Dr Thorne (90 page)

1
(p. 63)
The veiled prophet
: Hakin ben Allah Mokanna in
Lalla Rookh
by Thomas Moore.

2
(p. 63)
Zuleika
: From the Persian, meaning ‘brilliant beauty'. Zuleika was the beautiful heroine of Byron's poem of Turkey ‘The Bride of Abydos'.

1
(p. 67)
Malthusians
: Frank's definition is facetious. A Malthusian was a follower of T. R. Malthus (1766-1835), who held that as population increases faster than the means of subsistence, its increase should be checked.

2
(p. 67)
plucked
: When a candidate was rejected in examinations the action was described as being ‘plucked', a relatively new (1852) slang term at the time Trollope was writing.

3
(p. 73)
Monsoon
: An actual horse, listed in the
General Stud Book
.

1
(p. 80) ‘
In maiden meditation, fancy free': A Midsummer Night's Dream
, II, i, 164.

1
(p. 112)
Eleusinian mysteries
: In ancient times the festival of the Eleusinia was celebrated every year at Athens, by initiates only, in honour of Demeter and her daughter Persephone.

2
(p. 115)
a canal, from sea to sea, through the Isthmus of Panama
: Trollope must have been amusing himself with a little informed foresight here. Though the construction of a waterway between the Atlantic and the Pacific had been considered as early as the sixteenth century, the first attempt to carry out the idea was not begun until 1880. Then the work was undertaken not by the British but by the privately owned Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique under the leadership of Ferdinand de Lesseps.

3
(p. 120)
Sir Omicron Pie
: A combination of the fifteenth and sixteenth letters of the Greek alphabet, this is one of Trollope's less happy efforts at naming a character in accordance with or to suit his occupation. Sir Lamda Mewnew (the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth letters of the Greek alphabet), bestowed in
Barchester Towers
and elsewhere on another
eminent physician, is even less effective. Trollope is more successful with the convincing Fillgrave as a name for Dr Thorne's medical rival.

1
(p. 127)
Louis Philippe
: Louis-Philippe (1773-1850) was king of France from 1830 until 1848.

1
(p. 140)
When Greek meets Greek, then Comes the Tug-of-War
; the line is misquoted from a seventeenth-century play,
The Rival Queens
by Nathaniel Lee, and should read: ‘When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war'.

2
(p. 146)
post-chaise
: A carriage would be the equivalent of a car one owned oneself; a post-chaise was hired, like a taxi.

3
(p. 147)
Burley… Bothwell
: A reference to antagonists in
Old Mortality
by Sir Walter Scott.

4
(p. 147)
Achilles… Hector
. Achilles was the hero of the
Iliad
, Hector a Trojan leader and eldest son of King Priam. Achilles killed Hector in battle, having chased him three times around the walls of the city of Troy.

1
(p. 163)
Plutus… Venus
: Plutus was the Greek god of wealth. Zeus deprived him of sight so that he might distribute his gifts without regard to merit. Venus was a Roman goddess, identified with Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and beauty. One of the temples built to her was dedicated to Venus Verticordia, the goddess who turns the human heart.

2
(p. 167)
Gamaliel
: Mentioned in Acts 5:34 and again in Acts 22:3. Gamaliel was a Pharisee, a teacher and a doctor of the law. The Apostle Paul said that he was ‘brought up at the feet of Gamaliel'.

1
(p. '77)
William III
: King of Great Britain and Prince of Orange (1650-1701).

2
(p. 178)
Freetraders, Tallyhoes, and Royal Mails
: A Freetrader was one who supported trade without the interference of customs tuties or bounties. Tally-ho was the name given to a fast day coach, originally (1832) to the fast day coach between London and Birmingham. The Royal Mail was a stage coach used primarily for conveying the mail.

3
(p. 182)
the Manchester school
: A term applied (derisively by Disraeli in 1848) to a group of Radicals and Freetraders originating from among businessmen of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and sponsors of the Anti-Corn Law League.

4
(p. 182)
He delighted in gold sticks
. The Gold Stick was, and is, the gilt rod carried on occasions of state by the colonel of the Life Guards or the captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms. The term came to be applied to the bearer of this.

5
(p. 183)
Prince Albert
: Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1819-61), prince consort of Queen Victoria.

6
(p. 183)
Bishop of Barchester… Mrs Proudie
: Dr and Mrs Proudie, important characters in the Barsetshire novels, make their first appearance in
Barchester Towers
.

1
(p. 199)
go to war
: Trollope sets his novel in 1854 and tells us that it is summer, but in fact Britain and France had already declared war on Russia in the previous March, though no armies landed in the Crimea until the middle of September. Perhaps he was referring to the orders that were given in June to Raglan to attack Sebastopol.

2
(p. 202)
‘wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win': Macbeth
, I, v, 22-3.

3
(p. 204)
ten-pound freeholders, and such like
: By the Reform Act of 1832 the franchise was extended to include £10 copyholders and leaseholders, thus giving the vote to the middle classes and increasing the electorate from about 478,000 to 814,000.

4
(p. 206)
Sir Edwin Landseer
: English painter (1802-73), best known for his paintings of animals.

1
(p. 228)
Dr Stanhope
: A
bon viveur
and absentee parson who first makes his appearance in
Barchester Towers
and whose children are three of the principal characters ofthat novel.

1
(p. 252)
Balaclava gallop
: The Battle of Balaclava, in the Crimean War, took place on 25 October 1854. Trollope's ‘gallop' must refer to one of the two cavalry charges in that battle, the first by the Heavy and the second by the Light Brigade.

2
(p. 254)
Sir Richard
: Sir Richard Mayne (1796-1868), at the time Trollope was writing (1858), was Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, but in 1854-5, the period during which
Dr Thorne
takes place, he was still Joint Commissioner with Captain William Hay.

1
(p. 260)
auto-da-fé
: A judicial sentence of the Spanish Inquisition directing the public burning of a heretic.

2
(p. 260)
Anathema maranatha!
: A kind of curse, originally from 1 Corinthians 16:22: ‘If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Mara-natha.' The latter word should not, in fact, be used to intensify 'anathema' but belongs properly in the next sentence and is of Arabic origin.

1
(p. 26g) ‘
O whistle and l'll come to you, my lad!
': A song by Robert Burns (1759-96).

2
(p. 271) ‘
I am monarch of all I survey
': From
Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk
by William Cowper (1731-1800). Selkirk was the original of Robinson Crusoe, who became monarch of the small island on which he was shipwrecked. Mary is making an apt and witty reference to her own small island, Dr Thorne's house.

1
(p. 281)
periporollida
: These organs would appear to be fictitious, an invention of Trollope's.

2
(p. 282)
Xantippe… Imogenes
: Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates, was said to have been a shrew. Imogen is the virtuous, gentle and submissive wife of Posthumus Leonatus in Shakespeare's
Cymbeline
.

1
(p. 323)
the young Bashaw
: An early (1534) form of ‘pasha', a grandee, a haughty, imperious man.

1
(p. 330)
cherry-bounce
: Cherry brandy.

2
(p. 334)
living cleanly and forswearing sack
: Cf.
Henry IV, Part I
, V, iv, 1 66ff.

1
(p. 341)
The snake was so but scotched
: Cf.
Macbeth
, III, ii, 13.

2
(p. 343)
a jolly, thriving wooer; Richard III
, iv, iii, 43.

3
(p. 344)
Hyperion to a satyr; Hamlet
, I, ii, 140.

4
(p. 351) ‘
flat, stale and unprofitable': Hamlet
, I, ii, 133.

5
(p. 351)
‘a the blood of all the Howards'
: From
An Essay on Man
by Alexander Pope (1688-1744).

1
(p. 362)
Lord Bateman
: ‘In
The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman
, as transcribed by Thackeray, with illustrations by Cruickshank and mock-learned
notes by Dickens, Lord Bateman and Sophia are apart for rather longer [than Frank and Mary in
Dr Thorne
]:

“Now sevin long years is gone and past, And fourteen days veil known to me… ”'

(DAVID SKILTON).

1
(p. 372)
Capuchin
: A Franciscan friar.

2
(p. 373)
a Huss, a Wycliffe, or a Luther
. Jan Hus or Huss (1372/3-1415) was the most important fifteenth-century Czech religious reformer who anticipated the Lutheran Reformation. John Wyclif (c. 1330-84), the translator of the Bible, was a theologian, philosopher and Church reformer. Martin Luther (1483-1546) was the founder of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation.

3
(p. 373)
Brighton Young
: Young (1801-77) was second president of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, whose adherents practised polygamy.

1
(p. 382)
chibouk
: The long pipe smoked by the Turks (
OED
).

1
(p. 407)
chasse-café
: A small glass of some liqueur, taken to remove the taste of coffee
(OED)
.

1
(p. 414)
Scutari
: Now Uskudar in Turkey. The military hospital there was made famous by the nursing work of Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. Frank's friend Wildman could barely have served there for two years at the time that Frank speaks of him, the summer of 1855.

1
(p. 451)
any number of Protestant princesses on hand
: Trollope is certainly referring to the Bill of Rights (1689), which prohibited the marriage of British royalty to Roman Catholics, and to the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, which further restricted the matrimonial choice of George Ill's descendants.

1
(p. 465)
delicious beam-ends: Jonah
means
delirium tremens
, a kind of delirium caused by alcohol abuse.

1
(p. 516)
as Sancho was in his government
: A reference to Cervantes'
Don Quixote
, in which Sancho Panza is duped into believing himself the governor of an island.

2
(p. 516)
‘London particular'
: Later a term for a thick London fog but then a kind of Madeira. The vintners rather than the brewers might have brought an action against Miss Dunstable.

1
(p. 525)
such, in fact, turned out to be the case
: Much doubt has been expressed over Mary's chances of inheriting under Sir Roger's will.
The Saturday Review
had some sarcastic remarks to make in its review of
Dr Thorne
in June 1858. But the following is the opinion of a modern authority, Grace Derwent, barrister-at-law, who concedes that Trollope's interpretation of the law may not have been too wide of the mark. She writes: ‘The position of illegitimate donees was only improved to a limited extent by the Legitimacy Act 1926, and more so by the Family Law Reform Act 1969. Previously, the traditional common law rules applied. These meant that any reference to relationship to the testator was presumed to refer only to legitimate relatives. The rule applied to all donees, including children or relatives generally.

‘This presumption, however, could be avoided if a contrary intention was indicated by the testator's giving a description sufficient to identify an illegitimate donee, even if not by name.

‘An example of a gift by specific description would include a reference to the actual relationship to the testator. In the will of Sir Roger Scatcherd, in the event of his son not surviving to the age of twenty-five, his estate, after the payment of various bequests, was left to the eldest child of his sister. This was Mary Thornc, the daughter of his sister Mary and of Henry, the brother of Dr Thorne.

‘At the time of executing his will, Sir Roger did not know of his own relationship to Mary Thorne. Dr Thorne did know it and he begged Sir Roger to be more precise in identifying his heir. Later the identity of Mary was disclosed to him and opportunity given for clarification. On Sir Roger's death, a codicil, correctly attested, stated that Dr Thorne, and he alone, knew the identity of Mary Scatcherd's eldest child. Certainly, Dr Thorne did know Mary and had no specific information concerning any later legitimate issue.