inventions, or of Cain or Abel’s inventions.  The Rev. David Blair, unable to resolve this phraseology to his own satisfaction, absurdly sets it down among what he calls “ERRONEOUS OR VULGAR PHRASES.”  His examples are these:  “A poem of Pope’s;”—­“A soldier of the king’s;”—­“That is a horse of my father’s.”—­Blair’s Practical Gram., p. 110, 111.  He ought to have supplied the plural nouns, poems, soldiers, horses.  This is the true explanation of all the “double genitives” which our grammarians discover; for when the first noun is partitive, it naturally suggests more or other things of the same kind, belonging to this possessor; and when such is not the meaning, this construction is improper.  In the following example, the noun eyes is understood after his: 

   “Ev’n his, the warrior’s eyes, were forced to yield,
    That saw, without a tear, Pharsalia’s field.”
        —­Rowe’s Lucan, B. viii, l. 144.

OBS. 23.—­When two or more nouns of the possessive form are in any way connected, they usually refer to things individually different but of the same name; and when such is the meaning, the governing noun, which we always suppress somewhere to avoid tautology, is understood wherever the sign is added without it; as, “A father’s or mother’s sister is an aunt.”—­Dr. Webster.  That is, “A father’s sister or a mother’s sister is an aunt.”  “In the same commemorative acts of the senate, were thy name, thy father’s, thy brother’s, and the emperor’s.”—­Zenobia, Vol. i, p. 231.

   “From Stiles’s pocket into Nokes’s” [pocket].
        —­Hudibras, B. iii, C. iii, l. 715.

    “Add Nature’s, Custom’s, Reason’s, Passion’s strife.”
        —­Pope, Brit.  Poets, Vol. vi, p. 383.

It will be observed that in all these examples the governing noun is singular; and, certainly, it must be so, if, with more than one possessive sign, we mean to represent each possessor as having or possessing but one object.  If the noun be made plural where it is expressed, it will also be plural where it is implied.  It is good English to say, “A father’s or mother’s sisters are aunts;” but the meaning is, “A father’s sisters or a mother’s sisters are aunts.”  But a recent school critic teaches differently, thus:  “When different things of the same name belong to different possessors, the sign should be annexed to each; as, Adams’s, Davies’s, and Perkins’ Arithmetics; i. e., three different books.”—­Spencer’s Gram., p. 47.  Here the example is fictitious, and has almost as many errors as words.  It would be much better English to say, “Adams’s, Davies’s, and Perkins’s Arithmetic;” though the objective form with of would, perhaps, be still more agreeable for these peculiar names.  Spencer, whose Grammar abounds with useless repetitions,