“To Douglas’s obscure abode.”—­Scott, L. L., C. iii, st. 28.

   “Such was the Douglas’s command.”—­Id., ib., C. ii, st. 36.

OBS. 29.—­Some of our grammarians, drawing broad conclusions from a few particular examples, falsely teach as follows:  “When a singular noun ends in ss, the apostrophe only is added; as, ‘For goodness’ sake:’  except the word witness; as, ‘The witness’s testimony.’  When a noun in the possessive case ends in ence, the s is omitted, but the apostrophe is retained; as, ‘For conscience’ sake.’”—­Kirkham’s Gram., p. 49; Hamlin’s, 16; Smith’s New Gram., 47.[350] Of principles or inferences very much like these, is the whole system of “Inductive Grammar” essentially made up.  But is it not plain that heiress’s, abbess’s, peeress’s, countess’s, and many other words of the same form, are as good English as witness’s?  Did not Jane West write justly, “She made an attempt to look in at the dear dutchess’s?”—­Letters to a Lady, p. 95.  Does not the Bible speak correctly of “an ass’s head,” sold at a great price?—­2 Kings, vi, 25.  Is Burns also wrong, about “miss’s fine lunardi,” and “miss’s bonnet?”—­Poems, p. 44.  Or did Scott write inaccurately, whose guide “Led slowly through the pass’s jaws?”—­Lady of the Lake, p. 121.  So much for the ss; nor is the rule for the termination ence, or (as Smith has it) nce, more true. Prince’s and dunce’s are as good possessives as any; and so are the following: 

   “That vice should triumph, virtue vice obey;
    This sprung some doubt of Providence’s sway.”—­Parnell.

    “And sweet Benevolence’s mild command.”—­Lord Lyttleton.

    “I heard the lance’s shivering crash,
    As when the whirlwind rends the ash.”—­Sir Walter Scott.

OBS. 30.—­The most common rule now in use for the construction of the possessive case, is a shred from the old code of Latin grammar:  “One substantive governs another, signifying a different thing, in the possessive or genitive case.”—­L.  Murray’s Rule X.  This canon not only leaves occasion for an additional one respecting pronouns of the possessive case, but it is also obscure in its phraseology, and too negligent of the various modes in which nouns may come together in English.  All nouns used adjectively, and many that are compounded together, seem to form exceptions to it.  But who can limit or enumerate these exceptions? Different combinations of nouns have so often little or no difference of meaning, or of relation to each other, and so frequently is the very same vocal expression written variously by our best scholars, and ablest lexicographers, that in many ordinary instances it seems scarcely possible to determine who or what is