“His notions fitted things so well,
    That which was which he could not tell.”—­Hudibras.

OBS. 2.—­The pronoun we is used by the speaker or writer to represent himself and others, and is therefore plural.  But it is sometimes used, by a sort of fiction, in stead of the singular, to intimate that the speaker or writer is not alone in his opinions; or, perhaps more frequently, to evade the charge of egotism; for this modest assumption of plurality seems most common with those who have something else to assume:  as, “And so lately as 1809, Pope Pius VII, in excommunicating his ‘own dear son,’ Napoleon, whom he crowned and blessed, says:  ’We, unworthy as we are, represent the God of peace.’”—­Dr. Brownlee.  “The coat fits us as well as if we had been melted and poured into it.”—­Prentice.  Monarchs sometimes prefer we to I, in immediate connexion with a singular noun; as, “We Alexander, Autocrat of all the Russias.”—­“We the Emperor of China,” &c.—­Economy of Human Life, p. vi.  They also employ the anomalous compound ourself, which is not often used by other people; as, “Witness ourself at Westminster, 28 day of April, in the tenth year of our reign.  CHARLES.”

   “Caes. What touches us ourself, shall be last serv’d.”
        —­Shak., J. C., Act iii, Sc. 1.

    “Ourself to hoary Nestor will repair.”
        —­Pope, Iliad, B. x, l. 65.

OBS. 3.—­The pronoun you, though originally and properly plural, is now generally applied alike to one person or to more.  Several observations upon this fashionable substitution of the plural number for the singular, will be found in the fifth and sixth chapters of Etymology.  This usage, however it may seem to involve a solecism, is established by that authority against which the mere grammarian has scarcely a right to remonstrate.  Alexander Murray, the schoolmaster, observes, “When language was plain and simple, the English always said thou, when speaking to a single person.  But when an affected politeness, and a fondness for continental manners and customs began to take place, persons of rank and fashion said you in stead of thou.  The innovation gained ground, and custom gave sanction to the change, and stamped it with the authority of law.”—­English Gram., Third Edition, 1793, p. 107.  This respectable grammarian acknowledged both thou and you to be of the second person singular.  I do not, however, think it necessary or advisable to do this, or to encumber the conjugations, as some have done, by introducing the latter pronoun, and the corresponding form of the verb, as singular.[381] It is manifestly better to say, that the plural is used for the singular, by the figure Enallage.  For if you has literally become singular by virtue of this substitution,