{187} I cannot think that it would exceed the authority of our University Presses, if this were removed from the Prayer Books which they put forth, as certainly it is supprest by many of the clergy in the reading. Such a liberty they have already assumed with the Bible. In all earlier editions of the Authorized Version it stood at 1 Kin. xv. 24: “Nevertheless _Asa his_ heart was perfect with the Lord”; it is “_Asa’s_ heart” now. In the same way “_Mordecai his_ matters” (Esth. iii. 4) has been silently changed into “_Mordecai’s_ matters”; and in some modern editions, but not in all, “_Holofernes his_ head” (Judith xiii. 9) into “_Holofernes’_ head”. {188} In a good note on the matter, p. 6, in the _Comprehensive Grammar_ prefixed to his _Dictionary_, London, 1775. {189} See Grimm. _Deut. Gramm._, vol. ii. pp. 609, 944. {190} The existence of ‘stony’--‘lapidosus’, ‘steinig’, does not make ‘stonen’--‘lapideus’, ‘steinern’, superfluous, any more than ‘earthy’ makes ‘earthen’. That part of the field in which the good seed withered so quickly (Matt. xiii. 5) was ‘stony’. The vessels which held the water that Christ turned into wine (John iii. 6) were ‘stonen’. {191} J. Grimm (_Deutsche Gramm._ vol. i, p. 1040): Dass die starke form die ältere, kräftigere, innere; die schwache die spätere, gehemmtere und mehr äusserliche sey, leuchtet ein. Elsewhere, speaking generally of inflections by internal vowel change, he characterizes them as a ‘chief beauty’ (hauptschönheit) of the Teutonic languages. Marsh (_Manual of the English Language_, p. 233, English ed.) protests, though, as it seems to me, on no sufficient grounds, against these terms ‘strong’ and ‘weak’, as themselves fanciful and inappropriate. {192} The entire ignorance as to the past historic evolution of the language, with which some have undertaken to write about it, is curious. Thus the author of _Observations upon the English Language_, without date, but published about 1730, treats all these strong præterites as of recent introduction, counting ‘knew’ to have lately expelled ‘knowed’, ‘rose’ to have acted the same part toward ‘rised’, and of course esteeming them as so many barbarous violations of the laws of the language; and concluding with the warning that “great care must be taken to prevent their increase”!!--p. 24. Cobbett does not fall into this absurdity, yet proposes in his _English Grammar_, that they should all be abolished as inconvenient. [Now many others are rapidly becoming obsolescent. How seldom do we hear ‘drank’, ‘shrank’, ‘sprang’, ‘stank’.] {193} J. Grimm (_Deutsche Gramm._ vol. i. p. 839): “Die starke flexion stufenweise versinkt und ausstirbt, die schwache aber um sich greift”. Cf. i. 994, 1040; ii. 5; iv. 509.