Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/198

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NOTES AND QUERIES. L n s. x. SEPT. 5,

to have had these rights in parishes situated in another county.

A most interesting geographical puzzle is Fielding's reference to Hazard Hill. Jones reached this place after turning to the left from the main road from Gloucester to Worcester, while Xortherton came to the north-west slope of this hill on his way from Worcester to Hereford, after passing through " a large wood " (ix. 7). Appa- rently this wood was Malvern Chace, which Xortherton would have reached by taking the road through Ledbury, and so Hazard Hill should be south-east of the Chace, and it could not have been further west, or else Upton would not have been the nearest town (ix. 2). Now no gazetteer makes any reference to Hazard Hill, and the latest available surveys, on a scale of an inch to the mile, show no elevation at all in this neighbourhood. Fielding's biographers have all taken it for granted that there was such 9 hill, and one at least has conjectured that George Lyttelton must have persuaded Fielding to climb it on some journey from Bath to Hagley Park, as it was acknow- ledged that Fielding would not have been naturally inclined to this sort of exertion ; but no one hitherto has hazarded the con- jecture that the author of ' Tom Jones ' did but easily and comfortably climb a hill of his own imagining and yet this, after all, seems to have been the case. One can appreciate the merriment of the author when he gave his two reasons for not pre- senting to the reader a more particxilar description of the noble prospect from the summit (ix. 2). And yet how convincing all these names are !

Another confusing reference relates to the good lieutenant whom Jones met on his travels, who had won his commission by gallantry at the Battle of Tannieres, and, it is added, had remained a lieutenant for " near forty years." This would give the date of the battle as a little later than 1705, but the gazetteers disclose no such hamlet as Tannieres, nor does the history of that period record any battle under that name. Yet we must conclude that Fielding was familiar with the campaigns of the Duke oJ Marlborough, as his father rose to high rank in that service, and he would be un- likely to invent the name of a battle when so many real ones would have served. The explanation is, I think, that the battle intended is now known as Ramillies. fought 23 May, 1706. Harlborough began his attack on the French centre, resting on the village of Ramillies, and with their

right on the village of Tavieres. Now the ieutenant, joining in this attack on Tavieres, would naturally think of the battle by the name of his objective point. Soldiers are apt to do this, and a considerable engage- ment may be known by several names until the historians finally agree upon one. This would indicate that Fielding got his story he is apparently recording a real incident from his father or one of his father's friends ; he had doubtless never seen the name of the action in print, which would account both for the misnaming and misspelling.

In one of her entertaining contests with the squire, Hrs. Western exclaims, " Green- land Greenland should always be the scene of the tramountain negotiation." To whicl the irate squire replies, " I thank heaven don't understand you now. You are got to your Hannoverian linguo " (xv. 6); anc unless the author desired to confuse and confound his readers as well as the squire, I confess I do not understand this empha- sized reference to Greenland.

There is a curious geographical error in ' The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon ' which none of the commentators or editors have corrected. Near the end of his journal Fielding refers to " Bellisle," which, he says, was about three miles below Lisbon, and states that Catherine of Aragon is there buried in a church close to the convent of the Geronymites. Now there is no Bellisle in Portugal, and what he evidently refers to is Belem, a suburb of Lisbon, in which was the Convento dos Jeronymos de Bolem (i.e., Bethlehem). At the south-east angle of the monastery was the Church of Santa Haria, and there was buried Catherine of Braganza, queen-consort of Charles II. Catherine of Aragon was buried at the abbey church of Peterborough. ' Baedeker ' insists that Catherine of Austria is buried in Belern, but possibly the editor of this work has confused "Austria" with "Asturias," and the lady of Braganza is intended.

Another reference on which I would appreciate enlightenment, though it is not geographical, is to be found in the dialogue between Jones and Partridge after leaving Gloucester (viii. 9), when Partridge says that " the miller with three thumbs, who is now alive, is to hold the horses of three kings up to his knees in blood." Mr. Partridge could scarcely have imagined this gruesome spectacle, but where did he dis- cover it? FREDERICK S. DICKSON.

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