Speaking of the
apostrophe, Mr. Masson tells us that "it is sometimes inserted, not as a
possessive mark at all, but merely as a plural mark: _hero's_ for
_heroes_, _myrtle's_ for _myrtles_, _Gorgons_ and _Hydra's_, etc." Now,
in books printed about the time of Milton's the apostrophe was put in
almost at random, and in all the cases cited is a misprint, except in the
first, where it serves to indicate that the pronunciation was not heroes
as it had formerly been.[364] In the "possessive singular of nouns
already ending in _s_" Mr. Masson tells us, "Milton's general practice is
not to double the _s_; thus, _Nereus wrinkled look, Glaucus spell_. The
necessities of metre would naturally constrain to such forms. In a
possessive followed by the word _sake_ or the word _side_, dislike to
[of] the double sibilant makes us sometimes drop the inflection. In
addition to '_for righteousness' sake_' such phrases as '_for thy name
sake_' and '_for mercy sake_,' are allowed to pass; _bedside_ is normal
and _riverside_ nearly so." The necessities of metre need not be taken
into account with a poet like Milton, who never was fairly in his element
till he got off the soundings of prose and felt the long swell of his
verse under him like a steed that knows his rider. But does the dislike
of the double sibilant account for the dropping of the _s_ in these
cases? Is it not far rather the presence of the _s_ already in the sound
satisfying an ear accustomed to the English slovenliness in the
pronunciation of double consonants? It was this which led to such forms
as _conscience sake_ and _on justice side_, and which beguiled Ben Jonson
and Dryden into thinking, the one that _noise_ and the other that _corps_
was a plural,[365] What does Mr.
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