Chapter XX: Book III: ED (2)

Ver. 88. _Sulphur_—A substance which, when cold, reflects the yellow rays, and is therefore said to be yellow. When raised to a temperature at which it _attracts oxygene_ (a process usually called _burning_), it emits a blue flame. This may be beautifully exemplified, and at a moderate expense, by igniting those _fasciculi_ of brimstone _matches_, frequently sold (so frequently, indeed, as to form one of the London cries) by women of an advanced age, in this metropolis. They will be found to yield an _azure_, or blue light.

Footnote 224:

Ver. 90. _Caf_—the Indian _Caucasus_.—Vide _Bailly’s Lettres sur l’Atlantide_, in which he proves that this was the native country of Gog and Magog (now resident in Guildhall), as well as of the Peris, or fairies, of the Asiatic romances.

Footnote 225:

Ver. 91. _Judæa’s fabled king_—Mr. HIGGINS does not mean to deny that Solomon was really king of Judæa. The epithet _fabled_ applies to that empire over the Genii, which the retrospective generosity of the Arabian fabulists has bestowed upon this monarch.

Footnote 226:

Ver. 96. _Young volcanoes_—The genesis of burning mountains was never, till lately, well explained. Those with which we are best acquainted are certainly not viviparous; it is therefore probable, that there exists, in the centre of the earth, a considerable reservoir of their eggs, which, during the obstetrical convulsions of general earthquakes, produce new volcanoes.

Footnote 227:

Ver. 100. _Far-extended heel_—The personification of _Rectangle_, besides answering a poetical purpose, was necessary to illustrate Mr. HIGGINS’S philosophical opinions. The ancient mathematicians conceived that a cone was generated by the revolution of a triangle; but this, as our author justly observes, would be impossible, without supposing in the triangle that _expansive nisus_, discovered by Blumenbach, and improved by Darwin, which is peculiar to animated matter, and which alone explains the whole mystery of organization. Our enchanter sits on the ground, with his heels stretched out, his head erect, his wand (or _hypothenuse_) resting on the extremities of his feet and the tip of his nose (as is finely expressed in the engraving in the original work), and revolves upon his bottom with great velocity. His skin, by magical means, has acquired an indefinite power of expansion, as well as that of assimilating to itself all the _azote_ of the air, which he decomposes by expiration from his lungs—an immense quantity, and which, in our present unimproved and uneconomical mode of breathing, is quite thrown away. By this simple process the transformation is very naturally accounted for.

Footnote 228:

Ver. 104. _Phœnician Cone_—It was under this shape that Venus was worshipped in Phœnicia. Mr. HIGGINS thinks it was the _Venus Urania_, or Celestial Venus; in allusion to which, the Phœnician grocers first introduced the practice of preserving sugar-loaves in blue or sky-coloured paper—he also believes that the _conical_ form of the original grenadier’s cap was typical of the loves of Mars and Venus.

Footnote 229:

Ver. 107. _Parabola_—The curve described by projectiles of all sorts, as bombs, shuttlecocks, &c.

Footnote 230:

Ver. 115. Hyperbola—Not figuratively speaking, as in rhetoric, but mathematically; and therefore blue-eyed.

Footnote 231:

Ver. 122. _Asymptotes_—“Lines, which though they may approach still nearer together till they are nearer than the least assignable distance, yet being still produced infinitely, will never meet”.—_Johnson’s Dictionary._

Footnote 232:

Ver. 124. _Ellipsis_—A curve, the revolution of which on its axis produces an ellipsoid, or solid resembling the eggs of birds, particularly those of the gallinaceous tribe. _Ellipsis_ is the only curve that embraces the cone.

Footnote 233:

[“Romantic Ashbourn.” The road down Ashbourn Hill winds in front of Ashbourn Hall, then the residence of the Rev. Mr. Leigh, who married a relation of CANNING’S, and to whom the latter was a frequent visitor. A clever parodical application of this couplet was made by O’CONNELL to LORD STANLEY’S section of a party of six, who wished to hold the balance of power, during PEEL’S short administration in 1835. He altered it to “The Derby Dilly,” carrying _six_ insides.—See the Greville Memoirs, vol. 3, pp. 236, &c.—ED.]

Footnote 234:

[Thus sings Dr. Darwin of the Loves of the Plants:

“_Two_ brother swains, of Collins’ gentle name,
The same their features, and their forms the same,
With rival love for fair Collinia sigh,
Knit the dark brow, and roll the unsteady eye.
With sweet concern the pitying beauty mourns,
And soothes with smiles the jealous pair by turns.

“Woo’d with long care, Curcuma, cold and shy,
Meets her fond husband with averted eye.
_Four_ beardless youths the obdurate beauty move
With soft attentions of Platonic love.”—ED.]

Footnote 235:

[BRISSOT was one of the first movers in the outbreak of the French Revolution, and with twenty other Girondists suffered death under the guillotine, October 30, 1793. He was one of the most virtuous as well as most accomplished _littérateurs_ of the time.—ED.]

Footnote 236:

Such was the end of these worthies. They were found starved to death in a cave in Languedoc. Vide _Barrère’s Rep._

[CHARLES BARBAROUX was one of the most distinguished and energetic of the Girondists. As he opposed the party of Marat and Robespierre, he was, in 1793, proscribed as a Royalist and an enemy of the Republic. He wandered about the country, hiding himself as he best could for thirteen months, when he was taken, and perished by the guillotine, June 25, 1794.—ED.]

[JÉROME PÉTION DE VILLENEUVE was a prominent member of the Jacobin Club, and a great ally of Robespierre. Being elected MAIRE DE PARIS in Bailly’s stead, he encouraged the demonstrations of the lowest classes, and the arming of the populace. He then joined the Girondists. On their defeat by the army of the Convention, he fled in July, 1793, into Bretagne. A short time after the corpses of himself and Buzot were found in a corn-field near St. Emilion, partly devoured by wolves. They were supposed to have died by their own hands. He was extremely virtuous in all his domestic relations; but his public career shows him to have been weak, shallow, ostentatious, and vain.—ED.]

Footnote 237:

See LOUVET’s _Récit de mes Périls_.

Footnote 238:

This philosophic coxcomb is the idol of those who admire the French Revolution _up to a certain point_.

Footnote 239:

This little anecdote is not generally known.—It is strikingly pathetic.—GARAT has recorded this circumstance in a very eloquent sentence—“O toi, qui arrêtas la main avec laquelle tu traçais le progrès de l’esprit humain, pour porter sur tes lèvres le breuvage mortel, d’autres pensées et d’autres sentimens out incliné ta volonté vers le tombeau, dans ta dernière délibération.—(GARAT, it seems, did not choose to poison _himself_.)—Tu as rendu à la liberté éternelle ton âme Républicaine par ce poison qui avait été partagé entre nous comme le pain entre des frères.”

“Oh you, who stayed the hand with which you were tracing the progress of the human mind, to carry the mortal mixture to your lips—it was by other thoughts and other sentiments that your judgment was at length determined in that last deliberated act. You restored your republican spirit to an eternal freedom, by that poison which we had shared together, like a morsel of bread between two brothers.”

Footnote 240:

_Isosceles_—An equi-crural triangle—It is represented as a _Giant_, because Mr. HIGGINS says he has observed that procerity is much promoted by the equal length of the legs, more especially when they are long legs.

Footnote 241:

_Mathesis_—The doctrine of mathematics—Pope calls her _mad Mathesis_.—Vide _Johnson’s Dictionary_.

Footnote 242:

_Hallucinating_—The disorder with which Mathesis is affected is a disease of _increased volition_, called _erotomania_, or _sentimental love_. It is the fourth species of the second genus of the first order and third class; in consequence of which, Mr. Hackman shot Miss Reay in the lobby of the playhouse.—Vide _Zoonomia_, vol. ii., pp. 363, 365.

Footnote 243:

_Galvanic fires_—Dr. Galvani is a celebrated philosopher at Turin. He has proved that the electric fluid is the proximate cause of nervous sensibility; and Mr. HIGGINS is of opinion that by means of this discovery, the sphere of our disagreeable sensations may be, in future, considerably enlarged. “Since dead frogs (says he) are awakened by this fluid to such a degree of posthumous sensibility as to jump out of the glass in which they are placed, why not men, who are sometimes so much more sensible when alive? And if so, why not employ this new stimulus to deter mankind from dying (which they so pertinaciously continue to do) of various old-fashioned diseases, notwithstanding all the brilliant discoveries of modern philosophy, and the example of Count Cagliostro?”

Footnote 244:

_Internal Angles_, _&c._—This is an exact versification of Euclid’s fifth theorem.—Vide _Euclid in loco_.

Footnote 245:

_Asses-Bridge_—Pons Asinorum—The name usually given to the before-mentioned theorem—though, as Mr. Higgins thinks, absurdly. He says, that having frequently watched companies of asses during their passage of a bridge, he never discovered in them any symptoms of geometrical instinct upon the occasion. But he thinks that with Spanish asses, which are much larger (vide _Townsend’s Travels through Spain_), the case may possibly be different.

Footnote 246:

_Fare_—A person, or a number of persons, conveyed in a hired vehicle by land or water.

Footnote 247:

_Badged boatman_—Boatmen sometimes wear a _badge_, to distinguish them, especially those who belong to the Watermen’s Company.

Footnote 248:

_Alp_, or _Alps_—A ridge of mountains which separate the North of Italy from the South of Germany. They are evidently primeval and volcanic, consisting of granite, toadstone, and basalt, and several other substances, containing animal and vegetable recrements, and affording numberless undoubted proofs of the infinite antiquity of the earth, and of the consequent falsehood of the Mosaic chronology.

Footnote 249:

_Turn the stiff screw_, &c.—The harmony and imagery of these lines are imperfectly imitated from the following exquisite passage in the _Economy of Vegetation_:

“Gnomes, as you now dissect, with hammers fine,
The granite rock, the noduled flint calcine;
Grind with strong arm the circling Chertz betwixt,
Your pure Ka—o—lins and Pe—tunt—ses mixt.”

_Canto_ ii. line 297.

Footnote 250:

[_The windmill_, &c.—This line affords a striking instance of the sound conveying an echo to the sense. I would defy the most unfeeling reader to repeat it over without accompanying it by some corresponding gesture imitative of the action described.—EDITOR.]

Footnote 251:

_Sweet Enthusiast_, &c.—A term usually applied in allegoric or technical poetry to any person or object to which no other qualifications can be assigned.—_Chambers’s Dictionary._

Footnote 252:

[ANNE PLUMPTRE, who made herself known as one of the first introducers of German plays, said: “_People are talking about an Invasion. I am not afraid of an Invasion; I believe the country would be all the happier if_ BUONAPARTE _were to effect a landing and overturn the Government. He would destroy the Church and the Aristocracy, and his government would be better than the one we have_”. Crabb Robinson’s _Diary_ (1810), i. 298.—ED.]

Footnote 253:

_The smiling infant_—Infancy is particularly interested in the diffusion of the new principles. See the “Bloody Buoy”. See also the following description and prediction:

“Here Time’s huge fingers grasp his giant mace,
And dash proud Superstition from her base;
Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes, &c.

· · · · ·

While each light moment, as it passes by,
With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye,
Feeds from its baby-hand with many a kiss
The callow-nestlings of domestic bliss.”—_Botanic Garden._

Footnote 254:

_The monster’s back_—Le Monstre Pitt, l’ennemi du genre humain. _See Debates of the legislators of the Great Nation, passim._

Footnote 255:

Atque illud prono præceps agitur decursus.—_Catullus._

Footnote 256:

STONE.—Better known by the name of WILLIAMS.

Footnote 257:

We decline printing this rhyme at length, from obvious reasons of delicacy; at the same time that it is so accurate a translation of _pictis puppibus_, that we know not how to suppress it, without doing the utmost injustice to the general spirit of the poem.

Footnote 258:

[Jean Bon St. André, deputy to the Convention for the Department of Lot, during the reign of Terror, rivalled Marat and Robespierre in cruelty. Having been appointed to remodel the Republican Navy, he was present at the action of June 1, 1794, in which he shewed excessive cowardice. He was afterwards Consul at Smyrna, where he was arrested by the Turks, but released on the peace. Napoleon subsequently commissioned him to organise the four departments of the Rhine, in which he succeeded. He was created a Baron, a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and Prefect of Maure. He died in 1813 of a contagious malady caught while performing charitable offices for the sick!—ED.]

Footnote 259:

Henry VI. crowned at Paris.

Footnote 260:

The Black Prince.

Footnote 261:

The Spanish Armada.

Footnote 262:

Oliver Cromwell.

Footnote 263:

Louis XIV.

Footnote 264:

William III.

Footnote 265:

Blenheim, Ramilies, &c., &c.

Footnote 266:

American War.

Footnote 267:

Lord Heathfield.

Footnote 268:

[Parodied from Pope’s Prologue to _Cato_.—ED.]

Footnote 269:

See _The Robbers_, a German tragedy [by SCHILLER], in which robbery is put in so fascinating a light, that the whole of a German University went upon the highway in consequence of it.

Footnote 270:

See _Cabal and Love_, a German tragedy [by SCHILLER], very severe against prime ministers and reigning Dukes of Brunswick. This admirable performance very judiciously reprobates the hire of German troops for the _American_ war in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a practice which would undoubtedly have been highly discreditable to that wise and patriotic princess, not to say wholly unnecessary—there being no American war at that particular time.

Footnote 271:

See _The Stranger; or, Reformed Housekeeper_, in which the former of these morals is beautifully illustrated; and _Stella_, a genteel German comedy [by GOETHE], which ends with placing a man _bodkin_ between _two wives_, like _Thames_ between his _two banks_ in _The Critic_. Nothing can be more edifying than these two dramas. I am shocked to hear that there are some people who think them ridiculous.

Footnote 272:

These are the warnings very properly given to readers, to beware how they judge of what they cannot understand. Thus if the translation runs, “_lightning of my soul, fulgation of angels, sulphur of hell_,” we should recollect that this is not coarse or strange in the German language when applied by a lover to his mistress; but the English has nothing precisely parallel to the original Mulychause Archangelichen, which means rather _emanation of the archangelic nature_—or to Smellmynkern Vankelfer, which, if literally rendered, would signify _made of stuff of the same odour whereof the devil makes flambeaux_. See Schüttenbrüch on the German idiom.

Footnote 273:

A manifest error, since it appears from the Waiter’s conversation (p. 211) that Rogero was not doomed to starve on water-gruel, but on pease-soup, which is a much better thing. Possibly the length of Rogero’s imprisonment had impaired his memory; or he might wish to make things appear worse than they really were; which is very natural, I think, in such a case as this poor unfortunate gentleman’s.—_Printer’s Devil._

Footnote 274:

Vide _The Stranger_.

Footnote 275:

_Lovers’ Vows._

Footnote 276:

This is an excellent joke in German; the point and spirit of which is but ill-_Rendered_ in a translation. A NODDY, the reader will observe, has two significations, the one a _knave at All-fours_, the other a _fool_ or _booby_. See the translation by Mr. Render of _Count Benyowsky, or the Conspiracy of Kamschatka_, a German Tragi-Comi-Comi-Tragedy, where the play opens with a scene of a game at chess (from which the whole of this scene is copied), and a joke of the same point, and merriment about pawns, _i.e._, boors being a _match_ for kings.

Footnote 277:

This word in the original is strictly _fellow-lodgers_—“_Co-occupants of the same room, in a house let out at a small rent by the week_”. There is no single word in English which expresses so complicated a relation, except perhaps the cant term of _chum_, formerly in use in our Universities.

Footnote 278:

[The above song is a parody on that pathetic one—given below—written by Sheridan, and introduced into Kotzebue’s drama of _The Stranger_, to be overheard by the latter. It was sung by Mrs. Bland—as Annetta—to a melody by the Duchess of Devonshire, in a manner, it is said, that thrilled every heart.

“I have a silent sorrow here,
A grief I’ll ne’er impart;
It breathes no sigh, it sheds no tear,
But it consumes my heart.
This cherish’d woe, this lov’d despair,
My lot for ever be;
So my soul’s lord, the pangs I bear
Be never known by thee!

“And when pale characters of death
Shall mark this alter’d cheek;
When my poor wasted trembling breath
My life’s last hope would speak;
I shall not raise my eyes to heaven,
Nor mercy ask for me,
My soul despairs to be forgiv’n,
Unpardon’d, love, by thee!”—ED.]

Footnote 279:

See _Count Benyowsky_; where Crustiew, an old gentleman of much sagacity, talks the following nonsense:

Crustiew [_with youthful energy, and an air of secrecy and confidence_]. “To fly, to fly, to the isles of Marian—the island of Tinian—a terrestrial paradise. Free—free—a mild climate—a new-created sun—wholesome fruits—harmless inhabitants—and liberty—tranquillity.”

Footnote 280:

See _Count Benyowsky_, as before.

Footnote 281:

See _Count Benyowsky_.

Footnote 282:

See _Count Benyowsky_ again; from which play this and the preceding references are taken word for word. We acquit the Germans of such reprobate silly stuff. It must be the translator’s.

Footnote 283:

We believe this song to be copied, with a small variation in metre and meaning, from a song in _Count Benyowsky; or, the Conspiracy of Kamschatka_, where the conspirators join in a chorus, _for fear of being overheard_.

[Footnote:

AD SIRMIONEM PENINSULAM.

[284]Peninsularum Sirmio, Insularumque,
Ocelle! quascunque in liquentibus stagnis,
Marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus;
[285]Quam te libenter, quamque lætus inviso,
Vix mi ipse credens Thyniam, atque Bithynos
Liquisse campos,[286] et videre te in tuto.
[287]O quid solutis est beatius curis
Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
Labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum.
[288]Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto?
Hoc est, quod unum est pro laboribus tantis.
[289]Salve! O venusta Sirmio! atque hero gaude;
Gaudete! vosque Lydiæ lacus undæ;
Ridete[290] quicquid est domi cachinnorum!

®

Footnote 291:

[The following _Letter_ probably alludes to the _Association for promoting the Discovery of the interior parts of Africa_, of which Sir John Sinclair was the presiding genius. “The result of their labours,” says Hugh Murray, in his Account of African Discoveries, “has thrown new lustre on the British name, and widely extended the boundaries of human knowledge.”—ED.]

Footnote 292:

[Buonaparte’s Bulletin.—ED.]

Footnote 293:

[SIR JOHN SINCLAIR, the celebrated author of the _History of the Public Revenue, the Statistical Account of Scotland_, and many useful agricultural and other works.—ED.]

Footnote 294:

[Dr. Parr’s noted Latin Preface to his edition of _Bellendenus de Statu_. T. De Quincey, in his famous dissection of Dr. Parr and his writings, beseeches the “gentle reader” of Bellendenus to pronounce the penultimate syllable _short_, and _not long_, as is usually done.—ED.]

Footnote 295:

[_I.e._, from BOB ADAIR, _a dull fool_, to NICHOLL [Nicholls], _a wretched goose_.—ED.]

Footnote 296:

[Sir Geo. Aug. Wm. Shuckburgh, M.P., F.R.S., author of papers in the Phil. Trans.—ED.]

Footnote 297:

[Sir John Sinclair.—ED.]

Footnote 298:

[The following are Dr. Darwin’s instructions for the _transportation of Ice Islands_:—

“There, Nymphs! alight, array your dazzling powers,
With sudden march alarm the torpid hours;
On ice-built isles expand a thousand sails,
Hinge the strong helms, and catch the frozen gales.
The winged rocks to feverish climates guide,
Where fainting zephyrs pant upon the tide;
Pass, where to Ceuta Calpé’s thunder roars,
And answering echoes shake the kindred shores;
Pass, where with palmy plumes, Canary smiles,
And in her silver girdle binds her isles;
Onward, where Niger’s dusky Naiad laves
A thousand kingdoms with prolific waves,
Or leads o’er golden sands her threefold train
In steamy channels to the fervid main;
While swarthy nations crowd the sultry coast,
Drink the fresh breeze, and hail the floating frost:
Nymphs! veil’d in mist, the melting treasure steer,
And cool with arctic snows the tropic year.”

“If the nations who inhabit this hemisphere of the globe, instead of destroying their seamen and exhausting their wealth in unnecessary wars, could be induced to unite their labours to navigate these immense masses of ice into the more southern oceans, two great advantages would result to mankind, the tropic countries would be much cooled by their solution, and our winters in this altitude would be rendered much milder, for perhaps a century or two, till the masses of ice became again enormous.”—ED.]

* * * * *

[DR. THOMAS BEDDOES, born at Shiffnal in 1760, was a scientific Physician far in advance of his age; his _Popular Essay on Consumption_, 1779, his tracts entitled _Hygeia_, 1801, &c., may still be studied with profit. He paid particular attention to the medical use of the permanently Elastic Fluids, and avows that as “one rash experiment on a patient would demolish a plan on which the hope of relieving mankind from much of their misery is founded,” he made preliminary experiments on himself in the case of _Oxygene_ and _Consumption_, as alluded to in the text, _À propos_ of the artificial distribution of disease, it may be mentioned that in _The Batchelor_, p. 189, is a method for “discharging the Plague”.

He wrote much on the political topics of the day, always taking the liberal side, and attacking PITT with great virulence and eloquence. The principles of the French Revolution were at first advocated by him with the utmost enthusiasm, but he was soon disgusted by the excesses committed. He was a student of German literature, and much admired by Immanuel Kant. He was also an intimate friend of Darwin’s, whose political opinions he shared, and whose works were intrusted to his revision in manuscript. A few months after the publication of Darwin’s _Botanic Garden_, its magnificent imagery and harmonious versification inspired some admirers to say that the style of this work was a style _sui generis_, and that it defied imitation. Dr. Beddoes maintained an opposite opinion. Much as he admired the poem in question, he thought that the Darwinian structure of verse might be imitated by a writer possessed of inferior poetical powers, and in a few days he produced in the same circle part of the manuscript of _Alexander’s Expedition to the Indian Ocean_ as an unpublished work of the author of the _Botanic Garden_. The deception completely succeeded, and some enthusiastic admirers of the latter work pointed out with triumph “certain passages as proofs of the position that the author in his happier efforts defied imitation”. Beddoes’s success was the more extraordinary, as in the “Introduction” to a considerable extract from his poem which he printed in the _Annual Anthology_ for 1796, he states that he had never before written twice as many lines of verse as the composition under notice consisted of.

As BEDDOES’S imitation of DARWIN is seldom met with, it may not be out of character in a work of the present nature to give a specimen of it.

AN IMITATION OF DARWIN.

“Now the new Lord of Persia’s wide domain,
Down fierce Hydaspes seeks the Indian main;
High on the leading prow the Conqueror stands,
Eyes purer skies and marks diverging strands.
A thousand sails attendant catch the wind,
And yet a thousand press the wave behind;
Two veteran hosts, outstretched on either hand,
Wide wave their wings and sweep the trembling land.
Each serried phalanx Terror stalks beside,
And shakes o’er crested helms his blazing pride;
While Victory, still companion of his way,
Sounds her loud trump and flaunts her banners gay.”

Further on, the Hero’s attention is attracted to the surrounding landscape, which he thus apostrophizes:—

“Ye fields for ever fair! Thou mighty stream!
Bright regions! blessed beyond the muse’s dream!
Thou fruitful womb of ever-teeming earth!
Ye fostering skies that rear each beauteous birth!
Trees, that aloft uprear your stately height,
Whose sombrous branches shed a noontide night!
Groves, that for ever wear the smile of spring!
Gay birds that wave the many-tinted wing!
Of reptiles, fishes, brutes, stupendous forms!
And ye, of nameless insects glittering swarms!
Sons of soft toil, whose shuttle beauty throws,
Whose tints the Graces’ earnest hands dispose,
Whose guileless bosom Care avoid and Crime,
Gay as your groves, and cloudless as your clime!
Primæval piles, that rose in massive pride,
Ere Western Art her first faint efforts tried!
Ye Brachmans old, whom purer æras bore,
Ere Western Science lisped her infant lore!
How will your wonders flush the Athenian sage?
How ray with glory my historic page?”

In a letter to Hannah More, Horace Walpole says: “The poetry is most admirable; the similes beautiful, fine, and sometimes sublime; the author is a great poet, and could raise the passions, and possesses all the requisites of the art.” In another lively epistle to the Misses Berry (28th April, 1789), he says: “I send you the most delicious poem upon earth. I can read this Second Part over and over again for ever; for though it is so excellent, it is impossible to remember anything so disjointed, except you consider it as a collection of short enchanting Poems. ‘The Triumph of Flora,’ beginning at the fifty-ninth line, is most beautifully and enchantingly imagined, and the twelve verses that by miracle describe and comprehend the creation of the universe out of chaos, are, in my opinion, the most sublime passage in any author, or in any of the few languages with which I am acquainted.”—ED.]

[Darwin was acquainted with Rousseau. He was a man of great bodily and intellectual vigour, irascible and imperious, a strong advocate of temperance, and for many years an almost total abstainer. His professional fame was such that George III. said he would take him as his physician if he would come to London. He formed a botanical garden at Lichfield, about which Miss Seward wrote some verses which suggested his _Botanic Garden_. The _Loves of the Plants_ had a singular success, and was praised in a joint poem by Cowper and Hayley. It was translated into French, Portuguese, and Italian. Darwin himself is said by Edgeworth to have admired the parody (_Monthly Magazine_, June and Sept., 1802, p. 115). Coleridge (_Biographia Literaria_, 1817, p. 19) speaks of the impression which it made even upon good judges.

In the _Anti-Jacobin Review_, vol. i. (1799), pp. 718–721, appear some Latin verses [by Ben. Frere] which are thus introduced: “Among the copies of verses which are annually produced as a public exercise called TRIPOS, at Cambridge, we have selected the following as a beautiful composition. The subject is Dr. BEDDOES’S _Factitious Air applied to the Case of Consumptions_.”—ED.]

Footnote 299:

[This piece has not hitherto formed a portion of the editions of _The Poetry_.—ED.]

Footnote 300:

[This spirited song refers to LORD MOIRA’S motion in the Irish House of Commons, 19th of February, 1798, for an address to the Lord Lieutenant, complaining of the excesses committed by the government authorities, civil and military, and recommending that conciliatory measures should be devised. He took occasion to praise the loyalty of his own tenants at BALLYNAHINCH; but, unfortunately for him, shortly after, an insurrection broke out at this very place, and a large number of pikes were found secreted by the peasantry in his own woods. On June 12, General Nugent attacked the rebels, 5000 strong, commanded by Munro, near Ballynahinch, and routed them with great slaughter. This victory quelled the rebellion in the north.—ED.]

Footnote 301:

[The EARL OF MOIRA was a gallant soldier, an eloquent orator, and a sagacious as well as honest statesman. Having early in life achieved much reputation for skill and courage during the American War, and afterwards in Flanders, he subsequently turned his attention to politics, particularly those of Ireland, his native country, which drew on him repeated attacks from the Ministerial press. In 1812 he was appointed Governor-General of India, and created MARQUIS OF HASTINGS. He was the patron of THOMAS MOORE on his arrival in London. He died in 1825.—ED.]

Footnote 302:

_Hibernice pro_ French.

Footnote 303:

[A quite literal translation of this poem would be out of the question. The fact is, the sentiment is superior to the execution. CANNING could write much better if he chose. He might wish to fabricate an ultra-patriotic schoolboy, and so wrote like one; but it is certain that as a schoolboy he has written far better things. Either he wrote in a hurry, or cooked up a school exercise; the introduction looks like it, and the Latin Prose is as prosy as the verse is common-place.—A. F. W.]

Footnote 304:

The Isle of Wight.

Footnote 305:

[This valedictory Address, and the portion entitled FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE which follows the Poem, have never hitherto formed a part of editions of the Poetry.—ED.]

Footnote 306:

We see with some pleasure, that what we anticipated is beginning to take effect. A NEW MAGAZINE and REVIEW is already advertised, under the same Name which We had adopted, and professedly on the same Principles. We have no knowledge of the undertaking, but from report, which speaks favourably of it; but We heartily wish this, and every work of a similar kind, a full and happy success.

Footnote 307:

Published by HÉBERT.

Footnote 308:

Published by MARAT.

Footnote 309:

See the Remarks on the Treaties of _Pilnitz_ and _Pavia_, &c.; on TATE’S Manifesto; on Neutral Navigation; on the Treatment of Prisoners; on the Continuation of the War for a Spice Island, &c., &c., &c.

Footnote 310:

See the motto prefixed to _The Baviad_, a satirical poem, by W. Gifford, Esq., unquestionably the best of its kind since the days of Pope:

Nunc in ovilia
Mox in reluctantes dracones.

Footnote 311:

The author of _The Pursuits of Literature_. [Now known to be T. J. Mathias, editor of various Italian works, and teacher of Italian to the family of K. George III.—ED.]

Footnote 312:

The Manes of Vercengetorix are supposed to have been very much gratified by the invasion of Italy and the plunder of the Roman territory. The defeat of the Burgundians is to be revenged on the modern inhabitants of Switzerland. But the Swiss were a free people, defending their liberties against a tyrant. Moreover, they happened to be in alliance with France at the time. No matter; _Burgundy_ is since become a province of France, and the French have acquired a property in all the injuries and defeats which the people of that country may have sustained, together with a title to revenge and retaliation to be exercised in the present or any future centuries, as may be found most glorious and convenient.

Footnote 313:

The speech of GENERAL FITZPATRICK, on his motion for an Address of the House of Commons to the Emperor of Germany, to demand the deliverance of M. LA FAYETTE from the prison of Olmütz, was one of the most dainty pieces of oratory that ever drew tears from a crowded gallery, and the clerks at the table. It was really quite moving to hear the General talk of religion, conjugal fidelity, and “such branches of learning”. There were a few who laughed indeed, but that was thought hard-hearted, and immoral, and irreligious, and God knows what. Crying was the _order of the day_. Why will not the OPPOSITION try these topics again? LA FAYETTE indeed (the more’s the pity) is out. But why not a motion for a general gaol-delivery of all state prisoners throughout Europe? [This was FITZPATRICK’S master-speech, and extorted the applauses of PITT himself, who nevertheless resisted its arguments. BURKE said that LA FAYETTE, “instead of being termed an ‘illustrious exile,’ ought always to be considered, as he now was, an outcast of society; who, having no talents to guide or influence the storm which he had laboured to raise, fled like a dastard from the bloodshed and massacre in which he had involved so many thousands of unoffending persons and families”.—ED.]

Footnote 314:

“Now all the while did not this stony-hearted CUR shed one tear.”—_Merchant of Venice._ [JOHN CURWEN—member for the city of Carlisle, from 1786 till 1812. He was a skilful agriculturist, and his operations may be said to have given a new character to the business of farming. He died in 1828, aged 73.—ED.]

Footnote 315:

See page 72, in the note, for a theft more shameless, and an application of the thing stolen more stupid, than any of those recorded of Irish story-tellers by Joe Miller.

Footnote 316:

See _Récit de mes Périls_, by LOUVET; _Mémoires d’un Détenu_, by RIOUFFE, &c. The avidity with which these productions were read, might, we should hope, be accounted for upon principles of mere curiosity (as we read the _Newgate Calendar_, and the history of the _Buccaneers_), not from any interest in favour of a set of wretches infinitely more detestable than all the robbers and pirates that ever existed.

Footnote 317:

Every lover of modern French literature, and admirer of modern French characters, must remember the rout which was made about LOUVET’S death and LODOISKA’S poison. The attempt at self-slaughter, and the process of the recovery, the arsenic and the castor oil, were served up in daily messes from the French papers, till the public absolutely sickened.

Footnote 318:

_Faciles Napeæ._

Footnote 319:

See Anthologia, _passim_.

Footnote 320:

Such was the strictness of this minister’s principles, that he positively refused to go to Court in shoe-buckles. See Dumouriez’s _Memoirs_.

Footnote 321:

See MADAME ROLAND’S _Memoirs_.—“_Rigide Ministre_,” _Brissot à ses Commettans_.

Footnote 322:

The “pumple” nosed attorney of Furnival’s Inn.—“Congreve’s _Way of the World_.” [... When you liv’d with honest _Pumple Nose_, the attorney of Furnival’s Inn. Act 3, sc. 1.—ED.]

Footnote 323:

These lines contain the Secret History of QUATREMER’S deportation. He presumed in the Council of Five Hundred to arraign MADAME DE STAEL’S conduct, and even to hint a doubt of her sex. He was sent to _Guyana_. The transaction naturally brings to one’s mind the dialogue between Falstaff and Hostess Quickly in Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

_Fal._ Thou art neither fish nor flesh—a man cannot tell where to have thee.

_Quick._ Thou art an unjust man for saying so—thou or any man knows where to have me.

Footnote 324:

For instance, in the course of a political discussion REWBELL observed to the EX-BISHOP [TALLEYRAND], “_that his understanding was as crooked as his legs_”—“Vil Emigré, tu n’as pas le sens plus droit que les pieds”—and therewith threw an ink-stand at him. It whizzed along, as we have been informed, like the fragment of a rock from the hand of one of Ossian’s heroes; but the wily apostate shrunk beneath the table, and the weapon passed over him innocuous, and guiltless of his blood or brains.

Footnote 325:

See Homer’s description of Vulcan. First Iliad.

Inextinguibilis vero exoriebatur risus beatis numinibus
Ut viderunt Vulcanum per domos _ministrantem_.

Footnote 326:

_The Men without a God_—one of the new sects. Their religion is intended to consist in the adoration of a Great Book, in which all the virtuous actions of the society are to be entered and registered. “In times of civil commotion they are to come forward to exhort the citizens to unanimity, and to read them a chapter out of the Great Book. When oppressed or proscribed, they are to retire to a burying-ground, to wrap themselves up in their great-coats, and wait the approach of death,” &c.

Footnote 327:

The Reader is at liberty to fill up the blanks according to his own opinion, and after the chances and changes of the times. It would be highly unfair to hand down to posterity as followers of _Leviathan_, the names of men who may, and probably will soon, grow ashamed of their leader.

Footnote 328:

Though the _yeasty_ sea
Consume and swallow navigation up. _Macbeth._

[Applied to S. Whitbread, M.P., _the Brewer_.—ED.]

Footnote 329:

_i.e._ Perhaps _a member of the_ WHIG CLUB—a society that has presumed to monopolize to itself a title to which it never had any claim, but from the character of those who have now withdrawn themselves from it. “_Perhaps_” signifies that _even_ the WHIG CLUB _sometimes_ rejects a candidate whose PRINCIPLES (_risum teneatis_) it affects to disapprove. [Referring to the secession of the DUKE OF PORTLAND and others from the Whig Club in consequence of their not approving of all the proceedings of Fox and his more violent adherents. SHERIDAN met with so much opposition to his entrance into the Whig Club, that he succeeded in getting admitted only by stratagem.—ED.]

Footnote 330:

“It is notorious that the _French Directory have newspapers in their pay_, not only in America, but in _every_ country in Europe. That there should exist such MERCENARY TRAITORS AS TO RECEIVE THE PAY OF REGICIDES AND ASSASSINS is still less astonishing than that there should be found men in the different countries, and _men of rank_, too, so base, so degenerate, and so _foolish_, as to give encouragement to their treasonable productions” (p. 57). The author speaks truth; there is at least _one_ newspaper of this description in _London_, which is encouraged—to their shame be it spoken!—by _men of rank_, and by members of the Legislature—_Representans du Peuple Souverain!_—who even degrade themselves so far as to associate with the profligate miscreants who compose its inflammatory pages.—REVIEWER.

Footnote 331:

“See BACHE of 11 February, 1795.”

Footnote 332:

The reader will not be surprised to hear that this is the identical governor who wanted a few thousands of dollars from the French minister, FAUCHET, and who drew _secretly_ 15,000 dollars out of the Bank of Pennsylvania!! This man brought a whole litter of _bastards_ home to his virtuous wife. He is a shameless blackguard, a drunkard, and everything that can be named that is vile. Such is a _republican governor_; a chief magistrate of state, who has infinitely greater powers over life and property than King George has!! And this I have already pointed out on sundry occasions.

Footnote 333:

[Lord Erskine.—ED.]

Footnote 334:

[T. Moore in his early college days.—ED.]

Footnote 335:

[Francis, fifth Duke of Bedford, see _Ballad_.—ED.]

Footnote 336:

[Capt. Charles Morris.—ED.]

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Pg. 17, changed “he was expelled the House of Commons” to “he was expelled from the House of Commons”. 2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 3. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 4. Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 6. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.