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 Graecum--"Apres moi le Deluge"--
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