Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/411

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9 th S. I. MAY 21, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

403

P. 47. Of the advertisements "adapted" from the book, by far the best that of Sam blacking boots at the White Hart is omitted.

P. 68. If the Town Arms, Eatanswill, is supposed to be the Great White Horse, Ipswich, one can only wonder that the like- ness is so unlike. Further, from the first interview with Weller senior one would cer- tainly gather that Pickwick had never been to Ipswich.

Pp. 71-72. The map with its numbered list of the Pickwick tours is most inaccurate. When did the journey " No. 12. To Dorking," take place? Ipswich is very hardly dealt with. On p. 72 the journey thence in pursuit of Jingle is placed after, instead of before, the Christmas at Dingley Dell; the list on the map omits it altogether. Muggle- ton, we read, is Gravesend. Does the descrip- tion answer? The evidence from the book itself, as in the case of Ipswich and Eatan- swill, is rather crushing. The following seems to show that Mr. Fitzgerald is not quite con- vinced on the subject :

" The Pickwickians first went to Rochester, Chat- ham, Dingley Dell, and perhaps to Gravesend. Mr. Pickwick with Wardle then pursued Jingle to town, returning thence to the Dell, which he at once left for Cobham, where he found his friend Tupman. The party then returned to town." >

Why " perhaps to Gravesend " if Muggleton is Gravesend ? The second sentence is plainly " offthe book." The party d id not return to town from Cobham direct. The route was : Dingley Dell to Muggleton, thence to Eochester, Cob- ham, Gravesend, and so to London. Here are Gravesend and Muggleton in the same journey. Mr. Fitzgerald would scarcely say they were the same place.

P. 77. With regard to Pickwick's previous history " we have but a couple of indications of his calling " at the trial by Snubbin, and later by Perker. Neither of these "indicates" very much. The necessity of being bounded by "a couple of indications" has probably prevented any allusion to by far the best authority Pickwick himself, at Osborne's Hotel ("Nearly the whole of my previous life having been devoted to business, &c.).

P. 85. Winkle's duels and Tupman's amative- ness are pitfalls. Hence the "anti-Pickwickian glances at the servant-maids"; which maybe supposed to allude to the ogling of a girl from the " Commodore," ending in Jingle's "Fine girl, sir."

P. 126. One can only agree with the remark on some recent high-priced inaccuracy with regard to 'Pickwick Papers.' What use is there in taking the cricket match seriously 1 If, however, comment is necessary, it should

not be in the direction of excusing Podder's tactics. They would be a gross outrage in any age of cricket. A " specialist " might say, too, that the three kinds of bowling good, bad, and doubtful are just one too many. A

doubtful" ball is, on that very account, good and of the best.

There are 128 pages in Mr. Fitzgerald's little book. Of these eighteen deal with an ingenious comparison between Mr. Pickwick and Dr. Johnson, and thirty-eight more with the plates. This list does not, therefore, aim at completeness, but it will serve to show that the value of the work is seriously impaired. The only excuse for the appearance of books of this "special" kind is absolute accuracy. Without it the main point is lost, and the work useless as a first-hand authority. And absolute accuracy would have made the * His- tory ' and this little book, its supplement, of real value to students of 'Pickwick' and of its author. GEORGE MARSHALL.

Sefton Park, Liverpool.

" WEARING THE BREECHES." In the ' Miscel- lanies ' of William Beloe (London, 1795), well known as the translator of Herodotus, &c., there is, at the end of the second of the three small volumes, a translation of an amusing dia- logue which shows that the above phrase is of con siderable antiquity. The original is in Latin, was written by Antonius Musa Brassavolus, a physician of Ferrara, in Italy, and pub lished in 1540,* in a book treating of the composition of syrups. His friend, an apothe- cary, confesses to leading a cat-and-dog life with his spouse. One cannot be astonished at such a state of things, for he tells us that he was, from the very first, determined on calling her by opprobrious names " to show her the dependence and inferiority of her condition." The physician, on the contrary, declares that he has never addressed his wife except in terms of the greatest affection and kindness, notwithstanding the fact that, " from the time I married, I determined to oblige my wife to assent to, or perform, what- ever I should say or direct, however absurd or repugnant to reason it should be." His friend begs to be made acquainted with the method he adopted. The mode of action is even more drastic than that of Petruchio towards Katherine. "On the night f our marriage," the physician says,

"when we were shut up in our bedroom together, I threw upon the ground a pair of breeches, and

amen omnium Syruporum, quorum publicus usus est. Lugduni, 1540. ' r
 * "Antonii Musee Brassavoli Ferrari ensis Ex-