OBS. 26.—­Nouns have, in some instances, a unity or plurality of meaning, which seems to be directly at variance with their form.  Thus, cattle, for beasts of pasture, and pulse, for peas and beans, though in appearance singulars only, are generally, if not always, plural; and summons, gallows, chintz, series, superficies, molasses, suds, hunks, jakes, trapes, and corps, with the appearance of plurals, are generally, if not always, singular.  Dr. Webster says that cattle is of both numbers; but wherein the oneness of cattle can consist, I know not.  The Bible says, “God made—­cattle after their kind.”—­Gen., i, 25.  Here kind is indeed singular, as if cattle were a natural genus of which one must be a cattle; as sheep are a natural genus of which one is a sheep:  but whether properly expressed so or not, is questionable; perhaps it ought to be, “and cattle after their kinds.”  Dr. Gillies says, in his History of Greece, “cattle was regarded as the most convenient measure of value.”  This seems to me to be more inaccurate and unintelligible, than to say, “Sheep was regarded as the most convenient measure of value.”  And what would this mean? Sheep is not singular, unless limited to that number by some definitive word; and cattle I conceive to be incapable of any such limitation.

OBS. 27.—­Of the last class of words above cited, some may assume an additional es, when taken plurally; as, summonses, gallowses, chintses:  the rest either want the plural, or have it seldom and without change of form. Corps, a body of troops, is a French word, which, when singular, is pronounced c=ore, and when plural, c=ores.  But corpse, a dead body, is an English word, pronounced k~orps, and making the plural in two syllables, corpses. Summonses is given in Cobb’s Dictionary as the plural of summons; but some authors have used the latter with a plural verb:  as, “But Love’s first summons seldom are obey’d.”—­Waller’s Poems, p. 8.  Dr. Johnson says this noun is from the verb to summon; and, if this is its origin, the singular ought to be a summon, and then summons would be a regular plural.  But this “singular noun with a plural termination,” as Webster describes it, more probably originated from the Latin verb submoneas, used in the writ, and came to us through the jargon of law, in which we sometimes hear men talk of “summonsing witnesses.”  The authorities for it, however, are good enough; as, “This present summons.”—­SHAK.:  Joh.  Dict. “This summons he resolved to disobey.”—­FELL:  ib. Chints is called by Cobb a “substantive plural” and defined as “cotton cloths, made in India;” but other lexicographers define it as singular, and Worcester (perhaps more