Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/321

 ii s. vm. OCT. is, 1913.] XOTES AND QUERIES.

315

In this example I think the ellipsis would Toe better filled by understanding the word "army." In Latin "miles militum regis " would give us two possessives or genitives, but in English we have two accusative or objective cases governed by the preposition of. If Dr. Lowth had written " Charley's aunt's maid," he would have given us two genuine possessives or genitives.

I am not much impressed by the examples quoted from our old writers. The line from
 * Julius Caesar,'

Soft ! who comes here ? A friend of Antony's, and another, a little earlier in the same scene,

Stand fast together, lest some friend of Cesar's, are not to me obscure in meaning because the ellipsis is so easily supplied by the word " party," or some equivalent term. In the same manner can such a phrase as "he is a follower of Asquith's " or " Bonar Law's " be completed. If my recollection is right, I think I have been acquainted with this form, of words since Lord Palmerston's time. A sentence must be logical as well as grammatical. In the example given, " That handsome face of my father's," we have good grammar, no doubt ; but if we supply the ellipsis by " faces " or, as I think, " handsome face " we have in the one case absolute nonsense, and in the other tauto- logical absurdity. In Charles Lamb's essay on ' The Genteel Style in Writing ' we have this amazing sentence :

"His orange-trees, too, are as large as any he saw when he was young in France, except those of Fontainebleau ; or what he had seen since in the Low Countries, except some very old ones of the Prince of Orange's."

Those old orange trees of the Prince of Orange's old orange trees must surely have been transplanted from the Garden of Eden when all creation was young ! Are they still in the Low Countries ?

Much of the discussion has turned upon pronominal phrases, such as "a friend of ours," &c. In my note I made no reference to these (1) because they are so firmly established, (2) because they do not suggest ambiguity, and (3) because their use can be more easily defended.

JOHN T. CUBBY.

SMYTH OF NEWBOTTLE (11 S. viii. 208). !

The following may be of some use to your correspondent, though I am afraid there is not much in the Newbottle Registers to throw light on this subject. Still, here it is :

1. There is a Christopher Smyth. This gentleman was married in 1794'to a Miss

Mary Bazely ; but he does not seem to have been a highly educated man, as he was not able to sign his name.

2. There is a daughter of Tol. and Eliza- beth Smyth called Hannah, who was born and died in 1772. The father's Christian name may be Thomas, or anything else,

3. However, we have found what seems more to the point in our Burial Register: "May 24, 1794. Mrs. Smyth, wife of Henry Smyth, Esq."

We also have in the parish charities called the Mary Smyth and Richard Gilkes Charities. J. P. METCALF.

Newbottle Vicarage, Banbury.

'THE AMBULATOB' (11 S. vii. 430; viii. 16, 92). I have copies of the 6th and 12th editions, dated respectively 1793 and 1820. The latter has a map and sixteen engravings.

As regards the 1820 edition, the historical and descriptive account of the metropolis covers pp. 1 to 152, and ' The Ambulator ; or, Tour round London,' separately paged, pp. 1 to 383. There are additions and corrections on pp. 383-4; then follows the Appendix, pp. 385-426, and Index, pp. 427-36. CHAS. HALL CBOUCH.

62, Nelson Road, Stroud Green, N.

CHOIB BALANCE : ST. GEOBGE'S CHAPEL, WINDSOB (11 S. viii. 168, 212). I am much obliged to MB. FBOST for his reply, and in thanking him may I ask whether the change from the old system did not, in fact, take place in 1893, instead of in 1892, as men- tioned by him ?

It had been suggested to me that a school charge of about Wl. a year was usual some little time before the reorganization, but I take it that this was not so.

HABMONY.

THE AGE OF COUNTBY BBIDGES (11 S. viii. 270). I only know of the Railways Clauses Act, which prescribes for road-bridges under railways that, for a turnpike road, they must have a clear width of 35 ft. between abutments; for a public carriage road,. 25 ft. ; and a private or occupation (farm or field) road, 12 ft. Bridges carried over a railway must have the same clear width, measured on the square, between parapets as bridges under the railway must have between abutments. Turnpike roads, of course, no longer exist, and in urban terri- tories a minimum width of 40 ft. is generally insisted upon. L. L. K.