1734. qui cum patre. 'This is part of the formula with which prayers and sermons are still sometimes concluded in the Church of England.'—Bell. In a sermon for Ascension Day, in Morris's O. E. Homilies, ii. 115, we have at the end an allusion, in English, to Christ, after which follows:—'qui cum patre et spiritu sancto uiuit et regnat per omnia secula seculorum.' Such was the usual formula.
1740. The friars often begged in pairs; in this way, each was a check upon the other as regarded the things thus obtained. In Jack Upland, § 23, we find the friars are asked:—'What betokeneth that ye goe tweine and tweine togither?' Langland tells us how he met two friars; see P. Plowman, C. xi. 8.
1741. tables, writing tablets. In Horman's Vulgaria, leaf 81, we read:—'Tables be made of leues of yuery, boxe, cyprus, and other stouffe, daubed with waxe to wrytte on.' And again, in the same:—'Poyntellis of yron, and poyntyllis of syluer, bras, boon, or stoone.' This is a survival of the use of the Roman waxed tablet and stilus.
1743. Jack Upland (§ 20) asks the friar:—'Why writest thou hir names in thy tables that yeueth thee mony?' The usual reason was, that the donors might be prayed for; see l. 1745. Cf. l. 1752.
1745. Ascaunces, as if, as though, as if to promise. In G. 838, q.v., it means 'you might suppose that,' or 'possibly.' In Troilus, i. 205, it means 'as if to say'; Boccaccio's Italian has quasi dicesse. It also occurs in Troilus, i. 292; Lydgate, Fall of Princes, fol. 136 b (Tyrwhitt);
Tale of Beryn, 1797; Palladius on Husbandry, vi. 39; Sidney's Arcadia, ed. 1622, p. 162; and in Gascoigne's Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 113, where the marginal note has 'as who should say.' See the New Eng. Dictionary, where the etymology is said to be unknown.
I have since found that it is a hybrid compound. The first part of it is E. as, used superflously and tautologically; the latter part of it is the O. F. quanses, 'as if,' first given in a dictionary by Godefroy in 1889, with six examples, and three other spellings, viz. qanses, quainses, and queinsi. Godefroy refers us to Romania, xviii. 152, and to Foerster's edition of Cliges, note to l. 4553. Kilian gives Mid. Du. 'quantsuys, quasi'; borrowed from O. French, without any prefix.
1746. Nothing came amiss to the friars. They begged for 'corn, monee, chese,' &c.; see Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, p. 304. And in Skelton's Colin Clout, l. 842, we read of the friars:—
'Some to gather chese;
Loth they are to lese