_Cielo_ is here used for the influence of the stars, as is clear from a parallel passage in the "Convito." Accordingly, "Though servile to all the skyey influences, it is thou, breath as thou art, that dost hourly afflict thy body with the results of sin." But even if this be not the meaning, is Mr. White correct in saying that _influence_ had no plural at that time?[I] Had he forgotten "the sweet _influences_ of Pleiades"? The word occurs in this form not only in our version of the Bible, but in that of Cranmer, and in the "Breeches" Bible. So in Chapman's "Byron's Conspiracy," (Ed. 1608, B. 3,) "Where the beames of starres have carv'd Their powerful _influences_." [Footnote I: Mr. White cites Dr. Richardson, but the Doctor is not always a safe guide.] Mr. White repeatedly couples together the translators of the Bible and Shakspeare, but he seems to have studied their grammar but carelessly. "_Whom_ therefore ye ignorantly worship, _him_ declare I unto you," is a case in point, and we ought never to forget our danger from that dusky personage who goes about "seeking _whom_ he may devour." At a time when correction of the press was so imperfect, one instance of true construction should outweigh twenty false, and nothing could be easier than the mistake of _who_ for _whom_, when the latter was written _wh[=o]_. A glance at Ben Jonson's English Grammar is worth more than all theorizing. Mr. White thinks it probable that Shakspeare understood French, Latin, and Italian, but not--English! The truth is, that, however forms of spelling varied, (as they must where both writers and printers spelt phonographically,) the forms of grammatical construction were as strict then as now. There were some differences of usage, as where two nominatives coupled by a conjunction severally governed the verb, and where certain nouns in the plural were joined with a verb in the singular,--as _dealings, doings, tidings, odds_, and as is still the case with _news_. It is not impossible that the French termination in _esse_ helped to make the confusion. We have in the opposite way made a plural of _riches_, which was once singular. Some persons used the strong preterites, and some the weak,--some said _snew, thew, sew_, and some _snowed, thawed, sowed_. Bishop Latimer used the preterite _shew_, which Mr. Bartlett, in his "Dictionary of Americanisms," pronounces to be the _shibboleth_ of Bostonians. But such differences were orthoepic, and not syntactic.