termination of this address it
seems to have been written to a woman, though there is
no internal evidence to support this hypothesis. The
best critics are much puzzled about the orthography of
this abbreviation. Wartonius and other skilful
etymologists contend that it ought to be spelled
_drummy_, being addressed to a lady who was probably
fond of warlike instruments, and who had a singular
predilection for a _canon_. Drummy, say they, was a
tender diminutive of drum, as the best authors in their
more familiar writings now begin to use gunny for gun.
But _Hardius_, a contemporary critic, contends, with
more probability, that it ought to be written _Drome_,
from hippodrome; a learned leech and elegant bard of
Bath having left it on record that this lady spent much
of her time at the riding-school, being a very
exquisite judge of horsemanship. _Colmanus_ and
_Horatius Strawberryensis_ insist that it ought to be
written _Dromo_, in reference to the Dromo Sorasius of
the Latin dramatist."

_Note_ (_b_).

"_Ante._--Scaliger 2d says this name simply signifies
the appellation of uncle's wife, and ought to be
written _Aunty_. But here, again, are various readings.
Philologists of yet greater name affirm that it was
meant to designate _pre-eminence_, and therefore ought
to be written _ante_, before, from the Latin, a
language now pretty well forgotten, though the authors
who wrote in it are still preserved in French
translations. The younger Madame Dacier insists that
this lady was against all men, and that it ought to be
spelled _anti_; but this Kennicotus, a rabbi of the
most recondite learning, with much critical wrath,
vehemently contradicts, affirming it to have been
impossible she could have been against mankind whom all
mankind admired. He adds that ante is for _antelope_,
and is emblematically used to express an elegant and
slender animal, or that it is an elongation of _ant_,
the _emblem of virtuous citizenship_."

And so she continues her comments to close of notes.

Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford" is full of the most delicate but veritable
humor, as her allusion to the genteel and cheerful poverty of the lady
who, in giving a tea-party, "now sat in state, pretending not to know
what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we