Fwd: solution to "sweet porbell" puzzle accepted

[Laurence Horn]

...courtesy of Stephen, Grant, and Doug.  thanks all!

LH

>Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:26:58 -0700 (PDT)
>From: George S Burkhardt <pajaronian at verizon.net>
>Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: jpeg version of diary page
>To: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
>
>Dear Dr. Horn,
>     Certainly poetess accords with angel visitant.  Further, Bacon
>did not cross the first t in visitant, initially causing me to read
>it as visibant, an error; and he perhaps did not cross the t in
>poetess.
>       Bacon does make three kinds of s letters -- a distinct initial
>s, sometimes a compressed interior s, and rarely the old fashioned
>f , as when he writes Miff (Miss SoandSo).
>      Now  I agree -- it is sweet poetess. And it is "brother"
>(rather than rather) to match cousin of a "sweet poetess."
>     So I thank you gentlemen, one and all, for your kind efforts.
>
>Sincerely,
>George S. Burkhardt
>
>    Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
>For what it's worth, Doug Wilson provides additional evidence for his
>case below; he (along with Grant Barrett and Stephen Goranson, who
>came up with the "poetess" hypothesis first) has convinced me that
>this is a highly plausible reading.
>
>LH
>
>
>>
>>We can see enough of Bacon's handwriting on this page to make a good
>>assessment. I think it's "poetess": all of the letters except maybe
>>the final "s" match forms elsewhere on this page. "Poetess" matches
>>at least as well as "porbell" based on the appearance alone, and
>>furthermore "poetess" makes sense. The only reasonable alternative
>>to reading this as "poetess" (in absence of outside information)
>>would be the overly conservative approach of reading it as
>  >"[illegible]"...
>  >
>>The same for "brother": it's conceivable it's something else, but
>>"rather" cannot be justified IMHO.
>>
>>Note that Bacon (_inconsistently_) sometimes (not always) uses a
>>"Greek 'e'" (like a lower-case epsilon) and when he does it looks
>>about like the "e"s in "poetess". These "e"s do look like they could
>>be _somebody's_ "r"s, but other "r"s on the page do not look like
>>this. The only questionable item is the final "s": I believe
>>probably the writer is making it flamboyant to express his feeling
>>about the florid phrase "sweet poetess".
>>
>>"Sweet poetess" is/was a common enough collocation according to
>>quick Google. Applied to Sappho among others .... (^_^)
>>
>>-- Doug Wilson
>>

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