Melmoth the Wanderer
Page 82
† The Indian Apollo.
* The curtain behind which women are concealed.
* From the fire-flies being so often found in the nest of the loxia, the Indians imagine he illuminates his nest with them. It is more likely they are the food of his young.
* Intellige5 ‘buildings.’
* Tippoo Saib6 wished to substitute the Mohamedan for the Indian mythology throughout his dominions. This circumstance, though long antedated, is therefore imaginable.
* I trust the absurdity of this quotation here will be forgiven for its beauty. It is borrowed from Miss Baillie, the first dramatic poet of the age.
* As, by a mode of criticism equally false and unjust, the worst sentiments of my worst characters, (from the ravings of Bertram to the blasphemies of Cardonneau), have been represented as my own, I must here trespass so far on the patience of the reader as to assure him, that the sentiments ascribed to the stranger are diametrically opposite to mine, and that I have purposely put them into the mouth of an agent of the enemy of mankind.8
* The Catholics and Protestants were thus distinguished in the wars of the League.9
† Catholics.
‡ Protestants.
¶ Dissenters.
* Ireland.8
† I have read the legend of this Polish saint, which is circulated in Dublin, and find recorded among the indisputable proofs of his vocation, that he infallibly swooned if an indecent expression was uttered in his presence – when in his nurse’s arms!
* Alluding possibly to ‘Romeo and Juliet.’
* Vide Don Quixote, Vol. II. Smollet’s Translation.6
* Here Monçada expressed his surprise at this passage, (as savouring more of Christianity than Judaism), considering it occurred in the manuscript of a Jew.6
* Fact, – it occurred in a French family not many years ago.
* Vide Cervantes, apud Don Quixote de Collibus Ubedæ.4
* Vide Jonson’s play, in which is introduced a Puritan preacher, a Banbury man, named Zeal-of-the-land Busy.
* I have been an inmate in this castle for many months – it is still inhabited by the venerable descendant of that ancient family. His son is now High-Sheriff of the King’s county. Half the castle was battered down by Oliver Cromwell’s forces, and rebuilt in the reign of Charles the Second. The remains of the castle are a tower of about forty feet square, and five stories high, with a single spacious apartment on each floor, and a narrow staircase communicating with each, and reaching to the bartizan.13 A beautiful ash-plant, which I have often admired, is now displaying its foliage between the stones of the bartizan, – and how it got or grew there, heaven only knows. There it is, however; and it is better to see it there than to feel the discharge of hot water or molten lead from the apertures.
* See a comedy of Wycherly’s, entitled, ‘Love in a Wood, or St James’s Park,’ where the company are represented going there at night in masks and with torches.
† Taylor’s Book of Martyrs.6
* Anachronism – n’importe.49
* In Cowley’s ‘Cutter of Coleman Street,’ Mrs Tabitha, a rigid Puritan, tells her husband she had danced the Canaries in her youth. And in Rushworth’s Collections, if I remember right, Prynne vindicates himself from the charge of a general denunciation against dancing, and even speaks of the ‘Measures,’ a stately, solemn dance, with some approbation.58
* As this whole scene is taken from fact, I subjoin the notes whose modulation is so simple, and whose effect was so profound.
* Ireland, – forsan.
* Vide Dillon’s travels through Spain.4
* The celebrated manufactory for glass in Spain.
* He called unto me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? – Watchman, what of the night? – ISAIAH.10
* Vide the beautiful tale of Auheta the Princess of Egypt, and Maugraby the Sorcerer, in the Arabian Tales.4
* From this it should seem that they were unacquainted with the story of Elinor Mortimer.
* Vide the original play, of which there is a curious and very obsolete translation.