Beaumont and Fletcher); ‘comfortress’, ‘fosteress’ (Ben Jonson); ‘soveraintess’ (Sylvester); ‘preserveress’ (Daniel); ‘solicitress’, ‘impostress’, ‘buildress’, ‘intrudress’ (all in Fuller); ‘favouress’ (Hakewell); ‘commandress’ (Burton); ‘monarchess’, ‘discipless’ (Speed); ‘auditress’, ‘cateress’, ‘chantress’, ‘tyranness’ (all in Milton); ‘citess’, ‘divineress’ (both in Dryden); ‘deaness’ (Sterne); ‘detractress’ (Addison); ‘hucksteress’ (Howell); ‘tutoress’ (Shaftesbury); ‘farmeress’ (Lord Peterborough, _Letter to Pope_); ‘laddess’, which however still survives in the contracted form of ‘lass’{167}; with more which, I doubt not, it would not be very hard to bring together{168}. {Sidenote: _Words in ‘-ster’_} Exactly the same thing has happened with another feminine affix. I refer to ‘ster’, taking the place of ‘er’ where a feminine doer is intended{169}. ‘Spinner’ and ‘spinster’ are the only pair of such words, which still survive. There were formerly many such; thus ‘baker’ had ‘bakester’, being the female who baked: ‘brewer’ ‘brewster’; ‘sewer’ ‘sewster’; ‘reader’ ‘readster’; ‘seamer’ ‘seamster’; ‘fruiterer’ ‘fruitester’; ‘tumbler’ ‘tumblester’; ‘hopper’ ‘hoppester’ (these last three in Chaucer; “the shippes _hoppesteres_”, about which so much difficulty has been made, are the ships _dancing_, i.e., on the waves){170}, ‘knitter’ ‘knitster’ (a word, I am told, still alive in Devon). Add to these ‘whitster’ (female bleacher, Shakespeare), ‘kempster’ (pectrix), ‘dryster’ (siccatrix), ‘brawdster’, (I suppose embroideress){171}, and ‘salster’ (salinaria){172}. It is a singular example of the richness of a language in forms at the earlier stages of its existence, that not a few of the words which had, as we have just seen, a feminine termination in ‘ess’, had also a second in ‘ster’. Thus ‘daunser’, beside ‘daunseress’, had also ‘daunster’ (Ecclus. ix. 4); ‘wailer’, beside ‘waileress’, had ‘wailster’ (Jer. ix. 17); ‘dweller’ ‘dwelster’ (Jer. xxi. 13); and ‘singer’ ‘singster’ (2 Kin. xix. 35); so too, ‘chider’ had ‘chidester’ (Chaucer), as well as ‘chideress’, ‘slayer’ ‘slayster’ (Tob. iii. 9), as well as ‘slayeress’, ‘chooser’ ‘chesister’, (Wisd. viii. 4), as well as ‘cheseress’, with others that might be named. {Sidenote: _Deceptive Analogies_}