414 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



t2->'i S. VI. 151., Nov. 20. '58, 



Edmund John Eyre. — A certain Edmund John 

 Eyre, who, after being educated at Merchant 

 Taylors' School, obtained, in the year 1785, a 

 rarkiu's Scliolaisljip at Pemb. Coll., Camb., " left 

 the University without taking a Degree fur the 

 Stage" Can any of your correspondents, learned 

 in histrionic annal?, tell me whether he acquired 

 uny distinction as aa actor ? I am interested in 

 a:j<'ertaining his history, but do not know where 

 to look for it. Jait. 



[Edmund John Eyre was the son of the Rev. A. Eyre, 

 late Rector of Leverington, in the Isle of Ely, and Out- 

 well, Norfolk, ob. March 13, .1796. Edmund was educated 

 at the Merchant Taylors' School, and obtained at Jlicbael- 

 mns, 1785, Mr. Parkin's exhibition to Pembroke College, 

 C.imbridge ; at Christmas in the same year was promoted 

 to Dr. Stuart's scholarship. Anxious to become a dra- 

 matic hero, he neglected his studies, left his friends, and 

 joined a theatrical company near Windsor. His first 

 attempt was Joseph Surface (School for Scandal), and as 

 be then performed, not for emolument, but practice, was 

 indulged in all the characters he desired. He took, how- 

 ever, a benefit; and while speaking an occasional address, 

 was surprised at the appearance of some of his relatives, 

 lie ])erformed one night at Covent Garden for a benefit, 

 ill his own farce, The Dreamer Awake, or Pugilist Matclicd, 

 yvo., 1791. He afterwards had engagements at Worces- 

 ter .and Bath. Geneste (Hist, nf the Stage, viii. 202.) in- 

 forms VIS, that " before lie came to Bath he had married 

 an actress; and that he went off from Bath with Miss 

 Sniith of that theatre, to whom he either g.ave his name, 

 or \va3 married, upon the frivolous pretence of some irre- 

 gularity with which his first marriage was attended." 

 This Miss Smith was the sister of Mrs. Knight the 

 actress, the wife of " Little Knight." On Oct. 9, 1806, 

 he made his first appearance at Drurj' Lane in the 

 character of Jaques (As You Like It), and was for 

 several years connected with that company. The editors 

 of the Biographia Dramatica speak of him as " a re.spect- 

 able, rather than a great actor." He died at Edinburgh 

 on April 11, 1816, leaving a family of seven helpless 

 infants b}- Miss Smith in distressed circumstances. He 

 was tlie author of several successful dramatic and lite- 

 rary productions, which discover evident marks of the 

 scholar and the gentleman. For a list of his works, see 

 Watt's Biblioiheca Britannica.^ 



Chat. — What is the meaning of this word ? 

 which occui's in the well-known Chat-Moss in 

 Lancashire ; also in Chat-hill in Northumber- 

 land, the latter being on the verge of an exten- 

 sive peat-moss. I am told that in Persian Chat 

 is a river. W. W. 



[According to Grose (see his Gloss.) Chat is synonym- 

 ous with twig, which is not unfrequently one of the prin- 

 cipal constituents of peat.] 



SEPARATION OF SEXES IN CHURCHES. 



(2"* S. vi. 194., &c.) 



F. S. A., thinking I have in some little degree 

 misunderstood the drift of his Queries, sets them 

 forth again in a twofold form, by asking : — 



First. " Was it ever an universal custom of the 



Western Church, that the sexes should be sepa- 

 rated at the great public services, as high mass, 

 &c. ? " 



I answer with an emphatic Yes. Though I had 

 thought that, beyond the testimonies so widely 

 gathered and stated before (2"'' S. v. 361.), no- 

 thing farther could be needful to show that the 

 separation of sexes in churches had been observed 

 in the West as well as the Eastern portions of 

 Christendom ; yet, to a querist so courteous, 

 though, I must say, loath to yield to evidence, as 

 F. S. A., it would be high discourtesy not to af- 

 ford additional authorities. 



As every liturgical student knows, the "Ordines 

 Romani " show what was the ceremonial followed 

 at Rome at all public celebrations during the 

 periods when those several " Ordines" were writ- 

 ten. Now, hi one of the very earliest of them — 

 the second — the separation of the sexes at the 

 great public service — high mass — is especially 

 pointed out ; for, of the deacon who was about to 

 sing the gospel at the ambo, it is particularly said 

 that he must turn himself to the men's side of the 

 church : " Ipse vero diaconus stat versus ad me- 

 ridiem, ad quam partem viri solent confluere," ed. 

 Mabillon, Museum Italicum, ii. 46. Noticing this 

 very " Ordo," a writer of the eleventh century, 

 under the name of Micrologus, who, with good 

 reason, is thought to have been Ivo of Chartres, 

 lets us see that the practice of France was, like 

 that of Italy, for the men to be separated from the 

 women at high mass : — 



" Diaconus cum legit evangelium, jnxta Roraanum 

 Ordinem, in ambone vertitur ad meridiem, ubi et masculi 

 conveniunt, non ad aquilonem, ubi foeminaj consistunt;" 



and a little farther on the same writer thus re- 

 proves those deacons who do not properly observe 

 the rubric: — 



" Hinc itaque ilia iisurpatio eniersisse videtur, ut ctiam 

 diacones in ambone, contra Komanum ordinem, se vcr- 

 tant ad aquilonem, potinsque se ad partem fceminarura 

 quiim masculorum vertere non vereantur." (Cap. ix.) 



Surely F. S. A. must allow that here we have 

 the important fact that the well-known and uni- 

 versally observed rule for men and women to pray 

 apart, in all the great public services, was made 

 the ground for settling one among the very rubrics 

 of high mass itself. 



The exception taken by F. S. A. to the passage 

 from the " Mitrale " to me seems very hypercriti- 

 cal. Because Sicard, in his wish to give his readers 

 all he knew about the separation of the sexes in 

 church, told them that in some places such a se- 

 paration was lengthwise, in others crosswise, there- 

 fore " is it not a fair deduction there was no 

 separation in the time when such a writer does 

 not even know how it should be ? " is a process of 

 reasoning I cannot understand. To my think- 

 ing, the writer who shows such a care to lay 

 before us the several ways in which an ecclesias- 



