232
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL MAK. 20, im
rightly, Mr. Philip Norman gave a sketch
of the house in an illustrated paper on the
old mansions of London, which appearec
in a magazine I think The English Illus
trated several years ago. Apropos o:
Eybury, the modern form Ebury woulc
seem to corroborate my remarks on the
pronunciation of ey as ee (ante, p. 132).
MB. RTJTTON appears to consider that the house of Eybury was only a farmstead It undoubtedly was so in later times, bui I imagine that before the Abbot occupiec Neyte that is to say, during the perioc intervening between the grant of Eia anc the time of Edward III. Eybury was his manorial residence. The suffix -bury shows that it must have been a building of import ance, probably fortified. If my memory does not deceive me, in a list of licences to crenellate which was published in The Gentleman's Magazine at the end of the fifties or beginning of the sixties, the name of Eybury is included. The licence was I think, granted to a priest, who was pro- bably an official of the Abbot.
With regard to the manor of Hyde, ii would be interesting if it could be ascertained whether its extent possessed any relations to the land measure known as a " hide." The boundaries of the manor land would roughly be the Westbourne stream on the west, and the old Watling Street, as MR. MOBLEY DAVIES suggests, on the east. To the south it extended to the Knights- bridge road, and to the north as far as the strip through which the water-pipes from Paddington ran. This strip in all proba- bility belonged to Tyburn.
W. F. PBIDEAUX. Grand Hotel, Locarno.
" BEFORE ONE CAN SAY JACK ROBINSON " (10 S. xi. 109). I am indebted for the following additional notes to MB. HABOLD GODWYN of Plaistow.
1. There is a reference (1852) to this proverb in ' N. & Q.' (1 S. vi. 415), which I had overlooked, as it was not indexed under ' Proverbs and Phrases.' MB. THOMS then referred it to Grose.
2. John Robinson, at one time chaplain to the British Embassy in Sweden, became Bishop of London in 1714, and d. 1723. He was a fierce debater in the House of Lords. [But, in the absence of further evidence, I should consider the reference of the phrase to him as improbable.]
3. An umbrella was called a Robinson at Paris in the time of Marie Antoinette, when " Robinson parties " were given by her at
Versailles and at St. Cloud ; and the name
thus became a part of the French argot.
There was a " village Robinson " between
Sceaux and Plessis, where rude huts, either
on the ground or in the forks of great trees,
served as refreshment rooms ; and another
on an island in the Seine. The suggestion
is that visitors, overtaken by rain, would
call out " Jacques ! Robinson," and the
rain sometimes came down before they could
call for the umbrellas. [This is ingenious,
but in my opinion far-fetched.]
4. Jack Robinson, who became the mark for Cobbett's satire, was the first Earl of Ripon. He boasted of the prosperity of the country, and, when a financial crash came, Cobbett called him Prosperity Robin- son ; and it was said that the crisis arrived " before one could say Jack Robinson." [This, however, is demonstrably a new application of a phrase already current.]
RICHABD H. THOBNTON.
36, Upper Bedford Place, W.C.
The following explanation of the phrase to which MB. THOBNTON refers is given by Lady Dorothy Nevill in one of her delightful volumes of reminiscences :
" Jack Robinson was a great favourite with George III. His political career was long, for he was a member for Harwich during twenty-six years, being on one occasion bitterly attacked by Sheridan, who, denouncing bribery and its instigators, replied to the cries of ' Name ! Name ! ' by pointing to Robinson on the Treasury Bench, exclaiming at the same time : ' Yes, I could name him as soon as I could say Jack Robinson,' and thus originated the saying still current at the present day."
LEONABD J. HODSON.
Robertsbridge, Sussex.
MB. THOBNTON will find this phrase duly recorded in the ' N.E.D.' under " Jack, sb. 1 , 34 b," p. 535/1, where an extract dated 1778 is quoted from Miss Burney.
ALBEBT MATTHEWS.
Boston, U.S.
" Jack Robinson " has much to answer for, and when I was a lad we used to say, " It was done before you could say Jack Robin- son," and " He got it before he could say Jack Robinson " that is, he " got a hit " or a " hiding " before he could call upon Jack Robinson. We used to think " Jack " was or had been a sailor, and we associated iim in some way with our common friend Robinson Crusoe. This, at least, was my ixperience more than fifty years ago.
THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.
