"Mistress may'ress"

[Joel S. Berson]

I don't know why finding a 1670 impression is
important for understanding what "Mistress
may'ress" meant.  However, "A Voyage to Ireland
in Burlesque" will be found in Poems on several
occasions written by Charles Cotton ... (London:
Printed for Tho. Bassett ...; Will. Hinsman and
Tho. Fox..., 1689).  EEBO.  Or also (perhaps) the
English Poetry database.  And on paper at Harvard.

As for what it meant, isn't the OED sufficient?

"mayoress", 2. The wife of a mayor; (also) a
woman nominated to fulfil the ceremonial duties
of a mayor's wife. (The only established use until the late 19th cent.)

"Mistress mayoress" in the second sense above
surely applies (mutatis mutandis) to the women
nominated by President François Hollande.

Joel

At 3/4/2014 04:18 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>The following phrase occurred in the 1670 poem "A Voyage to Ireland in
>Burlesque" as reprinted in an 1890 note:
> >> Mistress mayoress
>
>Wilson Gray wrote:
> > She's not a female mayor, but merely the *wife* of the mayor, right? There
> > was (is?) a problem in Russian with the naming of women in professions
> > traditionally reserved to men in those cases in which the traditional
> > feminine form of the word for a person engaged in that profession named the
> > wife of a man in that profession and did not name a woman in that
> > profession, e,g,  _doktorsha_ "doctor's wife, 'mistress doctoress'." There
> > was a note about this problem in the Army Language School textbook, back in
> > the '50's.
> >
> > Maybe Victor will bring me up to date.
>
>I was unable to find an early editon of "A Voyage to Ireland in
>Burlesque". The following 1841 reprint referred to the "may'r" and the
>"Mistress may'ress". I think that Wilson is correct that "Mistress
>may'ress" referred to the wife of the mayor.
>
>Year: 1841
>Title: Specimens of the British Poets: With Biographical and Critical
>Notices, and An Essay on English Poetry
>Author: Thomas Campbell
>Publisher: John Murray, London
>Poem: A Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque
>Poem Author: Charles Cotton
>Start Page: 292
>Quote Page: 295
>
>http://books.google.com/books?id=BdwTAAAAIAAJ&q=Two-Shoes#v=snippet&
>
>[Begin excerpt]
>Mistress may'ress complain'd that the pottage was cold;
>"And all long of your fiddle faddle," quoth she.
>"Why, what then, Goody Two-Shoes, what if it be!
>"Hold you, if you can, your tittle-tattle," quoth he.
>I was glad she was snapp'd thus, and guess'd by th' discourse,
>The may'r, not the gray mare, was the better horse,
>And yet for all that, there is reason to fear,
>She submitted but out of respect to his year:
>[End excerpt]
>
>Garson
>
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