There are discrepancies in the arrangement of the verses, and a most
important various reading.
Cruikshank:
Now sevin long years is gone and past,
And fourteen days vell known to me;
She packed up all her gay clouthing,
And swore Lord Bateman she would go see.
To this verse, in Cruikshank's book, a note (not by Cruikshank) is
added:
'"Now sevin long years is gone and past,
And fourteen days well known to me.
In this may be recognised, though in a minor degree, the same gifted
hand that portrayed the Mussulman, the pirate, the father, and the
bigot, in two words ("This Turk").
'"The time is gone, the historian knows it, and that is enough for
the reader. This is the dignity of history very strikingly
exemplified."'
That note to Cruikshank's text is, like all the delightful notes, if
style is evidence, not by Dickens, but by Thackeray. Yet, in his
own text, with an exemplary fidelity, he reads: 'And fourteen days
well known to THEE.' To whom? We are left in ignorance; and
conjecture, though tempting, is unsafe.
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