Captain Ayloff.—Where can I find any notices of Captain Ayloff, one of the coadjutors of Tom Brown in the eccentric Letters from the Dead to the Living?
V. T. Sternberg.
Robert Johnson.—Perhaps some of your correspondents could give me some information relative to the pedigree of Robert Johnson, Esq., who was a baron of the Exchequer in Ireland in 1704; his parentage and descent; his wife's name and family; his armorial bearings; and date of his birth and death.
Was he the Robert Johnson who entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1671, as a Fellow Commoner at the age of fourteen? If so, his birthplace was London, and his father's name was also Robert.
E. P. L.
Co. Westmeath.
Selling a Wife.—What is the origin of the popular idea, that a man may legally dispose of his spouse by haltering her, and exposing her for sale in a public market? Some time ago the custom appears to have been very prevalent; and only a few months back there was a paragraph in The Times, describing an occurrence of the kind at Nottingham.
French romancers and dramatists have seized upon it as a leading trait of English society; and in their remarkably-faithful delineations of English life it is not unusual to find the blue-beard milord Anglais carting milady to Smithfield, and
enlarging upon her points in the cheap-jack style to the admiring drovers.
V. T. Sternberg.