The Florissant Fossil Beds in Florissant, Colorado are famous for their
fossil insects, including fossil lepidoptera.
[http://www.nps.gov/flfo/]
[http://montesanoenterprises.com/florissantco.htm]
[http://planning.nps.gov/flfo/]
“Florissant” transforms easily into “RS Alfiston.”
A character named Sir W. Elphiston appears in Jules Verne’s Les Indes Noires (1877), translated as The Underground City by W. H. Kingston, the same year.
Major Elphiston appears in Jules Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune (1865) and its sequel, Autour de la Lune (1870). The Mercier and King translations of both came out in 1873, titled, respectively, From the Earth to the Moon, and Round the Moon. In the translations, Major Elphiston becomes Major Elphinstone.
Byron was apparently involved with Princess Charlotte of Wales.
[http://engphil.astate.edu/gallery/maynebio.html]
Princess Charlotte’s confidante was Margaret Mercer Elphinstone, Viscountess
Keith (1788-1867), a portrait of whom is at the National Portrait Gallery
(by Charles Turner, possibly after George Sanders (Saunders) mezzotint,
published 1813).
[http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp54508&rNo=0&role=sit]
Byron apparently proposed, in vain, to Margaret Mercer Elphinstone; they
remained friends.
[http://engphil.astate.edu/gallery/maynebio.html]
She married Charles de Flahaut.
[http://perso.orange.fr/jean-paul.flahaut/Mercer.html]
One of Byron’s conquests, Lady Oxford, “was the mother of several children
‘who were perfect angels.’ In Astarte, Lord Lovelace tells us that
these [children] were called "The Harleian Miscellany". One of them was Lady
Charlotte Harley, to whom, under the name of Ianthe, the introductory lines
to Childe Harold (first published in the seventh edition of February
1814) were written in the autumn of 1812, when she was eleven years old.”
[http://engphil.astate.edu/gallery/maynebio.html]
According to Peter Cochran: “Early in May 1814, it seems that Miss Mercer Elphinstone asked Byron for a loan of the famous Albanian costume which he had brought back from his first Eastern journey, and in which he had been painted by Thomas Phillips. Byron was pleased to send her the costume, implying that he disliked it, telling Elphinstone that she could keep it, and concluding:
I send you the Arnaout garments – which will make an admirable costume for a Dutch dragoon. – The Camesa or Kilt (to speak Scottishly) you will find very long – it is the custom with the Beys and a sign of rank to wear it to the ancle – I know not why – but so it is – the million shorten it to the knee which is more antique – and becoming – at least to those who have legs and a propensity to show them. – I have sent but one camesa – the other I will dispatch when it has undergone the Mussulman process of ablution. – – There are greaves for the legs – 2 waistcoats are beneath – one over the Jacket – the cloak – a sash – a short shawl and cap – and a pair of garters (something of the Highland order – ) with an ataghan wherewithal to cut your fingers if you don’t take care – over the sash – there is a small leathern girdle with a buckle in the centre. – – – It is put off & on in a few minutes – if you like the dress – keep it – I shall be very glad to get rid of it – as it reminds me of one or two things I don’t wish to remember …“The eroticism of Byron contemplating Mercer quickly taking the costume off and then putting it on again (he is clearly familiar with all its mechanisms) – is suddenly undercut by his last sentence, a frustratingly cryptic statement, upon which he never enlarges. ‘… one or two things I don’t wish to remember.’ What ‘things’ does the Albanian costume remind him of, and why does he not wish to remember them?”
Some additional sources:
Lord Byron and his Albanian Costume
[http://www.frosina.org/about/infobits.asp?id=135]
MS Hyde 5:
Keith, Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess, 1764-1857. Papers: Guide.
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
[http://oasis.harvard.edu:10080/oasis/deliver/~hou00247]
The Byron Chronology
[http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chronologies/byronchronology/1816.html]
In addition, William Crotch, Specimens of Various Styles of Music (London, c. 1808-1815), mentions “a manuscript collection of East Indian music … given me by the Hon. Miss Mercer Elphinstone” who was in India in the 1790s.
Finally, Key and Elphinstone’s Compendium of precedents in
conveyancing was first published in 1890, and has been reissued on
several subsequent dates, significantly in 1940.
[http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/4866075?tab=editions]
Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.