FOOTNOTES:
[1] Seneca, Medea, Act II. v. 371.
[2] Humboldt, Examen critique de la Géographie, Tome I. pp. 101, 162. See also Humboldt, Kosmos, Vol. II. pp. 516, 556, 557, 645.
[3] Strabo, Lib. I. p. 65; Lib. II. p. 118.
[4] Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, Canto XXV. st. 229, 230.
[5] Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella, Vol. II. pp. 117, 118.
[6] Leigh Hunt, Stories from the Italian Poets, p. 171.
[7] Browne, Works, Pickering's edition. Vol. IV. p. 81.
[8] Johnson, Life of Sir Thomas Browne.
[9] Browne, Works, Vol. IV. pp. 232, 233.
[10] Browne, Works, Vol. IV. p. 236.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid., p. 231, note.
[13] Berkeley, Works, Vol. I., Life prefixed, p. 53.
[14] Ibid., p. 53.
[15] Berkeley. Works, Vol. II. p. 443.
[16] Ibid., Vol. I., Life prefixed, p. 15.
[17] Grahame, History of the United States, Vol. IV. pp. 136, 448.
[18] Galt, Life of West, Vol. I. pp. 116, 117.
[19] John Adams, Works Vol. IX. pp. 597-599.
[20] Burnaby, Travels, p. 115.
[21] Ibid., Preface, p. 21.
[22] Turgot, Œuvres, Tome II. p. 66. See also Condorcet, Œuvres, Tome IV., Vie de Turgot; Louis Blanc, Histoire de la Révolution Française, Tome I. pp. 527-533.
[23] John Adams, Works, Vol. I. p. 23. See also Vol. IX. pp. 591, 592.
[24] Ibid., Vol. I. pp. 24, 25.
[25] John Adams, Works, Vol. I. pp. 230, 232.
[26] Ibid., Vol. VII. p. 227.
[27] Ibid., p. 250.
[28] John Adams, Works, Vol. IX. p. 510.
[29] Keith Johnston, Physical Atlas p. 114.
[30] John Adams, Works, Vol. VIII. p. 322.
[31] Ibid. p. 33.
[32] John Adams, Works, Vol. IV. p. 293.
[33] Biographie Universelle of Michaud; also of Didot; Louis Blanc, Histoire de la Révolution Française, Tome I. pp. 390, 545-551.
[34] Galiani, Correspondence, Tome II. p. 221. See also Grimm, Correspondence, Tome IX. p. 282.
[35] Galiani, Tome II. p. 203; Grimm, Tome IX. p. 285.
[36] Galiani, Tome II. p. 275.
[37] Galiani, Tome II. p. 275.
[38] Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book IV. cap. 7, part 3.
[39] Hildreth, History of the United States, Vol. II. p. 476.
[40] John Adams, Works, Vol. X. p. 241.
[41] Pownall, Administration of the Colonies, Appendix, P. 7.
[42] Pownall, Administration of the Colonies, Appendix, p. 6.
[43] Ibid., p. 9.
[44] Pownall, Colonies, pp. 9, 10, 164.
[45] Pownall, Administration of the Colonies, p. 165.
[46] Ibid., p. 164.
[47] Parliamentary History, Vol. XIX. pp. 527, 528. See also p. 1137.
[48] Pownall, Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe, pp. 4, 5.
[49] Ibid., p. 43.
[50] Ibid., p. 56.
[51] Ibid., p. 69.
[52] Pownall. Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe, pp. 74, 77.
[53] Ibid., p. 82.
[54] Ibid., p. 83.
[55] Ibid., p. 85.
[56] Ibid., p. 87.
[57] Pownall, Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe, pp. 80, 97.
[58] Ibid., p. 78.
[59] Ibid., p. 93.
[60] Ibid., p. 91.
[61] Franklin, Works, Vol. IX. p. 491.
[62] John Adams, Works, Vol. VIII. p. 179.
[63] Pownall, Memorial to the Sovereigns of America, pp. 5, 6.
[64] Pownall, Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe, p. 83.
[65] Pownall, Memorial to the Sovereigns of America, p. 55.
[66] John Adams, Works, Vol. IX. p. 517.
[67] Ibid., Vol. III. p. 137.
[68] Ibid., Vol. VIII. p. 54.
[69] Ibid., Vol. III. p. 363.
[70] Ibid., Vol. VII. p. 226.
[71] Parliamentary History, Vol. XVIII. p. 553.
[72] Parliamentary History, Vol. XVIII. p. 556.
[73] Ibid., p. 846.
[74] Parliamentary History, Vol. XVIII. p. 1050.
[75] Parliamentary History, Vol. XVIII. p. 1356.
[76] Parliamentary History, Vol. XIX. pp. 259, 260.
[77] Ibid., p. 315.
[78] Ibid., p. 904.
[79] Ibid., p. 1190.
[80] Franklin, Works, Vol. VIII. p. 194.
[81] Franklin, Works, Vol. IX. p. 350.
[82] John Adams, Works, Vol. III. p. 379.
[83] Jay, Life of John Jay, Vol. I. p. 140; Vol. II. p. 101
[84] Alaman, Disertaciones sobre la Historia de la Republica Megicana, Tomo III. pp. 351, 352.
[85] Alaman, Disertaciones, Tomo III. p. 333.
[86] Burnaby, Travels in North America, Preface, p. 10.
[87] John Adams, Works, Vol. VII p. 484
[88] John Adams, Works, Vol. III. p. 234.
[89] Currie, Life and Works of Burns, p. 266, Grahame, History of United States, Vol. IV. p. 462.
[90] Parliamentary History, Vol. XXXI. p. 627.
[91] Annual Message to Congress of 2d December, 1823.
[92] Rush, Memoranda of Residence at London, Vol. II. p. 458: Wheaton, Elements of International Law, pp. 97-112, Dana's note.
[93] Stapleton, Life of Canning, Vol. II. pp. 46, 47.
[94] Canning, Speeches, Vol. VI. pp. 108, 109.
[95] In the original text of Alaman this is printed in large capitals, and it is explained in a note as said by Lucan in his Pharsalia, with regard to Pompey.
[96] Alaman, Historia, Tomo V. pp. 954, 955.
[97] By Jonathan M. Sewall, in an epilogue to Addison's tragedy of "Cato," written in 1778 for the Bow Street Theatre, Portsmouth, N. H.
[98] Jefferson's Works, Vol. V. p. 444.
[99] Jefferson's Works, Vol. V. p. 444.
[100] Ibid., Vol. VII. p. 316. See also pp. 288, 299.
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH.
Near my summer home there is a little cove or landing by the bay, where nothing larger than a boat can ever anchor. I sit above it now, upon the steep bank, knee-deep in buttercups, and amid grass so lush and green that it seems to ripple and flow instead of waving. Below lies a tiny beach, strewn with a few bits of driftwood and some purple shells, and so sheltered by projecting walls that its wavelets plash but lightly. A little farther out, the sea breaks more roughly over submerged rocks, and the waves lift themselves, ere breaking, in an indescribable way, as if each gave a glimpse through a translucent window, beyond which all ocean's depths might be clearly seen. On the right side of my retreat a high wall limits the view, while on the left the crumbling parapet of Fort Greene stands out into the foreground, its grassy scarp so relieved against the blue water, that each inward-bound schooner seems to sail into a cave of grass. In the middle distance is a white lighthouse, and beyond lie the round tower of old Fort Louis and the soft low hills of Conanicut.
Behind me an oriole chirrups in triumph amid the birch-trees which wave around the house of the haunted window; before me a kingfisher pauses and waits, and a darting blackbird shows the scarlet on his wings. From the mossy and water-worn stones of the fort the bright-eyed rats peep out, or, emerging, swim along the beach, with a motion made graceful, as is all motion, by contact with the water. Sloops and schooners constantly come and go, careening in the wind, and their white sails taking, if remote enough, a vague blue mantle from the delicate air. Sailboats glide in the distance,—each a mere white wing of canvas,—or coming nearer, and glancing suddenly into the cove, are put as suddenly on the other tack, and almost in an instant seem far away. There is to-day such a live sparkle on the water, such a luminous freshness on the grass, that it seems, as is so often the case in early June, as if all history were a dream, and the whole earth were but the creation of a summer's day.
If Petrarch still knows and feels the consummate beauty of these earthly things, it may seem to him some repayment for the sorrows of a lifetime that one reader, after all this lapse of years, should choose his sonnets to match this grass, these blossoms, and the soft lapse of these blue waves. Yet any longer or more continuous poem would be out of place to-day. I fancy that this narrow cove prescribes the proper limits of a sonnet; and when I count the lines of ripple within yonder projecting wall, there proves to be room for just fourteen. Nature meets our whims with such little fitnesses. The words which build these delicate structures are as soft and fine and close-textured as the sands upon this tiny beach, and their monotone, if such it be, is the monotone of the neighboring ocean. Is it not possible, by bringing such a book into the open air, to separate it from the grimness of commentators, and bring it back to life and light and Italy? The beautiful earth is the same as when this poetry and passion were new; there is the same sunlight, the same blue water and green grass; yonder pleasure-boat might bear, for aught we know, the friends and lovers of five centuries ago; Petrarch and Laura might be there, with Boccaccio and Fiammetta as comrades, and with Chaucer as their stranger guest. It bears, at any rate, if I know its voyagers, eyes as lustrous, voices as sweet. With the world thus young, beauty eternal, fancy free, why should these delicious Italian pages exist but to be tortured into grammatical examples? Is there no reward to be imagined for a delightful book that can match Browning's fantastic burial of a tedious one? When it has sufficiently basked in sunshine, and been cooled in pure salt air, when it has bathed in heaped clover, and been scented, page by page, with melilot, cannot its beauty once more blossom, and its buried loves revive?
Emboldened by such influences, at least let me translate a sonnet, and see if anything is left after the sweet Italian syllables are gone. Before this continent was discovered, before English literature existed, when Chaucer was a child, these words were written. Yet they are to-day as fresh and perfect as these laburnum-blossoms that droop above my head. And as the variable and uncertain air comes freighted with clover-scent from yonder field, so floats through these long centuries, a breath of fragrance, the memory of Laura.