nine 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_}

It is difficult to understand how Marsh, with these examples before him
should affirm, "I find no positive evidence to show that the termination
'ster' was ever regarded as a feminine termination in English". It may
be, and indeed has been, urged that the existence of such words as
'seamstr_ess_', 'songstr_ess_', is decisive proof that the ending 'ster'
of itself was not counted sufficient to designate persons as female; for
if, it has been said, 'seam_ster_' and 'song_ster_' had been felt to be
already feminine, no one would have ever thought of doubling on this,
and adding a second female termination; 'seam_stress_', 'song_stress_'.
But all which can justly be concluded from hence is, that when this
final 'ess' was added to these already feminine forms, and examples of
it will not, I think, be found till a comparatively late period of the
language, the true principle and law of the words had been lost sight of
and forgotten{173}. The same may be affirmed of such other of these
feminine forms as are now applied to men, such as 'gamester',
'youngster', 'oldster', 'drugster' (South), 'huckster', 'hackster',
(=swordsman, Milton, prose), 'teamster', 'throwster', 'rhymester',
'punster' (_Spectator_), 'tapster', 'whipster' (Shakespeare),
'trickster'. Either, like 'teamster', and 'punster', the words first
came into being, when the true significance of this form was altogether
lost{174}; or like 'tapster', which was female in Chaucer ("the gay
_tapstere_"), as it is still in Dutch and Frisian, and distinguished
from 'tapper', the _man_ who keeps the inn, or has charge of the tap, or
as 'bakester', at this day used in Scotland for 'baker', as 'dyester'
for 'dyer', the word did originally belong of right and exclusively to
women; but with the gradual transfer of the occupation to men, and an
increasing forgetfulness of what this termination implied, there went
also a transfer of the name{175}, just as in oth