356
NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. iv. OCT. 23, 1011.
The date of the commission of Thomas
Ajax Anderson as ensign in the 19th Foot
was 15 July, 1799 ; and as captain, 23 March,
1807. He is mentioned in Dr. Henry
Marshall's ' Ceylon,' London, 1846, p. 144.
In the Army List of 1803 his name is printed
" Henderson," both in the list of officers
of the 19th and in the index. W. S.
MR. STOCK, BIBLIOPHILE, 1735 (11 S. iv. 307). The story given by MB. ROBERTS is told in chap. v. of William Blades's ' Enemies of Books,' on the authority of Edmond Werdet ( ? in his ' Histoire du Livre en France,' Paris, 1851). The date is 1775 (not 1735), and the purchaser is described as " Mr. Stark, a well-known London book- seller." It seems almost too much of a coincidence that in a similar story, in which a gardener and old books figure, and which Mr. Blades tells immediately before the above, on the authority of a letter from the Rev. C. F. Newmarsh to S. R. Maitland, the scene being near Gainsborough and the year 1844, we read of " Stark, a very in- telligent bookseller."
My copy of ' The Enemies of Books ' is Elliot Stock's 1896 edition ; but the refer- ence may perhaps be of help to MR. ROBERTS. EDWARD BENSLY.
AUTHORS or QUOTATIONS WANTED (11 S. iv. 309).
If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains ;
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains. The lines quoted by MR. MYNOTT are from George Herbert at the end of his ' Church Porch.' The idea has been traced back to Cato and Musonius, and my late old friend Dr. W. A. Greenhill several times printed, in leaflets and otherwise, a collection of parallel passages with the heading ' The Contrast : Right or Wrong.' I may refer to the second edition of 'Annals of the Bodleian Library,' 1890, pp. 53-4.
W. D. MACRAY.
[C. C. B., Miss E. JACOB, MR. W. B. KINGS- FORD, and A. E. T. also thanked for replies.]
" I AM PAID REGULAR WAGES " : THE
PASSIVE WITH AN OBJECT (US. iv. 287).
Grammarians may be grateful to DR. KRUEGER for calling attention to a solecism which has become of late distressingly fre- quent. The sentence which he quotes, " I was given him by his father," exemplifies its commonest and most offensive form; and his explanation that it arose originally from a misconception of the old English me WCBS gegiefen is plausible. The rule seems to be that while the direct object of a verb
transitive becomes the subject of that verb
when thrown into the passive form, its
indirect object can never assume this place.
Such a phrase as " The envoy was given his
instructions " ought to be altered by an
editor or queried by a reader. So with
most, but not all, of the other instances
suggested by DR. KRUEGER. " I was told a
curious anecdote " ; " He was accorded, or
refused, or allowed, a place of honour " ;
" We were offered, promised, afforded,
a safe conduct " ; "I was made amends" ;
" He was shown more mercy than he de-
served," should be scored with the nigrum
theta as at once ungrammatical and illogical.
Perhaps the remaining phrases " She is
paid a pound a week" ; "I was taught
good manners at school " ; " They were
pardoned all except their great offences "
may be treated as ellipses : paid by^ a
pound a week ; instructed in good manners ;
pardoned of their offences. But as one of
those to whom your correspondent appeals,
I answer that the remaining constructions
which he impugns should be condemned as
wholly illegitimate ; and that it behoves all
grammarians to protest against, and where
possible to expunge, them. ORBILIUS.
The passive construction with an object appears strictly correct, if judged by the analogy of Latin. In the case of some Latin verbs we can have a double accusative in the active construction ; thus, " Interrogo Cice- ronem sententiam," " I ask Cicero his opinion." In the passive construction " the accusative of the thing remains" ('Public Schools Latin Primer'): "Cicero interro- gatus sententiam dixit," &c., " Cicero, being asked his opinion, said," &c. See Madvig's Latin Grammar, translated by Woods, 5th ed., 228. It is impossible, therefore, to say that the construction in question is otherwise unheard of in grammar. I would suggest that the English passive construc- tion "I was given her," following on the active construction " gave her to me," is an imitation and extension of the above passive construction.
With regard to the restriction of the con- struction in question to a small number of verbs, it may be worth noting that in Latin the construction is likewise confined to a small number of verbs, corresponding (but very roughly) to the description of verbs mentioned by DR. KRUEGER : see Madvig as above. I do not see how, in the light of Latin, it can be doubted that the word after the predicate is an object.
NICHOLAS GELL.
