ilar production in the English
language," and the verses on Elinor Rummin, are the only two poems of
George Steevens which now occur to me; but two or three others are noticed
in Nichols's _Literary Anecdotes_ as his productions.

J. H. M.

* * * * *

Replies to Minor Queries.

_Did St. Paul's Clock strike Thirteen?_ (Vol. iii., p. 40.).--MR. CAMPKIN
will find some notice of the popular tradition to which he refers, in the
_Antiquarian Repertory_, originally published in 1775, and republished in
1807; but I doubt whether it will satisfactorily answer his inquiries.

I. H. M.

_By the bye_ (Vol. ii., p. 424.).--As no one of your correspondents has
answered the Query of J. R. N., as to the etymology and meaning of _by the
bye_ and _by and by_, I send you the following exposition; which I have
collected from Richardson's _Dictionary_, and the authorities there
referred to.

Spelman informs us, that in Norfolk there were in his time thirteen
villages with names ending in _by:_ this _By_ being a Danish word,
signifying "villa." That a _bye_-law, Dan. _by-lage_, is a law _peculiar_
to a villa. And thus we have the general application of _bye_ to any thing;
peculiar, private, indirect, as distinguished from the direct or main: as,
_bye-ways_, _bye-talk_, &c. &c. In the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, _State
Trials_, James I., 1603, are these words:--

"You are fools; you are on the _bye_, Raleigh and I are on the _main_.
We mean to take away the king and his cubs."

Here the contradistinction is manifest. Lord Bacon and B. Jonson write,
_on_ the _by_; as if, on the way, in passing, indirectly:--

"'There is, _upon_ the _by_, to be noted.'--'Those who have seluted
poetry _on_ the _by_'--such being a collateral, and not the main object
of pursuit."

This I think is clear and satisfactory.

_By and by_ is quite a different matter. Mr. Tyrwhitt, upon the line in
Chaucer,--

"These were his words _by and by_."--_R. R._ 4581.

interprets "separately, distinctly;" and there are various other instances
in Chaucer admitting the same interpretation:--

"Two yonge knightes ligging, _by and by_."--_Kn. T._, v. 1016.

"His doughter had a bed all _by_ hireselve,
Right in the same chambre _by and by_."--_The Reves T._, v. 4441.

So also in the "Floure and the Leafe," stanzas 9 and 24. The latter I will
quote, as it is much to the purpose:--

"The semes (of