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The most abominable din and confusion which it is possible for a reasonable person to conceive.—Poe.

Reverential objections, composed of all which his unstained family could protest.—Meredith.

He required all the solace which he could derive from literary success.—Macaulay.

All the evidence which we have ever seen tends to prove...—Macaulay.

A battle more bloody than any which Europe saw in the long interval between Malplaquet and Eylau.—Macaulay.

The only other biography which counts for much is...—Times.

The French Government are anxious to avoid anything which might be regarded as a breach of neutrality.—Times.

It was the ecclesiastical synods which by their example led the way to our national parliaments.—J. R. Green.

It is the little threads of which the inner substance of the nerves is composed which subserve sensation.—Huxley.

'Of which' in a defining clause is one of the recognized exceptions; but we ought to have 'that subserve'.

It is not wages and costs of handling which fall, but profits and rents.—Times.

It has been French ports which have been chosen for the beginning and for the end of his cruise.—Times.

Who is it who talks about moral geography?—E. F. Benson.

3. We come now to the exceptions. The reader will have noticed that of all the instances given in (2) there is only one—the last–in which we recommend the substitution of 'that' for 'who'; in all the others, it is a question between 'that' and 'which'. 'That', used of persons, has in fact come to look archaic: the only cases in which it is now to be preferred to 'who' are those mentioned above as particularly requiring 'that' instead of 'which'; those, namely, in which the antecedent is 'it', or has attached to it a superlative or other word of exclusive meaning. We should not, therefore, in the Spectator instance above, substitute 'the person that desires' for 'who desires'; but we should say