Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/272

 266

NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. HI. A PBI L s, mi.

exhibition grounds to Allahabad post-office, was there distributed, and to mark the event

41 special die was cast in the postal workshops at

JUigarh."

A. F. R.

COLLKY GIBBER'S 'APOLOGY.' Ten years -after Col ley Gibber had completed his famous ' Apology,' he disposed of his rights in that book to Dodsley. It was originally " Printed by John Watts for the Author. MDCCXL." The following is an exact copy of the receipt given by Gibber for the amount paid him by Dodsley. The original document was, if I mistake not, in the possession of the late Mr. R. W. Lowe, who pasted it in the front cover of his 1740 edition of the ' Apology.' The receipt reads :

" Rec d March y e 24 th 1749/50 of M r Robert Dodsley Bookseller in Pall Mall the Sum of fifty two Pounds -ten Shillings, in consideration of which Sum I do hereby assign & make over to him y" said M r Robert Dodsley his Heirs, Executors, Administrators and Assigns, for ever, all my Right and Property in the Copy of my Book eritituled an Apology for the Life of M r Colly Cibber &c as witness my Hand

"Colley Gibber" WATSON NICHOLSON.

Authors' Club, S.W.

" ANON." At 10 S. ix. 135 it was shown by an extract from ' Quentin Durward,' chap, xii., that Scott, as well as Thackeray, slips into the use of " anon " in the sense of ^erewhile. As a final contribution towards exemplifying this whimsical practice (see 10 S. i. 246, 337 ; v. 274, 454, 496 ; vii. 136), an instance may now be given from the twenty-seventh chapter of ' The Abbot.' In the interview in which he strives to master the identity of his partner in the dance, Roland Graeme avers that, while this mys- terious personage favours " snood and kirtle" at the moment, the garb may presently change with the mood. " Perhaps," he ventures, " you may be seen to-morrow in hat and feather, hose and doublet." A little later a home thrust stirs him to draw upon the vocabulary of valour, and his interlocutor quickly counters with the remark, " Beware of such b'ig words ; you said but anon that I sometimes wear hose -and doublet." The explanation of the matter probably is that it is easy to confuse 4C in a minute " with " a minute ago." Possibly Scott may have intended to write "e'en now." THOMAS BAYNE.

THE GENEALOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN. MR. G. SHER- WOOD, who inquired at 10 S. iv. 230 about this Society, may like to know that I have -a letter of the secretary (Ry croft Reeve)

of the Society, dated 14 May, 1858, wherein he states that it was founded in 1854 by several noblemen and gentlemen to promote the study of family history,

"since when a large amount of authentic genea- logical and historical matter relating to the early ancestry of Fellows of the Society has been collected atid arranged, and several elaborate pedigrees, commencing with the ninth and eleventh centuries, and brought down to the present time, have been compiled."

From a newspaper cutting of 21 July, 1860, I find that the annual meeting of the Society was held on Tuesday, 17 July, in the picture gallery at Bridgewater House, through the courtesy of Lord Ellesmere.

R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.

ANANIAS AS A CHRISTIAN NAME. Surely this name, one of reproach and contumely, was of rare occurrence, even among the Puritans. In the * Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1606-10,' p. 345, it is stated that

" Ananias Plommer of Gosport was examined on Jan. 19, 1607, relative to slanderous words spoken against the King."

W. B. GERISH.

HORSES TAKEN TO CHURCH. J. R. Planche in his ' Descent of the Danube ' (1828), p. 19, tells his readers that ''in Ratisbdn, formerly, even the horses went to church! On St. Leonard's Day the peasantry of the neighbourhood brought their whole stud, gaily caparisoned, and indulged each animal with a peep into the Maltheser - kirche, a pious precaution which was supposed to preserve them the year round from the staggers, and indeed every other disorder that horse-flesh is heir to."

The same author tells us (on p. 99) that "at Engelhardszell, in 1551, another church was erected for the same purpose, apparently, as that to which the Maltheser-kirche was formerly applied at Ratisbon. The horses were here brought annually to the door of the church, arid allowed a peep at St. Pancras, whose effigy graced the altar. This sight and a few oats at the same time adminis- tered were supposed to preserve them from all - - th."

disorders for a twelvemonl

L. S. M.

"O.K.": NEW EXPLANATION. The usual story is that the letters "O.K." are a con- traction of " Oil Korrekt," an American humorous spelling. I find, however, a new explanation in The Chicago Record Herald for 16 December, 1910, printed under a picture of a square army biscuit stamped with the letters O.K. :

"The above picture of an army biscuit is said to explain the presence in our American tongue of the slang symbol * 0. K.' When the civil war broke out there existed in Chicago a firm of bakers known