"A skill Préville could not disown."—Page [23].
Préville was the French Foote, circa 1760. His gifts as a comedian were of the highest order; and he had an extraordinary faculty for identifying himself with the parts he played. Sterne, in a letter to Garrick from Paris, in 1762, calls him "Mercury himself."
Molly Trefusis.—Page [32].
The epigram here quoted from "an old magazine" is to be found in the late Lord Neaves's admirable little volume, The Greek Anthology (Blackwood's Ancient Classics for English Readers). Those familiar with eighteenth-century literature will recognize in the succeeding verses but another echo of those lively stanzas of John Gay to "Molly Mogg of the Rose," which found so many imitators in his own day. Whether my heroine is to be identified with a certain "Miss Trefusis," whose Poems are sometimes to be found in the second-hand booksellers' catalogues, I know not. But if she is, I trust I have done her accomplished shade no wrong.
An Eastern Apologue.—Page [43].
The initials "E. H. P." are those of the late eminent (and ill-fated) Orientalist, Professor Palmer. As my lines entirely owed their origin to his translations of Zoheir, I sent them to him. He was indulgent enough to praise them warmly. It is true he found anachronisms; but as he said these would cause no disturbance to orthodox Persians, I concluded I had succeeded in my little pastiche, and, with his permission, inscribed it to him. I wish now that it had been a more worthy tribute to one of the most erudite and versatile scholars this age has seen.
A Revolutionary Relic.—Page [48].
"373. St. Pierre (Bernardin de), Paul et Virginie, 12mo, old calf. Paris, 1787. This copy is pierced throughout by a bullet-hole, and bears on one of the covers the words: 'à Lucile St. A.... chez M. Batemans, à Edmonds-Bury, en Angleterre,' very faintly written in pencil." (Extract from Catalogue.)
"Did she wander like that other?"—Page [50].
Lucile Desmoulins. See Carlyle's French Revolution, Vol. iii. Book vi. Chap. ii.