As flakès fallès in grete snowes,
House of Fame.
shows that even in his time the th had been converted into s. The present practice, then, we may see is merely a change of fashion, and our ancestors' mode of forming the plural was perfectly correct and grammatical, with one exception—of which we still meet instances—that of using is and was as a plural. In my Edition of our poet's plays, I have therefore very generally preserved this structure; for we may alter orthography and punctuation, but not grammar.
On the other hand, I must maintain, in opposition to Mr. Dyce, that the union of a single noun with a plural verb was never a rule of the language, but always an error of the copyist, or a slip of the writer. Of this I can give positive instances.
I one day met in my own History of England the following words, "The blood of Catesby and two others alone were shed;" and on looking at the first edition I found of course that my word had been was. In Mr. Lloyd's Critical Remarks on Measure for Measure, in Singer's Shakespeare, we may read "the five acts of the first part of Promos and Cassandra concludes the iniquity of the deputy." Nor is this confined to English; in the Gerusalemme Liberata, and unnoticed by any editor, we find
Non si conviene a te, cui fatto il corso
Delle cose e de' tempi han si prudente.—x. 41.
In all cases it will be found to be the consequence of a noun of a different number having intervened between the nominative and the verb. Mr. Dyce, however, tries to make a rule of it by saying that "our early writers" did it when a genitive plural intervened; but that will not apply to passages like these—
Whose youth, like wanton boys through bonfires,
Have skipt thy flame.—Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 1.