Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/432

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. ix. MAY so,

road leading into the London road about half t mile or more beyond Mereden; and as this village was six miles beyond Coventry <xii. 13), this must have been the site of the inn where Sophia and Mrs. Fitzpatrick met the Irish peer. The distance from Upton to Mereden by this route would be about forty-three and a half miles, and to make this journey in six and a half hours meant an average speed of six and three quarter miles an hour, not an improbable feat for these two determined young women. It is not likely that Fielding ever took this route himself, and he doubtless did not much care how Sophia found her way from Nut-hurst to Soli hull, where there may or may not be a, friendly lane.

MB. KEIGHTLEY'S criticism that Sophia, having sent all her money to Jones, had still plenty on the road, needs but little considera- tion, when we realize that not less than six days elapsed between the time she sent all her money to Jones, and the night she left home, and, of course, she had ample oppor- tunity to refill her purse in the interval. We might as well complain that while Sophia left- home with only " some linen and a night- gown " in Honour's portmanteau, she yet had proper clp thing in London for dinners, teas, drums, and the opera, and it was not in the least necessary for the author to pause in his tale to tell us how or when she replenished her wardrobe.

MB. KEIGHTLEY also complains f hat " the soldiers must have come from Bristol, and have left it by night ; and they marched all that night and the next day without a halt rather hard work," This is not a fair state- ment of the facts. The soldiers arrived at Hambrook during the night of 26 Nov., and the sun rose that morning at seven minutes past 8. They might easily have left Bristol at 4 o'clock, or after, and have reached Hambrook, a little more than four miles away, before daylight. This is certainly not marching all night, nor was it without a halt, as they did rest at Hambrook at least. They reached the halting-place for the follow- ing night probably before 5 o'clock, as the officers had not yet sat down to dine (vii. 11).

The criticism in regard to the time of the battle between Jones and Thwackum is, of course, more serious, but this was not MB. KEIGHTLEY'S discovery, as it was noted in The Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1791 <vol. xli. 434). The date of the battle was 3 Nov., 1745, and not in June at all. This may be ascertained by a passage in book vii. -chap. 11, where the author says, " This was the very time when the late rebellion was at

the highest, and, indeed, the banditti were now marched into England/' Carlisle had been taken in November, 1745, arid the Highlanders had advanced to Darby by the first days of December, and from then on the tide receded. Jones, therefore, must have been at Hambrook between the middle of November and the first week in December, 1 745. Four days after he was in Hambrook, he leaves Gloucester as the clock was striking five, and the broad, red moon began to rise. Consulting a London Almanac for 1745, you will find that the moon rose at 4.48, Green- wich time, on 29 November, and it would bo about ten minutes later, or 4.58, at Gloucester. From this we can construct the chronology of the story, and the rearrangement of events according to dates discloses a hundred con- sistencies to a single error. It may be noted , though, that while we can trace the events of nearly every day from All wort hys illness on 3 November to the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Jones to the country on 31 December, there is never the mention of a Sunday. But even so, what other author has dared to give the daily doings of his people as Fielding has done ? That an error or two crept in only increases the wonder of his accomplishment, and their presence proves, as nothing else could prove, that he carried his amazing chronology wholly in his mind alone.

FBEDEBTCK S. DICKSON. 215, West 101st Street, New York.

POE : A CLASSICAL REFEBENCE. Poe published two poems inscribed * To Helen.' The earlier one, which figures in ' Poems written in Youth,' is the better known, and contains the familiar quotation, about the glory of Greece and grandeur of Rome. It begins :

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore. That gently o'er a perfumed sea The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore.

What is the reference here ? So faj as I am aware, no commentator Poe or another

has supplied it. It is to be noted that there are some changes of text in various publications of the poem, but that the first stanza remains the same throughout. It may reasonably be concluded then that, though the poem was a juvenile performance, Poe scrutinized it with some care in after years.

But for " Nicean," one would naturally think of the picture as that of Odysseus carried at last happily from Phseacia to his old home, Ithaca. The adjective <; Nicean,"