can take cognizance; and just as in Latin ‘lapis’ makes ‘lapidis’ in the genitive, so ‘king’, ‘queen’, ‘child’, make severally ‘kings’, ‘queens’, ‘childs’, the comma, an apparent note of elision, being a mere modern expedient, “a late refinement”, as Ash calls it{188}, to distinguish the genitive singular from the plural cases{189}. {Sidenote: _Adjectives in ‘-en’_} Notice another example of this willingness to dispense with inflection, of this endeavour on the part of the speakers of a language to reduce its forms to the fewest possible, consistent with the accurate communication of thought. Of our adjectives in ‘en’, formed on substantives, and expressing the material or substance of a thing, some have gone, others are going, out of use; while we content ourselves with the bare juxtaposition of the substantive itself, as sufficiently expressing our meaning. Thus instead of “_golden_ pin” we say “_gold_ pin”; instead of “_earthen_ works” we say “_earth_ works”. ‘Golden’ and ‘earthen’, it is true, still belong to our living speech, though mainly as part of our poetic diction, or of the solemn and thus stereotyped language of Scripture; but a whole company of such words have nearly or quite disappeared; some lately, some long ago. ‘Steelen’ and ‘flowren’ belong only to the earliest period of the language; ‘rosen’ also went early. Chaucer is my latest authority for it (“_rosen_ chapelet”). ‘Hairen’ is in Wiclif and in Chaucer; ‘stonen’ in the former (John iii. 6){190}. ‘Silvern’ stood originally in Wiclif’s Bible (“_silverne_ housis to Diane”, Acts xix. 24); but already in the second recension of this was exchanged for ‘silver’; ‘hornen’, still in provincial use, he also employs, and ‘clayen’ (Job iv. 19) no less. ‘Tinnen’ occurs in Sylvester’s _Du Bartas_; where also we meet with “Jove’s _milken_ alley”, as a name for the _Via Lactea_, in Bacon also not “the _Milky_”, but “the _Milken_ Way”. In the coarse polemics of the Reformation the phrase, “_breaden_ god”, provoked by the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation, was of frequent employment, and occurs as late as in Oldham. “_Mothen_ parchments” is in Fulke; “_twiggen_ bottle” in Shakespeare; ‘_yewen_’, or, according to earlier spelling, “_ewghen_ bow”, in Spenser; “_cedarn_ alley”, and “_azurn_ sheen” are both in Milton; “_boxen_ leaves” in Dryden; “a _treen_ cup” in Jeremy Taylor; “_eldern_ popguns” in Sir Thomas Overbury; “a _glassen_ breast”, in Whitlock; “a _reeden_ hat” in Coryat; ‘yarnen’ occurs in Turberville; ‘furzen’ in Holland; ‘threaden’ in Shakespeare; and ‘bricken’, ‘papern’ appear in our provincial glossaries as still in use.