294
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. OCT. 10, 1903.
vigilant, but notoriously careless. Having
this possibility to contend with, ME. EGBERTS
cannot hope to "kill" the charge by mere
assertion. Though he and all Marat's advo-
cates ridicule such an edaircissement of the
mystery, it may yet be the true one. At any
rate, no one has disproved the charge at
present.
MR. COLEMAN is as emphatic in assuming Marat's guilt as is MR. ROBERTS in asserting his innocence. Only recently MR. COLEMAN was invited in 4 N. & Q.' (ante, p. 175) to prove his assumption ; but he still takes refuge in generalities, and has not carried the case a step further. He contents himself with citing Gorton's general summary of Marat's life and character. Does he know that his authority has failed to record even one line of the life of Charlotte Corday 1 It is equally futile for MR. COLEMAN to infer that because 1 have not specifically dealt with the numerous references to Marat, here and elsewhere, I necessarily ignore them. Equally loose, too, is his statement that " the con- temporaneous information in February
and March, 1776, appears to me to be of no value." Of course, it is of some value, but, as MR. ROBERTS could tell him, not much, by itself, in the face of the admitted facts that Le Maitre went to the hulks in March, 1777, and Marat, as all the world knows, was gazetted in Paris on a royal count's medical staff in June. Has MR. COLEMAN grasped this difficulty 1 He is obviously wrong in stating that the charge against Marat has not been answered. Mr. Morse Stephens, MR. ROBERTS, and Mr. Belfort Bax can all claim to have answered it as answers go ; but the only escape from it, for the cleverest writers living, must be through the open door of evidence.
Both these antagonists have strong cases ; but to talk of facts as "absurd legends" and such like is mere beating the air. This vexed question has still a vitality which nearly a century and a half have failed to kill, though aided by a battalion of careless biographers and reckless writers, including Mr. Morse Stephens now silent since 1896 and MR. ROBERTS of to-day.
In conclusion, a recent contributor (ante, p. 109), who appears to have devoted some little attention to this subject, will perhaps assist us to clear up rather than further complicate this knotty tangle.
ASHBY ST. LEGERS.
44 ALL OVER " (9 th S. xii. 144). This is to me a most familiar locution. For a mode of con- duct to be " Smith all over " it must be exactly the kind of behaviour which experience of his words and ways would lead us to expect
of trim it must, in short, be "just like
Smith." ST. SWITHIN.
Probably to be found in * English Dialect Dictionary.' Common in N". Lincolnshire (see Peacock's ' Glossary'). Quite familiar to me. J. T. F.
Winterton, Lincolnshire.
This locution, in the sense indicated by MR. BRESLAR, is very common in this neigh- bourhood. No Sussex man would say "It is eminently characteristic of Jones " when he could use the phrase "That's Jones all over."
E. E. STREET.
Chichester.
This is one of the commonest of common phrases. It is, indeed, in such general use that one hesitates to call it dialectal, though it is not given in exactly this sense in the ' H.E.D.' at least, I have failed to find it there. C. C. B.
The following seems to be an instance of this phrase, which, by the way, is often used colloquially :
Statesman all over ! in plots famous grown! He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone. Churchill, 'Rosciad,' 1. 321 (1761). V. W. DOWELL.
"I hate your immense loads of meat; that is country all over ; extreme disgusting to those who are in the least acquainted with high life." Beau Tibbs in Goldsmith's ' Citizen of the World,' Letter LV. (LIV. in some editions).
This is not quoted in ' N.E.D.' under 'All over,' i. 238. ADRIAN WHEELER.
UPRIGHT BURIAL (9 th S. xi. 465, 514 ; xii. 34, 137). The tradition of the upright burial of the Claphams and Mauleverers at Bolton Priory has been so long and so universally accepted as an unquestioned fact, mainly owing to the popularity of Wordsworth's ' White Doe of Rylstone,' that it seems un- gracious to ask for the historical evidence upon which it is based. But the very exist- ence of 'N. & Q.' implies efforts to ascertain the foundation in fact of current assertions, and I therefore make bold to ask where there is to be found any authentic record I do not say to prove, but to lead to the inference that some members of the above-named families were buried in an upright position. As for the testimony of the burial-place itself, the statement of the Rev. T. D. Whitaker, author of the ' History of Craven,' who entered and thoroughly examined the so-called Clapham vault to which Wordsworth refers in his poem at the very time when the 'White Doe' first saw the light viz., at the begin- ning of last century is to the effect that,
