[1] Destroyer, God of Flies, the Adversary. Apollyon, Beelzebub, Satan.
[2] Goosewing. A cant word for a sword.
[3] Dudelsack. A bagpipe.
[4] Rabenstein. Place of Execution.
NOTES.
And this mysterious magic page
From Nostradamus’ hand so sage.
Nostradamus was born at St. Remy, a town of Provence, in 1503, and was a great friend of Julius Scaliger. He must thus have been likewise a cotemporary of the famous alchymist Cornelius Agrippa, whom, as we have seen (Vide Introd. Remarks), Del-Rio makes a companion of Dr. Faust. Like a worthy son of the sixteenth century, Nostradamus was convinced that he could make no progress in the art of healing bodily diseases unless he began ab ovo with the study of the stars; and this it was that led him away from his own profession of medicine into the sublime regions of astronomy and astrology, to which allusion is made in the text. He was particularly famous for his prophetic almanacs, which were held in universal estimation. The title of his principal work is “The true Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus, physician to Henry II., Francis II., Charles IX., Kings of France, and one of the best astronomers that ever were, a work full of curiosity and learning.” The English translation is from the hand of Theophilus de Garenciennes, a naturalised Frenchman, and Oxonian Doctor of Physic. The common edition is London, 1672.