NOTES

ON

THE FIRST PART.

PAGE 10, LINE 13.

How oft, when purple evening tinged the west,

VIRGIL, in one of his Eclogues, describes a romantic attachment as conceived in such circumstances; and the description is so true to nature, that we must surely be indebted for it to some early recollection. "You were little when I first saw you. You were with your mother gathering fruit in our orchard, and I was your guide. I was just entering my thirteenth year, and just able to reach the boughs from the ground."

So also Zappi, an Italian Poet of the last Century. "When I used to measure myself with my goat and my goat was the tallest, even then I loved Clori."

Page 11, line 21.

Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,

"The

I came to the place of my birth, and cried, friends of my Youth, where are they?"-And an echo answered, "Where are they?" From an Arabic MS.

Page 14, line 19.

Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise!

When a traveller, who was surveying the ruins of Rome, expressed a desire to possess some relic of its ancient grandeur, Poussin, who attended him, stooped down, and gathering up a handful of earth shining with small grains of porphyry, "Take this home," said he, "for your cabinet; and say boldly, Questa è Roma Antica."

Page 15, line 24.

The church-yard yews round which his fathers sleep;

Every man, like Gulliver in Lilliput, is fastened to some spot of earth, by the thousand small threads which habit and association are continually stealing over him. Of these, perhaps, one of the strongest is here alluded to.

When the Canadian Indians were once solicited to

66

emigrate, What!" they replied, "shall we say to the bones of our fathers, Arise, and go with us into a foreign land?"

Page 16, line 7.

So, when he breathed his firm yet fond adieu.

See Cook's First Voyage, book i. chap. 16.

Another very affecting instance of local attachment is related of his fellow-countryman Potaveri, who came to Europe with M. de Bougainville.-See LES JARDINS, chant. ii.

Page 16, line 15.

So Scotia's Queen, &c.

Elle se leve sur son lict, et se met à contempler la France encore, et tant qu'elle peut.-BRANTÔME.

Page 16, line 23.

Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire,

To an accidental association may be ascribed some of the noblest efforts of human genius. The Historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire first conceived his design among the ruins of the Capitol; and to the tones of a Welsh harp are we indebted for the Bard of Gray.

Page 17, line 3.

Hence home-felt pleasure, &c.

Who can enough admire the affectionate attachment of Plutarch, who thus concludes his enumeration of the advantages of a great city to men of letters? "As to myself, I live in a little town; and I chuse to live there, lest it should become still less."-Vit. Demosth.

Page 17, line 5.

For this young FOSCARI, &c.

He was suspected of murder, and at Venice suspicion was good evidence. Neither the interest of the Doge, his father, nor the intrepidity of conscious innocence, which he exhibited in the dungeon and on the rack,

E

could procure his acquittal. He was banished to the island of Candia for life.

But here his resolution failed him. At such a distance from home he could not live; and, as it was a criminal offence to solicit the intercession of any foreign prince, in a fit of despair he addressed a letter to the Duke of Milan, and intrusted it to a wretch whose perfidy, he knew, would occasion his being remanded a prisoner to Venice.

Page 17, line 13.

And hence the charm historic scenes impart ;

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.-JOHNSON.

Page 17, line 18.

And watch and weep in ELOISA's cell.

The Paraclete, founded by Abelard, in Champagne.

Page 17, line 19.

'Twas ever thus. Young AMMON, when he sought

Alexander, when he crossed the Hellespont, was in the twenty-second year of his age; and with what feelings must the Scholar of Aristotle have approached the ground described by Homer in that Poem which had been his delight from his childhood, and which records the achievements of Him from whom he claimed his descent!

It was his fancy, if we may believe tradition, to take the tiller from Menoetius, and be himself the steersman during the passage. It was his fancy also to be the first to land, and to land full-armed.—ARRIAN, i. 11.

Page 18, line 1.

As now at VIRGIL'S tomb

Vows and pilgrimages are not peculiar to the religious enthusiast. Silius Italicus performed annual ceremonies on the mountain of Posilipo; and it was there that Boccaccio, quasi da un divino estro inspirato, resolved to dedicate his life to the Muses.

Page 18, line 3.

So TULLY paused, amid the wrecks of Time,

When Cicero was quæstor in Sicily, he discovered the tomb of Archimedes by its mathematical inscription.-Tusc. Quæst. v. 3.