament neglect so important a business?” (5.) “The time of William’s making the experiment, at length arrived.”—­Ib., p. 195.  Say, “The time for William to make the experiment, at length arrived.” (6.) “I hope this is the last time of my acting so