The Grammar of English Grammars, page 628 by Gould Brown
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and makes them regular. But I find no evidence at all of the fact on which these authors presume; nor do I believe that the regular possessive plural was ever, in general, a syllable longer than the nominative. If it ever had been so, it would still be easy to prove the point, by citations from ancient books. The general principle then is, that _the apostrophe forms the possessive case, with an s in the singular, and without it in the plural_; but there are some exceptions to this rule, on either hand; and these must be duly noticed.
OBS. 16.--The chief exceptions, or irregularities, in the formation of the possessive singular, are, I think, to be accounted mere poetic licenses; and seldom, if ever, to be allowed in prose. Churchill, (closely copying Lowth,) speaks of them thus: "In poetry the s is frequently omitted after proper names ending in s or x as, 'The wrath of _Peleus'_ son.' _Pope._ This is scarcely allowable in prose, though instances of it occur: as, '_Moses'_ minister.' _Josh._, i, 1. _'Phinehas'_ wife.' _1 Sam._, iv, 19. 'Festus came into _Felix'_ room.' Acts, xxiv, 27. It was done in prose evidently to avoid the recurrence of a sibilant sound at the end of two following syllables; but this may as readily be obviated by using the preposition of, which is now commonly substituted for the possessive case in most instances."--_Churchill's New Gram._, p. 215. In Scott's Bible, Philadelphia, 1814, the texts here quoted are all of them corrected, thus: "_Moses's_ minister,"--"_Phinehas's_ wife,"--"_Felix's_ room." But the phrase, "for conscience sake," (_Rom._, xiii, 5,) is there given without the apostrophe. Alger prints it, "for _conscience'_ sake," which is better; and though not regular, it is a common form for this particular expression. Our common Bibles have this text: "And the weaned child shall put his hand on the _cockatrice'_ den."--Isaiah, xi, 8. Alger, seeing this to be wrong, wrote it, "on the _cockatrice-den_."-