"Well! don't fret;
He who dies for love will never be hang'd for debt."
—the invention of some Damon to comfort Strephon in his loneliness.
M. (2)
Tenet for Tenent (Vol. viii., p. 258.).—The note of your correspondent Balliolensis does not address itself to the Query put by Y. B. N. J. in Vol. vii., p. 205., When did the use of tenent give way to tenet?
You will find that Burton, in the Anatomy of Melancholy, which was published in 1621, uses uniformly tenent (vide vol. i. pp. 1. 317. 408. 430. 446. &c.)
But Sir Thomas Browne in 1646, twenty-four years later, printed the first edition of his Vulgar Errors under the title of Pseudodoxia epidemica, or Enquiries into very many received Tenets and commonly presumed Truths.
I cannot find that Burton in any passage respects the grammatical distinction suggested by both your correspondents, that tenet should denote the opinion of an individual, and tenent those of a sect. He applies the latter indifferently, both as regards the plural and singular. Thus, "Aponensis thinks it proceeds," but "Laurentius condemns his tenent" (part i. sect. iii. mem. 3.). And again, "they are furious, impatient in discourse, stiff and irrefragable in their tenents" (ib. p. i. s. iv. mem. 1. sub. 3.).
J. Emerson Tennent.