Spelman informs us, that in Norfolk there were in his time thirteen villages with names ending in _by:_ this _By_ being a Danish word, signifying "villa." That a _bye_-law, Dan. _by-lage_, is a law _peculiar_ to a villa. And thus we have the general application of _bye_ to any thing; peculiar, private, indirect, as distinguished from the direct or main: as, _bye-ways_, _bye-talk_, &c. &c. In the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, _State Trials_, James I., 1603, are these words:-- "You are fools; you are on the _bye_, Raleigh and I are on the _main_. We mean to take away the king and his cubs." Here the contradistinction is manifest. Lord Bacon and B. Jonson write, _on_ the _by_; as if, on the way, in passing, indirectly:-- "'There is, _upon_ the _by_, to be noted.'--'Those who have seluted poetry _on_ the _by_'--such being a collateral, and not the main object of pursuit." This I think is clear and satisfactory. _By and by_ is quite a different matter. Mr. Tyrwhitt, upon the line in Chaucer,-- "These were his words _by and by_."--_R. R._ 4581. interprets "separately, distinctly;" and there are various other instances in Chaucer admitting the same interpretation:-- "Two yonge knightes ligging, _by and by_."--_Kn. T._, v. 1016. "His doughter had a bed all _by_ hireselve, Right in the same chambre _by and by_."--_The Reves T._, v. 4441. So also in the "Floure and the Leafe," stanzas 9 and 24. The latter I will quote, as it is much to the purpose:-- "The semes (of the surcote) echon, As it were a maner garnishing, Was set with emerauds, _one and one_, _By and by_." But there are more ancient usages, e.g. in R. Brunne, bearing also the same interpretation. "The chartre was read ilk poynt _bi and bi_:" William had taken the homage of barons "_bi_ and _bi_." He assayed (_i.e._ tried) "tham (the horses) _bi and bi_." Richardson's conception is, that there is a _subaudition_ in all these expressions; and that the meaning is, by point and by point; by baron and by baron; by horse and by horse: _one and one_, as Chaucer writes; each _one_ separately, by _him_ or _it_-self. And thus, that _by and by_ may be explained, _by_ one and _by_ one; distinctly, both in space or time. Our modern usage is restricted to _time_, as, "I will do so _by and by_:" where _by and by_ is equivalent to _anon_, _i.e._ in one (moment, instant, &c.). And so-- GOOD B'YE. Bloomsbury. _Clement's Inn_ (Vol. iii., p. 84.).--This inn was neither "a court of law" nor "an inn of court," but "an inn of chancery;" according to the distinction drawn by Sir John Fortescue, in his _De Laudibus Legum Angliae_, chap. xlix., written between 1460 and 1470.