15-7: Se lo suplica a V.: Se = le, redundant pronoun anticipating usted. See note se la, p. 4, 6.
16-1: Mazzepa: (or rather Mazeppa) a Pole, who in punishment for an intrigue, was bound to the back of a horse, which carried him among the Cossacks, where he rose to distinction and high command. Vide Byron's poem Mazeppa.
16-2: Carlos XII: (doce— the ordinal numerals above décimo not being used with names of sovereigns) Charles XII, king of Sweden (lived 1682-1718). He fought, at first with brilliant success, against the Czar, Peter the Great, but was ultimately defeated.
16-3: Carlos e Isabel: Fernando VII (see notes Fernando, pp. 34, 5 and 51, 17) left the Spanish throne to his daughter, Isabel II, but Don Carlos. her uncle, laid claim to it by virtue of the Salic law excluding women from the throne. A long and disastrous civil warfare ensued between his party, the Carlistas, and the party of the queen-regent, Maria Cristina, the Cristinos.
16-4: Estoy por decir: I am on the point of saying.