NOTES TO VOL. I.
Page xi.—By some slip or confusion of memory, the first and second editions were made to say, in the note, that Louisa, one of the four reigning sisters to whom Titan is dedicated, lived in the Liberation War. This mistake probably arose from mixing up the French Revolution with Körner's august apostrophes to Louisa as guardian genius of her people in the later war for freedom.
Page 2, line 8. "Wolf's tooth."—The tooth of a wolf or boar, or some other animal, was once used just as we use an ivory handle, or (sometimes) the thumb-nail, to rub down smooth the paper from which ink-marks had been erased.—Line 15. "Burning-glass" means here properly a concave-mirror (Brenn-spiegel in German,—there being another word, Brenn-glas, corresponding to our common burning and magnifying glass).—Line 18. "Cutting hollow"; concave grinding would seem a more scientific phrase, but the word hollow seemed necessary in carrying out the moral allusion.
Page 5, line 27.—The reference is probably to Wilcke, who broached a new theory about magnetism, that of two fluids. (See art. in Encyc. Britan.)
Page 5, line 31. "When it struck 23 o'clock."—The Italian clocks, though they indicate on the face up to 24, strike only to 12.
The above is a comparative table of German and Italian ways of reckoning time, adapted to the latter half of September. It is taken from Goethe's Italian Tour. He says: "The inner circle denotes our 24 hours, from midnight to midnight, divided into twice 12, as we reckon, and our clocks indicate. The middle circle shows how the Italian clocks strike at the present season (namely, up to 12 twice in 24 hours), but in such a way that it strikes 1 when it strikes 8 with us, and so on.... Finally, the outer circle shows how the 24 hours are reckoned in actual life. For example, I hear 7 o'clock striking in the night, and know that midnight is at 5 o'clock; I therefore deduct the latter number from the former and thus have 2 hours after midnight. If I hear 7 in the daytime, as I know that noon is at 5, I have 2 P. M. But if I wish to express the hour according to the fashion of this country, I must know that noon is 17 o'clock; I add the 2, and get 19 o'clock." It must have been, it would seem, then, in his mind that Albano would have "counted up the tedious strokes."
Page 6, line 16. "Juno Ludovici."—The fine colossal head known as the Lodovisi Juno (so Murray spells it) in the Villa Lodovisi.
Page 9, line 24.—"Kremnitz" is a town in Moravia. The ducats coined there were of the very finest gold.—Line 24. "More lightly on her left arm,"—and therefore the old man was not actuated purely by the pious motives which Albano gave him credit for, but by more mercenary ones,—is the connecting link to be supplied before the next clause.
Page 11, line 12.—"Micromegas,"—little giant.