FOOTNOTES:
[62] August, 1880.
[63] The following fragments out of the letters in my own possession, written by Scott to the builder of Abbotsford, as the outer decorations of the house were in process of completion, will show how accurately Scott had pictured himself in Monkbarns.
[64] Henceforward, not in affectation, but for the reader's better convenience, I shall continue to spell "Ryme" without our wrongly added h.
[65] L. ii. 278.
[66] "Che nella mente mia ragiona." Love—you observe, the highest Reasonableness, instead of French ivresse, or even Shakespearian "mere folly"; and Beatrice as the Goddess of Wisdom in this third song of the Convito, to be compared with the Revolutionary Goddess of Reason; remembering of the whole poem chiefly the line:—
"Costei penso chi che mosso l'universo."
(See Lyell's "Canzoniere," p. 104.)
[67] ὡραν της τἑρπσιος—Plato, "Laws," ii., Steph. 669. "Hour" having here nearly the power of "Fate" with added sense of being a daughter of Themis.
[68] "Gunpowder is one of the greatest inventions of modern times, and what has given such a superiority to civilized nations over barbarous"! ("Evenings at Home"—fifth evening.) No man can owe more than I both to Mrs. Barbauld and Miss Edgeworth; and I only wish that in the substance of what they wisely said, they had been more listened to. Nevertheless, the germs of all modern conceit and error respecting manufacture and industry, as rivals to Art and to Genius, are concentrated in "Evenings at Home" and "Harry and Lucy"—being all the while themselves works of real genius, and prophetic of things that have yet to be learned and fulfilled. See for instance the paper, "Things by their Right Names," following the one from which I have just quoted ("The Ship"), and closing the first volume of the old edition of the "Evenings."