Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/414

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NOTES AND QUEEIES. [9 th s. v. MAY 19, 1000.

they may be contradicted, but not confuted. New issues may be introduced, but, unless history agreeing from different points can be shown to have been compiled under collusion, nothing can alter these dates. As to astro- nomers, they must first bring into line their own differences in calculations with regard to certain eclipses, &c., ere they claim to be infallible, or expect novices in that science to give them credit with that " unknown quantity." I have in these pages, in a humble way, called attention to discrepant state- ments of astronomers with regard to some early eclipses. For one person who is an authority on this subject there are a dozen or so historians whose united labours from different standpoints corroborate each other's conclusions. Are these to be thrown over- board to square with the one 1 ? Clinton's 'Fasti Hellenici' has been shown years ago to be wanting on several important points. As an instance not required for those who know a little about the subject, but desirable for those who might be led wrong (ante, p. 245) Clinton says that Jerusalem was taken in the fourth month of the eleventh year of the Jewish calendar, computed from Nisan, B.C. 587, being the twelfth month of the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah, beginning in June, B.C. 588, and ending June, B.C. 587 ; his words are, " the eleventh of Zedekiah is completed B.C. 587. Jerusalem is taken the ninth day of the fourth month June, B.C. 587."* Consequently, Clinton states that Zedekiah's reign began June, B.C. 598 ; but this contradicts the Biblical account, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10. Here, with the context, it is clear Zedekiah was made king at the beginning of the year, that is, Nisan or March, ergo, the eleventh of that king began in March, B.C. 588, and not, as Clinton makes it, in June ; and its fourth month must have been June, and B.C. 588, we have certain proof, was the third year of the 47th Olympiad and the Roman 163. If there remained the slightest dubiety about this, 2 Kings xxv. 2-4 would remove it. Clinton gives the reign of Jotham and Ahaz as fifteen years; Dr. Hales, sixteen Eusebius and Clemens of Alexandria, seven- teen ; the Books of Kings and Chronicles, sixteen. Josephus, book xv. chap, v., states that the battle of Actium was fought in the 187th Olympiad, in the seventh year oi Herod's reign, which works out the fact that the Roman year 398 = B.C. 355 ; that the thirc year of the 194th Olympiad was the 44 Julian =751 Roman, and the year of Christ's birth The term "mythical" is applied to King


 * 'Fast. Hell,,' vol. of 1834, p, 328.

Iphitus (see ante, p. 245). This old story as related by Plutarch is rather circumstantial, yet it may have no foundation in fact. Pos- sibly there are those now living who know Tiore about it than Plutarch, Aristotle, Aris- todemus, and others ; or some recent discover y may warrant to-day, more than 1,700 years after, a doubt as to this king's existence. One
 * hing is clear : we can say it is a tradition

that has existed since about 3938 of the Julian period, and has been held as a sound datum upon which an epoch famous in chrono- ogical history is founded.

ALFRED CHAS. JONAS.

ELVERTON MANOR (9 th S. v. 356). Does SIGMA TAU mean Elwerton Manor? If so e will find all he wants to know in Hasted's History of Kent,' vol. ii. p. 735. It is in Stone, near Faversham, in the north-west part of it. H. B. P.

Inner Temple.

"THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER" (9 th S. V. 65,

1 52, 295). The rime which C. C. B. quotes at the last reference has always been known to me as

Green's forsaken,

Yellow's forsworn,

Blue's the colour

Which must be worn.

I remember how folks made "a dead set" against wearing things green, the colour being held, in a general way, as symbolizing deceitfulness in any form. The women folk were most in arms against the colour. Such expressions as " She turned fair green with mad," " Green out of spite," " She 's a regular green - eyes," were sayings often heard amongst the gossips when engaged in discussing the darker and lower side of village life. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

TABLET TO MR. GLADSTONE (9 th S. v. 313). I beg to differ from your correspondent in associating the name of Delia Robbia with a material that " imparts an impression of non-durability." Real Delia Robbia ware we find on the Continent exposed in the streets, and also specimens in South Kensington Museum, as perfect to-day as when first made over four hundred years ago. I have seen marble tablets erected in my time that have had inscriptions carved upon them, and also figures for monumental purposes, exposed to the weather, that have completely perished. Granite certainly is durable, but I know nothing so difficult to read as letters cut in granite when they have been gilt or blacked a few years. In many cases it is almost impossible to decipher them, as the