344 The Ancient Styles and Designations of Persons. 
afterwards called Mrs. Ernle, was styled by all the neighbouring 
cottagers “‘ Madam Ernle.” She died about the year 1793. Her 
and their residence was Brimslade House, near Marlborough Forest. 
Mrs. Jenner of Burbage, Wilts, who was the widow of the Rey. 
Henry Jenner, Vicar of Great Bedwyn, Rector of Rockhampton 
and Domestic Chaplain to Thomas Earl of Ailesbury, was 
always called Madam Jenner by the old people of Burbage down 
to the time of her death in the year 1826. And in the Gloucester 
Journal of July 26, 1845, in an account of the meeting of the 
Longhope Friendly Society, it is said that “after Divine service 
the Society paraded through the village calling at the residence of 
Madam Probyn,” as that lady was no doubt still called by the 
villagers. She was the widow of the Dean of Landaff. And at a 
trial at Gloucester before Baron Alderson, on the 20th of July, 1854, 
of the case of Lyner v. Potter, an action for a nuisance, the plaintiff, 
an old farmer who lived at Walmisley, near Bristol, stated that his 
landlady was “ Madam Toghill,” the grandmother of Mr. Peterson, 
his attorney, who had brought the action for him. 
GENEROSA. 
Lord Coke says,! ‘“Generosus and Generosa [Gentleman and 
Gentlewoman | are good additions, and if a gentlewoman be named 
spinster in any originall writ, &c., appeale or inditement, she may 
abate and quash the same; for she hath as good right to that addi- 
tion as Baronesse, Viscountesse, Marchionesse, or Dutchesse have 
to theirs.” 
MistREss. 
This was anciently written ‘“ Maistresse,”’ as we find in Chaucer’s 
Doctour’s Tale,” 
‘‘ This maid of which I tell my tale expresse, 
She kept herself, her needed no maistresse.” 
Todd, in his edition of Johnson’s Dictionary ['Tit. “ Miss’’], says, 
“ Mistress was at the beginning of the last century the style of 
1 2nd Institute, p. 665. 
2 Vel 1, p. 92, in Chalmers’s English Poets. 
