ITER BOREALE
Seems a sort of imitation of Horace’s Brundusian journey. Davenant has “a journey into Worcestershire” (page 215. fol. edit.) in a similar vein, says Headley. If the popularity of this poem may be estimated by the frequency of manuscript copies in the public libraries, we may conclude it was valued very highly, as the transcripts of it are very numerous.
Misled by one of these, I considered this poem, the longest and most celebrated of bishop Corbet’s productions, to have been written in 1625: subsequent examination has induced me to place the date of its composition considerably earlier: the reasons on which this opinion is grounded, will be detailed in the following analysis of the Tour.
Our author commences his journey from Oxford in a company consisting of four persons, two of whom then were, and two of whom wished to be, doctors: but there is nothing in the course of the tour to show us which of the classes he belonged to, unless we are to suppose, from the shortness of cash which discovers itself before the termination of his adventures, that he was rather one of those who had wealth in expectancy than in possession.
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They set off on the 10th of August, and, long as the days are about that period, had a good chance of sharpening their appetites by their first half-day’s ride, thirty miles before dinner, when they sat down to dine with Dr. Christopher Middleton, at his rectory of Ashton on the Wall in Northamptonshire, about eight miles north of Banbury; where we learn that their entertainment was better than the looks of their host, whom they left in the evening, and rode to Flore, about twelve miles north-east, and took up their lodgings for the night.
At Flore they were entertained by a country surgeon, or (in the vulgar phrase) bone-setter, the tenant of Dr. Leonard Hutton, the rector of Flore and dean of Christ-Church, who fed them upon venison.
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