easy distance are the well-known villages of the Meons (Jutes). Certainly the Normans called Lasham Esseham. Esse is Norman for ash, and why the Normans should so call the place, unless ash trees were there, it is difficult to imagine. There was, until of late years, standing at the parting of the ways at Lasham a fine ash tree, the possible descendant of another tree. The latter may well have been a Saxon sacred tree (vide Green's 'Short Hist.'). There are other features of this village which point to its Saxon origin.
A suggested origin of the village name has been ley, A.-S. meadow, but this is hardly feasible, as at the Domesday survey one acre only is mentioned as meadow.
Earliest Playbill (10ᵗʰ S. i. 28, 71).—At 1ˢᵗ S. x. 99 is a contribution 'Supposed Early Playbill,' which carefully examines a copy of one with a full cast of Drury Lane, dated 8 April, 1663, and given in J. Payne Collier's 'History of Dramatic Poetry' (vol. iii. p. 384), and pronounces it to be spurious, while incidentally it notes that it was not usual for playbills to bear the date of the year until as late as 1767. Dutton Cook, in his collection of essays 'A Book of the Play,' under the heading ' A Bill of the Play,' gives Payne Collier's authority likewise for asserting that printed announcements of the piece to be performed were "certainly common prior to the year 1563." But were they?
Nightcaps (9ᵗʰ S. xi. 489; xii. 55, 176).—In Simes's 'Military Medley,' 1768, and in his 'Military Guide,' 1772, a list is given of 'Things necessary for a Gentleman to be furnished with upon obtaining his first Commission.' The list includes "three pillow cases; six linen night caps, and two yarn." A 'Scheme for an Ensign's Constant Expence' is also given, and it provides for "two Night Caps a week……Hair Powder, Pomatum……Soldier to dress Hair."
An interesting instance of a temporary discontinuance of powdering the hair occurred at the beginning of the siege of Gibraltar:—
"Orders were issued for the troops to mount guard with their hair unpowdered; a circumstance trifling in appearance, but which our situation afterwards proved to be of great importance; and which evinced our Governor's great attention, and prudent foresight, in the arrangement of the stores."—'Drinkwater,' first edition, p. 58.
Fine flour had been used for the purpose, and now it was reserved for food for the garrison.
In the ' Life of Lord Hill,' p. 36, we read:
"In those days of all-prevailing powder and pomatum, Sir John Moore had actually dared the innovation of a crop, and appeared unfrizzled and unfloured upon parade……It was not till the arrival of Sir John Moore from Stockholm in 1808 that an order reached his troops to cut off their queues. It was dated 24 July, and gave universal delight……The tails were kept till all were docked, when, by a signal, the whole were hove overboard with three cheers."
Glass Manufacture (9ᵗʰ S. xii. 428, 515; 10ᵗʰ S. i. 51).—About 1881 my late father sold a small piece of property, including a house, situated near Cleobury Mortimer, in the county of Salop, and this was called Glasshouse Green. There is another piece of property adjoining, which in a deed dated 22 May, 1810, is described as being at the Glass-house Green, which seems to imply that the name was used not only for the one piece of property, but for some adjoining land. I cannot ascertain, though I have made inquiries from one of the oldest inhabitants of Cleobury, that any one ever knew of glass manufactured in the neighbourhood. H. Southam.
"Prior to" = Before (9ᵗʰ S. xii. 66, 154, 312).—Dr. Krueger is too modest, for, in addition to his other qualifications, he is foreigner though he be English in his knowledge of the English language, and therefore entitled to utter his opinions on matters affecting it. However, though he refrains from passing formal judgment on "prior to" and "previous to," I infer that when he draws attention to the equally anomalous expressions "preparatory to" and "owing to," he holds them all to be grammatically indefensible and to be avoided both in speaking and writing. To call these phrases, to which might be added "antecedent to," "anticipatory to," and "preliminary to," with others of the same kidney, adverbs, shows amazing ignorance of the nature of that part of speech, and affords ample excuse for Home Tooke's sarcastic page, where he writes:—
"And Servius (to whom learning has great obligations) advances something which almost justifies you for calling this class, what you lately termed it, the common sink and repository of all heterogeneous, unknown corruptions. For, he says,—Omnis pars orationis, quando desinit esse quod est, migrat in Adverbium. I think I can translate Servius intelligibly. Every word, quando desinit esse quod est, when a Grammarian knows not what to make of it, migrat in Adverbium, he calls an Adverb."—'Diversions of Parley,' vol. i. p. 430 (London, 1829).
