{179} When Wallis wrote, it was only beginning to be forgotten that ‘chick’ was the singular, and ‘chicken’ the plural: “_Sunt qui dicunt_ in singulari ‘chicken’, et in plurali ‘chickens’”; and even now the words are in many country parts correctly employed. In Sussex, a correspondent writes, they would as soon think of saying ‘oxens’ as ‘chickens’. [‘Chicken’ is properly a singular, old English _cicen_, the _-en_ being a diminutival, not a plural, suffix (as in ‘kitten’, ‘maiden’). Thus ‘chicken’ was originally ‘a little chuck’ (or cock), out of which ‘chick’ was afterwards developed.] {180} See Chaucer’s _Romaunt of the Rose_, 1032, where Richesse, “an high lady of great noblesse”, is one of the persons of the allegory; and compare Rev. xviii. 17, Authorized Version. This has so entirely escaped the knowledge of Ben Jonson, English scholar as he was, that in his _Grammar_ he cites ‘riches’ as an example of an English word wanting a singular. {181} “Set shallow brooks to surging seas, An orient pearl to a white _pease_”. _Puttenham._ {182} [‘Eaves’ (old English _efes_) from which an imaginary singular ‘eave’ has sometimes been evolved, as when Tennyson speaks of a ‘cottage-eave’ (_In Memoriam_, civ.), and Cotgrave of ‘an house-eave’.] {183} It is curious that despite of this protest, one of his plays has for its name, _Sejanus his Fall_. {184} Even this does not startle Addison, or cause him any misgiving; on the contrary he boldly asserts (_Spectator_, No. 135), “The same single letter ‘s’ on many occasions does the office of a whole word, and represents the ‘his’ _or ‘her’_ of our forefathers”. {185} Nothing can be better than the way in which Wallis disposes of this scheme, although less successful in showing what this ‘s’ does mean than in showing what it cannot mean (_Gramm. Ling. Anglic._, c. 5); Qui autem arbitrantur illud s, loco _his_ adjunctum esse (priori scilicet parte per aphæresim abscissâ), ideoque apostrophi notam semper vel pingendam esse, vel saltem subintelligendam, omnino errant. Quamvis enim non negem quin apostrophi nota commode nonnunquam affigi possit, ut ipsius litteræ s usus distinctius, ubi opus est, percipiatur; ita tamen semper fieri debere, aut etiam ideo fieri quia vocem _his_ innuat, omnino nego. Adjungitur enim et fœminarum nominibus propriis, et substantivis pluralibus, ubi vox _his_ sine solœcismo locum habere non potest: atque etiam in possessivis _ours_, _yours_, _theirs_, _hers_, ubi vocem _his_ innui nemo somniaret. {186} See the proofs in Marsh’s _Manual of the English Language_, English Edit., pp. 280, 293.