Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/144

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. FEB. 12, '98.

Oliver referred to? His father "remained firmly attached to the interests of the king during the civil wars." The Protector had a son Oliver, born 1622, but he was "killed in 1648, fighting under the Parliamentary banners" (see Burke's ' Landed Gentry ').

M. ELLEN POOLE. Alsager, Cheshire.

DAILY SEEVICE IN COUNTRY CHURCHES (8 th S. xii. 167, 269, 412). See a half-comic, half - pathetic letter, no doubt written by Steele himself, supposed to have been ad- dressed to him by the under-sexton of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, in the Spectator, No. 14, in which the writer complains that the congregation had begun to

"take the warning of my bell, morning and evening, to go to a puppet-show set forth by one Powell under the Piazzas. By this means I have not only lost my two customers whom I used to place for sixpence a-piece over against Mrs. Rachel Eyebright, but Mrs. Rachel herself is gone thither also. There now appear among us none but a few ordinary people who come to church only to say their prayers, so that I have no work worth speaking of but on Sundays. I have placed my son at the Piazzas to acquaint the ladies that the bell rings for church, and that it stands on the other side of the Garden ; but they only laugh at the child."

Steele's paper is dated 16 March, 1711. Although the under-sexton's letter itself is probably or, rather, certainly fictitious, I think it proves that there was daily service at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, in the time of Queen Anne. JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

VERBS ENDING IN "-ISH " (9 th S. i. 86). The story of these verbs is perfectly well known, and is very carefully explained in Brachet and Toynbee's ' Historical French Grammar,' 581. The passage is too long for quota- tion.

I believe I have often referred to the pre- sent participle oifinir by way of explaining the E. verb finish; but, of course, I have only done so by way of easy illustration. As a matter of fact, the correct explanation is that finish is derived from finiss-, the inchoative stem of finir. The "lengthened" stem of finir, as in the ' H. E. D.,' s.v. 'Abolish,' means precisely the same thing. The lengthened or inchoative stem is due to the Latin -sco, as if one were to usefinisco instead offinio.

The present participle is merely selected by way of illustration, because nearly all the E. verbs in -ish correspond to F. verbs which have a pres. part, in -iss-ant. But when we wish to be exact, we do not refer either to the present participle in particular or to the sub- junctive in particular ; and reference to the latter is no better than reference to the

former. As Toynbee rightly says, these verbs are distinguished by the use of -iss- " in the present arid imperfect indicative, in the pre- sent subjunctive, in the imperative, and in the present participle and gerundive"- and it is the influence of all these parts in com- bination that impressed the suffix -iss- upon the English mind. If any one was better known than another, it would naturally be the plural of the present tense indicative. The present participle is also striking, and so is the imperfect indicative ; I have some doubts as to the very frequent use of the subjunctive mood. However, it does not matter, as we are only concerned with the net general result.

The case of recevoir is much the same. Our receive is derived from the Anglo-French receiv-, answering to O.F. recoiv-, which occurs in various parts of the verb. Toynbee, 588, gives the verb devoir, which is of a like kind ; and we thus see that the stem doiv- occurs in the (very important) present tense plural indicative, in the present singular and third person present plural subjunctive, and in the third person singular and plural of the im- perative. We owe the stem receiv- to the joint influences of all these taken together rather than to any one of them in particular ; but if we are to speculate as to the one which was most familiar, we must not omit to notice the form receiv -ent in the present indicative. WALTER W. SKEAT.

CHALMERS BARONETCY (9 fch S. i. 47). If Capt. T. Scott was in the military service of the late East India Company, it is quite probable that his widow may have drawn a pension from some fund of that company. If she did, her marriage with Sir C. W. Chalmers, Bart., should be found registered in the records now at the India Office (Funds Department), Whitehall, as she would then have ceased to receive that pension. If she was married in India, the marriage should certainly be found in the records of the Administrator-General's Department at that office. C. MASON.

29, Emperor's Gate, S.W.

' THE PRODIGAL SON ' (8 th S. xii. 385, 453). MR. PEACOCK'S information is quite correct. There are sets of illustrations consisting of eight subjects. Among my French printed Books of Hours are two which contain such sets in the borders. Both are printed by P. Pigouchet for S. Vostre, one 1498, the other 1502. The subjects are: 1. The prodigal son receives his portion outside the house and is about to proceed on his journey. 2. He is making merry with harlots at the sign of the