Page 19, line 13.—Bouverot, here called the German Gentleman (in German, the Deutsche Herr), was in reality a Teutscher Ordensherr, or Teutonic Knight. The translator has throughout simply called him the Gentleman, merely, however, by a sort of general, parliamentary etiquette, and not, of course, as if the word defined his technical standing. The reader will please bear this in mind.
Page 19, note.—He was also nicknamed Peter de Mulieribus. He was a fine painter, Put a coarse-grained scapegrace. Was born at Haerlem in 1637. Went to Italy, and from Calvinist became Papist. Was famous for his animals and landscapes. In Italy he fell in love with a woman, and, as he already had a wife, he sent for her to come to him, and then caused her to be murdered on the road. He was arrested and sentenced to be hung, but, in the confusion consequent on the breaking out of some war, escaped, and died in 1701.
Page 20.—The translator confesses himself in the dark (with a scholarly German friend also) as to the process which may have been pursued by Don Gaspard with that German debauchee. It may simply be that Gaspard operated on the man by holding out worldly inducements to make him play the saint, and then, by disappointing them, left him to sink back again to his real character.
Page 21, line 7.—The Pasquino was a mutilated statue, so called from a cobbler who had his shop near it, and was always quizzing and caricaturing passers-by. After his death, the statue, which had come to be nearly buried in the ground, was dug up, and people said, "Here is old Pasquin come to life again!" When any one wanted to satirize a public or private enemy, he would affix his lampoon secretly to the Pasquin statue. The statue of Marforio, supposed to be that of a river-god, which, about the end of the sixteenth century, was placed near the Capitol, was made the vehicle of replying to the attacks of Pasquin.
Page 22, line 10.—If any one would see how queerly Jean Paul used his queer knowledge, what
"A sea-change
Into something rare and strange,"
the driest material "suffered" in passing over the ocean of his fantasy,—let him read the article in Bayle's Dictionary on Gaspar Scioppius. Scioppius, a German critic, philologist, and controversialist, equally remarkable for acumen and acrimony, was born in 1576; had a precocious youth; changed from a Protestant to a Catholic, and wrote bitterly against his old friends, and even against the King of England; then became equally bitter against the Jesuits; and, after a life of constant quarrelling with living and dead scholars (for he charged even Cicero with barbarous Latin), "he died," says a biographer, "universally hated and hating," in 1649. One of his opponents called him the "Grammarian Cur."—As Jean Paul makes his Schoppe call himself Titular Librarian, &c., it may be worth mentioning that the historical Scioppius had the following titles: "Patrician of Rome, Knight of St. Peter, Counsellor to the Emperor, Counsellor to the King of Spain, Counsellor to the Archduke, Count Palatine, and Count de Clara Valle" (Clairvaux).
Page 25, line 21.—Trembley led the way in the actual study from life of the Polype tribe, particularly the hydra. "Sometimes two polypes will seize on the same worm; and most amusing is it then to witness the struggle that ensues, sometimes resulting in the swallowing of the weaker polype by the stronger, which, however, is soon disgorged with no other loss than his dinner." "If the body be halved in any direction, each half grows into a perfect hydra." "When a polype is introduced by the tail into another body, the two unite and form one individual; and when a head is lopped off, it may safely be engrafted on the body of any other which may chance to want one." "A polype, cut transversely in three parts, requires four or five days in summer, and longer in cold weather, for the middle piece to produce a head and tail, and the tail part to get a body and head."—English Cyclop.
Page 26, line 23.—The pigeons spoken of are the common house-pigeons. (In German, Flug-taube: pigeons that go in flocks,—which misled the translator in the first edition to call them wild pigeons.) I am told that Jean Paul is here really picturing his own traits too. For instance, it is said he would not look in at a shop-door in passing, lest he should hold out promises which he was not going to perform.
Page 27, line 22.—"Snow-ball." (In German, Kugel: globe,—ball being the word used where the snow-ball of the schoolboys is meant.)