Note 2 — Chapter XI · POPULAR PHRASES AND SAYINGS

The Carlyles, however, used this phrase in a different sense. Mrs. Carlyle in a letter to her husband (September 13, 1844) wrote: ‘The evening of the Bullers’ departure Jenkin’s Hen came, pale as a candle, with a red circle round each eye which was very touching;—he had evidently been crying himself quite sick and sore.’ Carlyle’s note on this passage is as follows: ‘Fleming. To “die the death of Jenkin’s hen” expressed in Annandale the maximum of pusillanimity.’ V. The Second Post, E. V. Lucas, p. 151.