[8] It is said of a celebrated clerical wit, that almost his last words were, “All things come to an end”—a pause—“except Wimpole Street.”
[9] This reminds one of the Jour des morts—All Souls’ Day, or The Day of the Dead, when it is a Continental custom to visit the graves of relatives and friends, with pious offerings of flowers, &c.
[10] This invocation to the ship reminds one of Horace’s appeal to the vessel that was to bring Virgil home:—
Navis, quæ tibi creditum
Debes Virgilium, finibus Atticis
Reddas incolumem, precor;
Et serves animæ dimidium meæ.
Lib. I., Ode 3.
[11] “Sphere” glomera.
[12] This fruit of the vine, Matt. xxvi., 29.
[13] “Tangle,” or “oar-weed,” Laminaria digitata, says the Algologist, “is never met with but at extreme tide-limits, where some of its broad leather-like fronds may be seen darkly overhanging the rocks, while others, a little lower down, are rising and dipping in the water like sea-serpents floated by the waves.” Plato, Rep., x., has a noble comparison from the story of Glaucus (498): “We must regard the soul as drowned (διακείμενον) like the sea-god, Glaucus: who, buffetted and insulted by the waves, sank, clustered with ὄστρεα τε, καὶ φύκια, καὶ πέτρας.”
[14] In the month of October, 1884, I walked in the thickly wooded precincts of Hughenden Manor, the seat of the Earl of Beaconsfield; and I never heard the horse chestnuts patter to the ground as then and there. Quite ripe, they were constantly falling; and as they touched the gravelled walk the shell opened, and out sprang the richly coloured chestnut.—A. G.
[15] In Job xxxvii., 18, we read, “Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?” This term applies equally well to the sea.
[16] See 2 Cor. xii., 2.