Note 180 — III
Reading edition
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.