Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

(Vol. iii., pp. 131. 133.)
I am glad to perceive that some of the correspondents of Notes and Queries are turning their attention to the elucidation of Chaucer. The text of our father-poet, having remained as it were in fallow since the time of Tyrwhitt, now presents a rich field for industry; and, in offering free port and entry to all comments and suggestions, to be there sifted and garnered up, the pages of Notes and Queries may soon become a depository from which ample materials may be obtained for a new edition of Chaucer, now become an acknowledged desideratum.
And if the note which precedes it, at page 131., upon a passage in Palamon and Arcite, is less valuable, it is because it is deficient in one of the most essential conditions which such communications ought to possess—that of originality. No suggestion ought to be offered which had been previously published in connexion with the same subject: at least in any very obvious place of reference, such as notes or glossaries already appended to well-known editions of the text.
Now the precise explanation of the planetary distribution of the twenty-four hours of the day, given by ε. in the first portion of his communication, was anticipated seventy or eighty years ago by Tyrwhitt in his note upon the same passage of Palamon and Arcite. And with respect to ε.'s second explanation of the meaning of houre inequal, that expression also has been commented upon by Tyrwhitt, who attributes it to the well-known expansive duration of ancient hours, the length of which was regulated by that of the natural day at the several seasons of the year: hence an inequality always existed; except at the equinoxes, between hours before, and hours after, sunrise. This is undoubtedly the true explanation, since Chaucer was, at the time, referring to hours before and after sunrise upon the same day. On the contrary, ε.'s ecliptic hours, if they ever existed at all (he has cited no authority), would be obviously incompatible with the planetary disposition of the hours first referred to.