ctions, _as having_ first _bribed_ judges to condemn her husband, and
_having_ afterwards _poisoned_ him, _were circumstances_ that naturally
raised strong prejudices against Cicero's client."--_Blair's Lectures_, p.
274. Would they say. "A _mother's accusing her son_, &c., _were
circumstances_," &c.? Is this their "common mode of expression?" and if it
is, do they not make "common" what is no better English than the Doctor's?
If, to accuse a son, and to accuse him greatly, can be considered different
circumstances of the same prosecution, the sentence may be corrected thus:
"A _mother's_ accusing _of_ her son, and _her charging of_ him _with_ such
actions, as _those of_ having first bribed judges to condemn her husband,
and having afterwards poisoned him, were circumstances that naturally
raised strong prejudices against Cicero's client."

OBS. 36.--On several occasions, as in the tenth and twelfth observations on
Rule 4th, and in certain parts of the present series, some notice has been
taken of the equivalence or difference of meaning, real or supposed,
between the construction of the possessive, and that of an other case,
before the participle; or between the participial and the substantive use
of words in _ing_. Dr. Priestley, to whom, as well as to Dr. Lowth, most of
our grammarians are indebted for some of their doctrines respecting this
sort of derivatives, pretends to distinguish them, both as constituting
different parts of speech, and as conveying different meanings. In one
place, he says, "When a word ending in _ing_ is preceded by an article, it
seems to be used as a _noun_; and therefore _ought not to govern an other
word_, without the intervention of a preposition."--_Priestley's Gram._, p.
157. And in an other: "Many nouns are derived from verbs, and end in _ing_,
like participles of the present tense. The difference between these nouns
and participles is often overlooked, and the accurate distinction of the
two senses not attended to. If I say, What think you of my _horse's
running_ to-day, I use the NOUN _running_, and suppose the horse to have
actually run; for it is the same thing as if I had said, What think you of
_the running of_ my horse. But if I say, What think you of my _horse
running_ to-day, I use the PARTICIPLE, and I mean to ask, whether it be
proper that my horse should run or not: which, therefore, supposes that he
had not then run."--_Ib._, p. 122. Whatever our other critics say about the