he clock_,' nor to fix upon any other hour; as the two
circumstances just mentioned are not found to coincide in any part of
the 28th, or of any other day of April, in this
climate."--_Introductory Discourse_, Sec. xiv.

In a foot-note, Tyrwhitt further enters into a calculation to show that, on
the 28th of April, the fourth part of the day and half an hour and more
(even with the liberal allowance of a quarter of an hour to the indefinite
phrase '_and more_') would have been completed by nine o'clock A.M. at the
latest, and therefore at least an hour too soon for coincidence with (2.).

Now one would think that Tyrwhitt, when he found his author relating facts,
"_seemingly intended to be so accurate_," would have endeavoured to
discover whether there might not be some hidden meaning in them, the
explaining of which might make that consistent, which, at first, was
apparently the reverse.

Had he investigated with such a spirit, he must have discovered that the
expression "arke of the artificial day" _could not_, in this instance,
receive its obvious and usual meaning, of the horary duration from sunrise
to sunset--

And for this simple reason: That such a meaning would _presuppose a
knowledge of the hour_--of the very thing in request--and which was about
{346} to be discovered by "our hoste," who "toke his wit" from the sun's
altitude for the purpose! But he knew already that the fourth part of the
day IN TIME had elapsed, he must necessarily have also known what that time
was, without the necessity of calculating it!

Now, Chaucer, whose choice of expression on scientific subjects is often
singularly exact, says, "Our hoste _saw_ that the sonne," &c.; he must
therefore have been referring to some visible situation: because,
afterwards, when the time of day has been obtained from calculation, the
phrase changes to "_gan conclude_" that it was ten of the clock.

It seems, therefore, certain that, even setting aside the question of
consistency between (1.) and (2.), we must, _upon other grounds_, assume
that Chaucer had some meaning in the expression "arke of the artificial
day," different from what must be admitted to be its obvious and received
signification.

To what other ark, then, could he have been alluding, if not to the
_horary_ diurnal ark?

I think, to the AZIMUTHAL ARCH OF THE HORIZON included between the point of
sunrise and that of sunset!

The situation of any point in that arch is ca