174
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vm. AUG. 30, 1913.
Mr. Johnstone in ' Place -Names of the Isle
of Axholme ' simply says that it is from
A.-S. eoivystre, a sheepfold, but this deriva-
tion is hardly tenable. C. C. B.
AN AMBIGUOUS POSSESSIVE CASE (11 S. viii. 25, 91, 135, 153). MR. BAYNE in his lucid contribution, ante, p. 91, to the discussion about an English idiom in which I cannot detect either ambiguity or incorrectness ellipsis being a recognized means of all lan- guages says :
" If the reference were made when only an individual or a particular thing was concerned, then the syntax would be faulty, as it would involve no partitive phrase."
But is " that blessed wife of his " faulty, in the sense that a phrase of this grammatical build is avoided by educated English people ? From the standpoint of logic, of course, it would be admissible only with reference to a polygamous individual ; but has it not been received into the stock of familiar English, at least ? Logic is not the only standard in speech ; analogy is more powerful and, for the common language, i.e., that of the majority of the well educated, the supreme umpire is usage.
G. KRUEGER. Berlin.
THE SMALLEST SQUARE IN LONDON (11 S. viii. 126). I should say that one of the smallest enclosed public spaces in London is the triangular " plague spot " to the north of Thurloe Square, at the east end of Cromwell Road in Old Brompton. There is a similar burying - ground opposite Tattersall's horse - auction establishment at Knightsbridge Green.
F. W. R. GARNETT.
Wellington Club, Grosvenor Place, S.W.
Permit me to supplement MR. J. LAND- FEAR LUCAS'S note under this head. The small enclosure he mentions at the top of Upper Grosvenor Street has its counterpart in the front of 35, Park Lane, Countess Grosvenor' s residence, at the other end of the short " crescent " adjoining Dudley House. Both little gardens are kept in order by the occupiers of the houses they face. CECIL CLARKE.
Junior Athenaeum Club.
REV. JOHN THORNLEY (11 S. viii. 128). John Thornley, son of Edmund, born at Prestbury, Cheshire, matriculated as "plebeii filius " from Magdalen Hall, 10 Dec., 1726, aged 29 (Foster's ' Al. Ox.,' s.v.).
JOHN R. MAGRATH.
Queen's College, Oxford.
LINSEY-WOOLSEY (US. viii. 107).
" Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled
seed, neither shall a garment mingled of linen
and woollen come upon thee." Lev. xix. 19.
Josephus says that the mixture was allowed
to priests alone ('Antiq.,' bk. iv. c. viii.
sc. 11). ST. SWITHIN.
In a hymn by Joseph Hart beginning,
Dark is he whose eye 's not single, the following is the second verse :
Everything we do we sin in
Chosen Jews
Must not use Woollen mixed with linen.
I. SHARP.
'THE SILVER DOMINO' (11 S. viii. 86, 133). On looking up ' N. & Q.' (8 S. iii. 306), I find the following in a note of my own entitled * Lowland Scotch ' :
" The following attempt at wit occurs in the Weekly Citizen (a Glasgow publication) of March 25 [1893] :
" ' In St. Andrews opinion is very much divided as to the authorship of " The Silver Domino." The resident population of that town is in some measure addicted to letters, as is natural in a place where every one who is not a professor is a meenister, stickit or otherwise. One part of the population (the professors, surely) ascribe the book to Mr. W. E. Henley. The other thinks it was written by A. K. H. B., or if not A. K. H. B., at least A. K. H. B.'s son.' "
From this it would appear to be likely that Dr. Boyd's remarks on the form " meenister " were prompted by the Scot- tish journalist, and not by the volume under discussion. This explanation seems to be due to the author of ' The Silver Domino.' THOMAS BAYNE.
OLD LONDON FISH SHOPS (US. viii. 85). Reading the very interesting note on the above by MR. ALECK ABRAHAMS reminds me of certain anecdotes related to me by Mr. Grove (who died in 1895) connected with his early life when he first held the fish shop at Charing Cross ; and these may possibly be thought worthy of noting in ' N. & Q.'
He was but 14 years old when the death of his father, in 1822, obliged him to take over the business, his work there requiring his very early attendance at Billingsgate. One morning about the year 1827, whilst attending at the market, he was accosted by a gentleman, who told him that he was Prince Leiningen, that he was just landed from abroad, but that owing to the early hour the royal carriage had not arrived to take him to his mother,
