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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vii. NOV. 27, 1020.
AMIAS HEXTE : ANANIAS HARTE. As &
Ohristian name Ananias must be rare, and
- & case in which this name proves, on in-
vestigation, to be merely an error for Amias seems therefore to deserve a note. Such a 'case occurs in Kirby's ' Winchester Scholars,' where a boy figures, under the year 1607, as "Ananias Harte, of Netherham, Somer- set " ; in the index he is mentioned twice, as "Ananias Harte" and as "Ananias Hexte." At the request of MB. J. B. WAINEWRIGHT (well known to readers of N. & Q.'), I have looked up the College records, and have ascertained that the boy was really Amias Hexte.
In the original ' Register of Scholars ' (vol. i) a mistake was made at the outset about his Christian name. He was entered as "Ananias Hexte," and afterwards cor- rection was attempted, the " na " being struck through with a pen. This correction is certainly old, and was probably made at once, while the entry was being written ; yet "Ananias Hexte " is to be found in the index which Warden Nicholas added to the volume when he had concluded it with entries of 1686-7. An error once started is slot easily stopped.
The boy's name ought to be in another Register, the purpose of which was to furnish evidence that the oath prescribed by the College statutes had been taken by every scholar upon his attaining the age of fifteen. But the book is apparently in- complete ; it lacks entries between 1608 and 1612, and so fails to help us. For- tunately, however, the original ' Election Roll ' of 1607 has been preserved, and con- tains, among the entries of the scholars elected that year ;
" Amias Hexte de Netherton., Co. Somerset : 13 armorum 14o die Mail preterito jdiocssis] Wellensis."
That, I think, settles the question of the boy's name. Moreover, " Ainias Hext," of Netherton, went to Oxford in 1614, and was a Fellow of Wadham College from 1618 to 1631. In 1628, being already M.A., he took the B.D. degree, and 9, year later he became Rector of Bab Cary in his native county of Somerset (see Foster's ' Alumni Oxon.'). There he eventually suffered for his honesty, for in 1646, when he was a married man with six children, he was imprisoned and "plundered of all he had," for refusing the oath of non-adherence to the king, as contrary t:> ofch3r oaths that he had before taken (Walker's 'Sufferings of
- the Clergy,' pt. ii. p. 273).
Was he related to Sir Edward Hext, of
Netherham, who was " accounted one of the
ablest men in his time " (Collinson's
'Somerset,' iii. 445) ? A long and interest-
ing letter which Sir Edward Hext wrote to
Lord Burghley in 1596, concerning the
increase of rogues and vagabonds in Somer-
set, is printed in Strype's ' Annals of the
Reformation,' iv. 405. Sir Edward died
in 1624, leaving as his heir an only daughter
Elizabeth, wife first to Sir Joseph Killigrew
(who died in 1616) and secondly to Sir John
Stawel, of Cothelstone (Vivian's ' Visitations
of Cornwall,' pp. 221, 269). Amias does
not seem to be mentioned in Vivian's
pedigree of Hext. H. C.
[A correspondence on the name "Ananias" will be found in 11 S. iii. It was definitely closed, but we feel that the interest of this note justifies our re-opening it for this one instance.]
'BREAK, BREAK, BREAK,' AND THE "DOVER CLIFF " PASSAGE. There are some presumptive arguments for believing that Tennyson, in writing ' Break, Break, Break,' was indebted, consciously or otherwise, to the "Dover Cliff" passage ('King Lear,' IV. vi. 11 et seq.).
Tennyson wrote his poem not, as was for some time supposed, on the seashore, but "in a Lincolnshire lane at 5 o'clock in the morning between blossoming hedges ('Memoir,' i. 190). A literary source of suggestion might not unreasonably be assumed. He had before this drawn upon Shakespeare. ' Mariana ' is based upon ' Measure for Measure ' (III. i. 220 and 278). The order of details or movement of the two passages is rather ' markedly similar. In 'Break, Break, Break,' from the imaginary standing-point of the writer, it is (1) out ("gray stones " and "fisherman's boy ") : (2) out ("sailor lad.. ..in his boat on the bay"): (3) out ("stately ships"): and (4) back again ("foot of thy crags.") In the "Dover Cliff " passage it is (supposedly) from the edge of the cliff ; (I) out ( " midway air " and "half way down ") : (2) out ("the beach"): (3) out ("yond tall anchoring bark"): and (4) back again (the "mur- muring surge"). There is also a certain similarity in the objects mentioned in the two passages; (1) "fisherman's boy" and
"fishermen that walk " : (2) "boat
on the bay " and "cock " (boat); (3) "the stately ships" and " yond tall' anchoring bark": (4) "Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!" and "the murmuring surge, That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes."
