Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/44

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32


NOTES AND QUERIES. [io"> s. v. JAN. 13, 1906.


quarian Itinerary,' London, 1816. Ib is the head-piece to the description of Roslin Castle and Chapel (see last page of vol. Index). In Gough's 'Camden's Britannia,' 1789, vol. i. p. 205, the name is Beigham. A foot-note refers to Tanner, 561. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

MRS. FlTZHERBERT (10 th S. IV. 530).

Her Christian name, according to Burke's 'Gentry, 3 1898, and his 'Peerage' (under Smythe of Eshe Hall, Bart.), was Mary Anne. Maria and Maria Anne were used sometimes, being considered by some to be more fashion- able. In an inscription on a stained-glass window in this district the version Marianne is adopted. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

Greenfield, near Oldham.

TOBY'S DOG (10 th S. iv. 508, 535). My respondents do not seem to have understood the difficulty about " Toby's dog." Of course the reference is to Tobit's dog in the Apocry- phal book ; but why should " the making of a preachment on Toby's dog," on 22 February, 1640, have been considered so serious an offence as to entail imprisonment in the Fleet and a fine of 200/. 1 That is the question. RICHARD O. ASSHETON.

AINSTY (10 th S. ii. 25, 97, 455, 516 ; iii. 133, 256, 335). If Mr. Solloway (whose ingenious speculation is alluded to at the first refer- ence) will turn to the King's Remembrancer's Memoranda Roll for the year 26-7 Edward I., m. 83, he will find separate accounts of the Tentli for the " Decanatus Christianitatis Eboracensis" and the "Decanatus deAynesty" clear evidence that the two deaneries were co-existing entities in 1299, and that, con- sequently, the latter name cannot be derived from the former. Q. V.

AFFERY FLINTWINCH IN 'LITTLE DORRIT' (10 th S. iv. 466). It is quite possible that, as suggested by H. P. L., Dickens took the name from the tombstone (of what date ?), especially as the two forms agree ; but it is of interest to note that, according to Bardsley's ' Curiosi- ties of Puritan Nomenclature,' p. 64, it was common in Kent, the registers of Canterbury Cathedral teeming with it. It occurs as Afra, Aphara, Aphora, and Apherie. In addition to these I note that Sir Anthony Aucher, Knt., married Affra, daughter of William Cornwallis (Hasted's 'Kent,' ii. 501). AYEAHR.

"WAS YOU?" AND "You WAS" (10 th S. i. 509 ; ii. 72, 157). In a letter dated 29 December, 1779, which was written from Bath to his daughter Polly, John Wilkes thus humorously takes her to task for


employing this solecism : " Not ' you ivas,' if you please, but 'you were.' The phrase is not "you is,' but 'you are' a charming girl " Letters of John Wilkes, Esq , addressed to his Daughter,' London, 1804, vol. ii. p. 188). Yet in his earlier years he was himself equally blameworthy, for the letter, sent in 1763 to Samuel Martin, in which Wilkes confesses he was the author of the strictures in The North Briton on that person's conduct, contains these words : I have reason to believe you ivas not so much in the dark as you affected and chose to be " (quoted in 'The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill,' vol. i. p. 185, London, 1804). The politician and the poet were on very friendly terms, which came to an end in 1764 on the latter's untimely death. In his poem ' The Farewell,' composed in that year, we find that Churchill was no more impeccable than Wilkes in the matter of grammar, for he says :

At home, and sitting in your elbow-chair, You praise Japan, though you was never there. But I think, if he had not died in early man- hood, he would have also condemned this vicious locution, which was so common in the first half of the eighteenth century, and which Dr. Lowth's ' Short Introduction to English Grammar,' published in 1762, had so clearly shown to be wrong.

JOHN T. CURRY.

ENIGMA BY C. J. Fox (10 th S. iv. 530).- The last three lines clearly indicate the answer. "My post" must be abed-post, and "I" a bedfellow. H. H.

" PASSIVE RESISTER " (10 th S. iv. 508). As "passive obedience " was implicit submission to kingly authority, whether legal or illegal, those Non jurors who, having taken the oath of allegiance to James II., were unable to transfer that allegiance to William of Orange during the lifetime of his predecessor, appear to have been the first with whom the attitude, if not the phrase, of "passive resistance" became identified. In 'The Heart of Mid- lothian,' which appeared in 1818, Scott says (ed. 1867, chap, vi.) : " The passive resistance of the Tolbooth-gate promised to do more to baffle the purposes of the mob than the active interference of the magistrates." The phrase also occurs, I believe, in 'Ivanhoe,' which, however, appeared a year later. ' The Heart of Midlothian,' perhaps, therefore, affords the earliest known instance of use.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. 6, Elgin Court, W.

There are some very striking literary asso- ciations attached to the phrase "passive