Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/256

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. TIL MAR. 29, 1913.

actuelle de St. Polycarpe et du vieil amphi- theatre gaulois du Jardin des Plantes. (Ces restes de 1'autel sont exposes actuelle- ment sous les portiques du Palais St. Pierre de Lyon.)

H est vrai que je dois aj outer que le clocher d'Ainay est bien soutenu par les anciennes colonnes de granit de 1'autel de Rome, mais ce sont les moines qui les ont utilisees a cet usage en les faisant transporter des Terreaux a Ainay. ^

2. Les anciens lettres denommaient Ainay et son abbaye " Athanacum." Gregoire de Tours appelle Ainay " Athanatum," et nos premiers martyrs lyonnais " Athanacenses." De 950 a 1032 les chartes de Lyon disent : " Insula quse Aihanacus vocatur." (En effet, pour les profanes, il me faut ajouter que 1'abbaye etait jadis dans une ile, avant que le confluent des deux fleuves ait ete a plusieurs reprises repousse plus en aval.)

Les martyrs lyonnais dont parle Gregoire de Tours sont ceux de la persecution de 177, la premiere de Lyon, celle ou furent mis a mort notre premier eveque St. Pothin (ou Photin), avec St. Sancte, St. Pontique, Sainte Blandine, &c., toujours tres-popu- laires a Lyon. Leurs corps mutiles dans Famphith^atre romain de Fourviere furent descendus par la montee du Gourguillon, et jetes, de la frontiere de la ville romaine, dans la Saone. Us furent pieusement re- cueillis par^leurs freres dans la foi dans File d'Ainay, ou ils les incinererent pour eviter a ces corps une plus grande profanation.

Enfin nos premiers ' Chretiens, habitant la partie de la ville situee entre les deux fleuves, etaient tous d'une colonie grecque envoyee d'Asie pour evangeliser la Gaule.

Une grande partie de la population de Lyon, sans etre chretienne, etait des com- mer9ants grecs egalement. C'est sous Finflu- ence religieuse des Grecs Chretiens que Fidee d'immortalite, de martyrs devenus eternelle- ment heureux, immortels (addvaToi), a ete attachee a File d'Ainay il y a de cela 1736 ans. Les latins en ont fait " Atha- nacum," et nous ..." Ainay." Voil& !

II est attendrissant pour un cceur lyon- nais de penser que dans la vieille Bretagne il puisse se trouver un mortel s'interessant a propos de notre ville a une vieille 6tymologie romaine et. . . grecque. Cet ami, en lisant ma reponse, 1 ! verra qu'il n'y a pas que des Savoyards a Lyon.

DE BEAUFORT-HAUTELUCE. Ile d'Ainay, a Lyon.

[W. A. B. U. and ST. S WITHIN also thanked for replies.]

THATCHED HOUSE TAVERN CLUB (11 S. vii. 170). " The Thatched House Tavern " stood on the site of the present Conservative Club, St. James's Street, from 1711 up to about 1843, when it was pulled down. It occupied the adjoining premises from 1845 to 1865, and was then cleared away, the Civil Service Club, now the Thatched House Club, and the Thatched House Chambers being built on the site.

"The Thatched House" was a celebrated tavern in its day, but I cannot trace any ' ' Thatched House Tavern Club. ' ' No club of that name is mentioned in Timbs's ' Clubs and Club Life in London ' (1872), which has an account of the tavern, and gives a list of the clubs, &c., that met there. One of the most famous was the Literary Club, founded by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson in 1764. Originally known as The Club, it first used to meet at " The Turk's Head" in Gerrard Street, Soho. In 1783 it moved to "The Prince " in Sackville Street ; from there to Baxter's in Dover Street ; in 1792 to Parsloe's in St. James's Street; and in 1799 to "The Thatched House." When this tavern was pulled down, the Literary Club (which had changed its name to Johnson's Club) removed to " The Clarendon Hotel " in Bond Street.

The Society of Dilettanti also held their meetings in " The Thatched House Tavern," and here were hung the celebrated pictures of the members until it was cleared away, when the Society emigrated to their present quarters in Willis's Rooms, King Street, St. James's, where the pictures now hang. This is the Society referred to by Horace Walpole (Walpole to Mann, 14 April, 1743) as " a club for which the nominal qualifica- tion is having been in Italy, and the real one being drunk." See ' London Past and Present,' by Wheatley and Cunningham (London, John Murray, 1891). T. F. D.

LAMB OR LAMBE (11 S. v. 66, 137, 193). In the correspondence on this subject no one noted certain passages in Charles Lamb's letters which explain that his name was sometimes spelt Lambe for a nefarious purpose ! The East India Company paid for all letters delivered at their offices, and as those were the days when the recipient paid for a letter at a very high rate, Coleridge sometimes availed himself of Lamb's assist- ance to carry on a correspondence free of charge. On 6 Aug., 1800 (' Letters,' i. 152, ed. Macdonald), Lamb wrote to Coleridge : " Pray tell your wife that a note of interroga- tion on the superscription of a letter is highly