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[ Madame de Genlis was governess to the children of the Duke D'Orleans (Philippe egalite), and, there is no doubt, his mistress. The beautiful Pamela, who married Lord Edward Fitzgerald, was generally supposed to be her daughter by the duke, but this appears to be questionable.—ED.]
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[ William Herschel, the famous astronomer. He was the son of a German musician, and in early life followed his father's profession, which he afterwards abandoned for the study of astronomy. He received much encouragement from George III., was knighted in 1816, and died at Slough, near Windsor, in 1822. His monster telescope, mentioned in the text, was completed in 1787, and was forty feet in length.—ED.]
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[ Maria Sophie de la Roche was a German authoress of sentimental novels, of some distinction in her day, but now chiefly remembered as the friend of Wieland and Goethe. The history of the attachment between her and Wieland is very pretty, very idyllic, and very German. Sophie was born in 1731, and the idyll commenced when she was nineteen, and Wieland only seventeen years old. It lasted some time, too, for a passion so very tender and tearful; but the fate, and, more particularly, the parents, were unpropitious, and after about three years it came to an end, the heart-broken Sophie consoling herself by marrying M. de la Roche shortly afterwards. Her friendship with Wieland, however was maintained to the end of her days, he editing the first and last productions of her pen—the “History of Fraulein von Sternheim,” published 1771, and “Melusinens Sommerabende,” 1806. Madame de la Roche died in 1807—ED.]
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[ Madame de la Fite had, however, translated her friend's “History of Fraulein von Sternheim” into French, and the translation had been published in 1773.—ED.]
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[ “Clelia” and “Cassandra” were celebrated heroic romances of the seventeenth century, the former (in ten volumes) written by Mdlle Scuderi, the latter by the Sieur de la Calprende. One of the most constant and tiresome characteristics of the heroes and heroines of the romances of this school, is the readiness with which they seize every opportunity of recounting, or causing their confidential attendants to recount, their adventures, usually with the utmost minuteness of detail—ED.]