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Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they
are listed at the end of the text.
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NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES,
GENEALOGISTS, ETC.
"When found, make a note of." CAPTAIN CUTTLE.
No. 81.]
SATURDAY, MAY 17. 1851..
[Price Threepence. Stamped Edition 4d.
CONTENTS.
NOTES: Page
Illustrations of Chaucer, No. VI. 385
Dutch Folk lore 387
Minor Notes: Verses in Pope: "Bug" or "Bee"
Rub a dub Quotations Minnis Brighton Voltaire's
Henriade 387
QUERIES:
The Blake Family, by Hepworth Dixon 389
Minor Queries: John Holywood the Mathematician
Essay on the Irony of Sophocles Meaning of Mosaic
Stanedge Pole Names of the Ferret Colfabias
School of the Heart Milton and the Calves head
Club David Rizzio's Signature Lambert Simnel:
Was this his real Name? Honor of Clare, Norfolk
Sponge Babington's Conspiracy Family of Sir John
Banks Meaning of Sewell Abel represented with
Horns 389
MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED: The Fifteen O's Meaning
of Pightle Inscription on a Guinea of George III.
Meaning of Crambo 391
REPLIES:
John Tradescant probably an Englishman, and his Voyage
to Russia in 1618, by S. W. Singer 391
The Family of the Tradescants, by W. Pinkerton 393
Pope Joan 395
REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES: Robert Burton's Birthplace
Barlaam and Josaphat Witte van Haemstede The
Dutch Church in Norwich Fest Sittings Quaker's
Attempt to convert the Pope The Anti Jacobin
Mistletoe Verbum Græcum "Après moi le Déluge"
Eisell "To day we purpose" Modern Paper St. Pancras
Joseph Nicolson's Family Demosthenes and New
Testament Crossing Rivers on Skins Curious Facts
in Natural History Prideaux 395
MISCELLANEOUS:
Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 398
Books and Odd Volumes wanted 399
Notices to Correspondents 399
Advertisements 399
Notes.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHAUCER, NO. VI.
Unless Chaucer had intended to mark with particular exactness the day of
the journey to Canterbury, he would not have taken such unusual precautions
to protect his text from ignorant or careless transcribers. We find him not
only recording the altitudes of the sun, at different hours, in words; but
also corroborating those words by associating them with physical facts
incapable of being perverted or misunderstood.
Had Chaucer done this in one instance only, we might imagine that it was
but another of those occasions, so frequently seized upon by him, for the
display of a little scientific knowledge; but when he repeats the very same
precautionary expedient again, in the afternoon of the same day, we begin
to perceive that he must have had some fixed purpose; because, as I shall
presently show, it is the repetition alone that renders the record
imperishable.
But whether Chaucer really devised this method for the express purpose of
preserving his text, or not, it has at least had that effect, for while
there are scarcely two MSS. extant which agree in the verbal record of the
day and hours, the physical circumstances remain, and afford at all times
independent data for the recovery or correction of the true reading.
The day of the month may be deduced from the declination of the sun; and,
to obtain the latter, all the data required are,
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