Note 310 — CONCLUSION

It would be invidious to single out particular pearls, but one is too precious to be passed over. Dr. Covel wrote in his Diary: “Just at two o’clock Antonio called us to go to the Alloy.” Now, as the reader may remember, “Alloy” was the name for the ceremonial march-out of the Army. The editor, mistaking this Turkish word for the name of an English ship, and then drawing upon his imagination, evolves a pretty myth: “Dr. Covel and Sir John Finch, the ambassador, started together on the Alloy, and the new Grand Vizier, Kara Mustapha, came to see them off, and brought them large quantities of presents.” He goes on to describe the voyage of the phantom vessel as far as Venice (pp. 282 foll.). The only parallel instance of an editor’s mythopoeic faculty working upon a verbal misapprehension known to me is to be found in the Rigveda.