—Paradise Lost, Bk. I, 419-423.
210. Mayflowers. In England this name is applied to the hawthorn; in America to a trailing plant “having white or rose-colored flowers.” “The trailing arbutus or mayflower grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful winter.” (Whittier.)
212. Children lost in the woods. The pathetic story of the cruel destruction of two children by exposure and desertion is told in an ancient English ballad:
“No burial this pretty pair
Of any man receives,
Till Robin-red-breast piously
Did cover them with leaves.”
—From Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.
224. The hundredth Psalm. The music to which the words were being sung was the same as “Old Hundred.”
232. Many English books and translations were printed by the early Dutch printers of Amsterdam and Leyden, notably by the Elzivirs of the latter place.