bukes Malone for his ignorance of such usage
of the latter word. If it be said that these two examples have no singular
form, whereas _contents_ has, there is _means_, at any rate precisely
analogous. On the other hand, so capricious is language, in defiance of the
logic of thought, we have, if I may so term it, a merely auricular plural,
in the word _corpse_ referred to a single carcase.

I should here close my account with "N. & Q." were it not that I have an
act of justice to perform. When I first lighted upon the two examples of
_chaumbre_ in Udall, I thought, as we say in this country, it was a good
"fundlas," and regarded it as my own property. It now appears to be but a
waif or stray; therefore, _suum cuique_, I cheerfully resign the credit of
it to MR. SINGER, the rightful proprietary. Proffering them for the
inspection of learned and unlearned, I of course foresaw that speedy
sentence would be pronounced by that division, whose judgment, lying ebb
and close to the surface, must needs first reach the light. I know no more
appropriate mode of requiting the handsome manner in which MR. SINGER has
been pleased to speak of my trifling contributions to "N. & Q.," than by
asking him, with all the modesty of which I am master, to reconsider the
passage in _Romeo and Juliet_; for though his substitution (_rumourers_
vice _runawayes_) may, I think, clearly take the wall of any of its rivals,
yet, believing that Juliet invokes a darkness to shroud her lover, under
cover of which even the fugitive from justice might snatch a wink of sleep,
I must for my own part, as usual, still adhere to the authentic text.

W. R. ARROWSMITH.

P. S.--In answer to a Bloomsbury Querist (Vol. viii., p. 44.), I crave
leave to say that I never have met with the verb _perceyuer_ except in
Hawes, _loc. cit._; and I gave the latest use that I could call to mind of
the noun in my paper on that word. Unhappily I never make notes, but rely
entirely on a somewhat retentive memory; therefore the instances that occur
on the spur of the moment are not always the most apposite that might be
selected for the purpose of illustration. If, however, he will take the
trouble to refer to a little book, consisting of no more than 448 pages,
published in 1576, and entitled _A Panoplie of Epistles, or a
Looking-glasse for the Unlearned_, by Abraham Flemming, he will find no
fewer than nine examples, namely, at pp. 25. 144. 178. 253. 277. 285.
(twice in the same p