I had a bash at this on the morning it came out and got almost nowhere. I came back to it this week and, in truth, found it a real slog. The Miller book and the Smollett reference were about the only things I really knew. I also found some of the clues hard to penetrate, even with the liberal use of the solving aids to which I soon had to resort. Tough puzzle, a bit too tough for me.
I have several things only half-explained so I'm looking forward to some enlightenment.
I have several things only half-explained so I'm looking forward to some enlightenment.
   | Across 9 The buttress is a PIER plus an anagram of 'toiler'. 10 Elaborately hidden word 13 THE+aGeNtS. Giving part of the answer en clair (as 'the' here) always makes for a special makes for a special kind of difficulty! 16 I'm still not sure if this is a formal society .. or what? Anyway, the parsing is EXISTS around (LIB,R) 19 Commander James ... 20 .. is of course commissioned in the Navy or 'SENIOR Service' 21 Took me ages, even though I sort of knew of Respighi's Roman Trilogy of symphonic poems. A hint that we were in the area of music would have been appreciated 23 definition is "of a left-wing persuasion" 24 Very crafty deceptive puntuation. It's CANTER (Travel by horse) + BURY (inter, the verb), with "faith city" as the definition. 26 One big girl for another, I guess Down 3 Smollet's Adventures of ... contains a novel within a novel entitled The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality 4 Sounds like 'Q', pseudonym of Arthur Quiller-Couch, editor of The Oxford Book of English Verse. Apparently this came up in another Broteas puzzle not long ago 5 a FRONTAL is an altar hanging. 6 Anagram of "labours suit". This is Aristobulus of Chalcis, who was a great-grandson of Herod the Great on both sides of his family 7 CORNELIA BLIMBER is a schoolteacher in Dickens' Dombey and Son, married eventually to Mr Feeder, BA 8 Dick Remington is the narrator of Wells' The New Machiavelli. I don't know about the America bit of this, though a faint bell is ringing ... an advertising slogan, perhaps? 12 I think the "man" is a CAT, and the special kind of home is a Cheshire Home, one of those run by the charity once known as The Cheshire Foundation Homes for the Sick, now Leonard Cheshire Disability 15 Another question mark for me. LINGE could be a number of Germans, including Hitler's valet. Add The RING and you get LINGERING — "protracted" 22 Irene Heron Forsyte 25 ETH is an Old English character. And you'd find -eth at the end of an old way of saying (he) plays ... playeth. Clever. |