NOTES. FIRST SERIES. (1)" And thine enfranchised fellows hail thy white victorious sails." Page 11. SEE the story of Theseus, as detailed in Dryden's translation of Plutarch, Life I. (2) "Who hath companied a vision from the horn or ivory gate?" Page 14. Virg., Æn. VI., 894-897. "Sunt geminæ somni portæ ; quarum altera fertur Sed falsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia Manes." (3) "The seawort floating on the waves," &c. Page 17. The common sea-weeds on the shores of Europe, the algæ and fuci, after having, for ages, been considered as synonymous with everything vile and worthless, have, in modern times, been found to be abundant in iodine, the only known cure for scrofula, and kelp, so useful for many manufactures. Horace has signalized his ignorance of this fact in Od. III. 17, 10, "algâ inutili," &c.; and, in II. Sat. 5, 8, ironically saying, that "virtus, nisi cum re, vilior algâ est." Virgil also has put into the mouth of Thyrsis, in Ecl. VIL, 42. Projectâ vilior algâ." (4) "Hath the crocus yielded up its bulb?" &c. Page 18. The autumnal crocus, or colchicum, which consists of little more than a deep bulbous root, and a delicate lilac flower (see page 152), produces a substance which is called veratrin, and has been used with signal success in the cure of gout and similar diseases. A few lines lower down, with reference to the elm, I would remark, that no use has yet been discovered in the principle called "ulmine." "The boon of far Peru" is the potatoe. (5) "When acorns give out fragrant drink," &c. Page 18. At a meeting of the Medico-Botanical Society (in 1837), the President introduced to the notice of the members a new beverage which very much resembled coffee, and was made from acorns peeled, chopped, and roasted. Bread made from sawdust, is certainly not very palatable, but no one can doubt that it is far more sweet and wholesome than "no bread:" in a famine, this discovery, which has passed almost sub silentio, would prove to be of the highest importance. The darnel, it may be observed in passing, is highly poisonous, and a proper opposite to the lotus. (6) "He, who seeming old in youth," &c. Page 26. Compare Isa. lii., 14, "His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men," with the idea implied in the observation, John viii, 57, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" Our Lord was then thirty-three, or, according to some chronologists, even younger. (7) "A sentence hath formed a character, and a character subdued a kingdom." Page 31. A better instance of this could scarcely be found than in the late Lord Exmouth, who first directed his thoughts to the sea from a casual remark made by a groom. See his Life. (8) "That small cavern," &c. Page 33. The pineal gland, a small oval about the size of a pea, situated nearly in the centre of the brain, and generally found to contain, even in children, some particles of gravel. Galen, and after him, Des Cartes, imagined it the seat of the soul. (9) "The Greek hath, surnamed, ORDER." Page 41. Koopos: The Latins also, who rarely can show a beautiful idea which they have not borrowed from Greece, have made a similar application of the term "mundus" to the fabric of the world. (10) "To this our day, the Rechabite wanteth not a man," &c. Page 50. I have heard it related of Wolfe, the missionary, that when in Arabla, he fell in with a small wandering tribe who refused to drink wine, not on Mohammedan principles, but because it had in old time been "forbidden by Jonadab, the son of Rechab, their father." Compare Jeremiah xxxv., 19, "Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall not want a man to stand before me for ever." It will be found in Mr. Wolfe's Journal. (11) "Of Rest." Page 50. A very obvious objection to the views of Rest here given has probably occurred to more than one religious reader of the English Bible: "there remaineth a rest for the people of God;" doubtless intending the heavenly inheritance. If the Greek Testament is referred to (Heb iv., 9) the word translated "rest" will be found to be caßßarioμós; a sabbatism, or perpetual sabbath, a rest indeed from evil, but very far from being a rest from good: an eternal act of ecstatic intellectual worship, or temporary acts in infinite series. It is true that another word, karánavois, implying complete cessation, occurs in the context; but this is used of the earthly image, Joshua's rest in Canaan; the material rest of earth becomes in the skies a spiritual sabbath; although I am ready to admit that the apostle goes on to argue from the word of the type. In passing, let us observe, by way of showing the uncertainty of trusting to any isolated expression of the present scriptural version, that there are no less than six several words of various meaning which in our New Testament are all indifferently rendered rest; as in Matt. xii., 43, ȧvúravots : in John xi., 13, xoiμnois : in Heb. iii., 11, karútavots: in Acts ix., 31, siphvŋ : in 2 Thess. i., 7, ἄνεσις : and in Heb. iv., 9, σαββατισμός. The κοίμησις is, I apprehend, what is generally meant by rest; so wishes Byron's Giaour to "sleep without the dream of what he was;" so he who in life "loathed the languor of repose," avows that he "would not, if he might, be blest, and sought no paradise but Rest." Such, at least, is not the Christian's sabbath, which indeed fully agrees, as might be expected, with metaphysical inquiries: a good spirit cannot rest from activity in good, nor an evil one from activity in evil. Rest, in its common slothful acceptation, is not possible, or is at any rate very improbable, in the case of spiritual creatures. (12) "Calm night that breedeth thoughts." Page 50. Eippóun. Another delicate example of the Greek elegance in mind and linguage (13) "Proteus," &c. Page 59. Compare Virgil, Geor. IV., 406, 412. "Tum variæ eludent species atque ora ferarum. (14) "We wait, like the sage of Salamis, to see what the end will be." Page 63. In allusion to the well-known anecdote of Solon at the court of Cræsus. (15) "Crowned with a rainbow of emerald, the green memorial of earth." Page 84. See Rev. iv., 3, "There was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald:" it may be a fanciful, but it is a pleasing idea, that this emerald rainbow was, as it were, a reflection of the earth, which "God so loved," and whose universal robe is green. (16) "Like the Parthian." Page 94. Compare Horace, Od. I., 19, 12, "Versis animosum equis Parthum," and Virg., Geo. III., 31, "Parthus fidens fugâ, versisque sagittis," with Psalm lxxviii., 9, "The children of Ephraim carrying bows, who turned themselves back in the day of battle." (17) The giant king of palms." Page 95. The magnificent Talipat palm, the column of which frequently exceeds one hundred feet in height, whose leaves are each thirty feet in breadth, and whose single crop of fruit feasts a whole country |