may be noted is an older
word in the language than _hukker_ (hucker) and _to huck_, both
first appearing in the xiv. cent. N.E.D.]

{176} [Preserved in the surnames Baxter and Brewster. See C. W.
Bardsley, _English Surnames_, 2nd ed. 364, 379.]

{177} _Notes and Queries_, No. 157.

{178} ['Welkin' is possibly a plural, but in Anglo-Saxon _wolcen_ is a
cloud, and the plural _wolcnu_.]

{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 a