NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
NOTE I, P. 16.
Where garden is, was place of tilt
Or tournament, where blood was spilt;
Where stain’d was many a foeman’s hilt
With blood of knight laid low.
The martial exercise of Tilting is said to have been introduced some time between the years 920 and 937, by Henry I of Germany, styled Anceps, or Falconer, but better known by the appellation of the Fowler: his motto was, “Tardus ad vindictam, ad beneficentiam velox.”[14] He is likewise said to have purchased the lance which pierced our Saviour’s side, and, with it, some of the nails of the holy cross; giving in exchange a great portion of Suabia, and other valuable gifts.
NOTE II, P. 23.
In the centre, soup was seen
Smoking, from a vase of snow.
That learned philosopher and prince of culinary perfection, Count Rumford, has taught the world the mode of preparing ice-cream in a hot oven, and of sending it freezing to table in a light crust of smoking pastry. The epicurean reader will be much disappointed if he expects to find that the above lines allude to some recent improvement in the science of chemistry, establishing the converse of this discovery; and that the soup at Dunse was actually served steaming to the company in an excavated snow-ball. It is hoped, that “a vase of snow” will be allowed as an appropriate figure for a clean white crockery tureen.
NOTE III, P. 26, 27.
The chair is filled! a stranger sat
Upon the honoured seat;
Nor deigned he to doff his hat,
Though more than one had hinted that
Respect was always meet.
But he was heedless of them all,
And thrice he gazed round the hall,
But ne’er a word did he let fall:
Whilst thus he sat, whilst thus he gazed,
The goodly throng were all amazed.—
The subject of superstition, as connected with the history of man, whether it be considered as influencing his character, or as affecting his conduct in society, seems sufficiently important to occupy the serious attention of the most learned investigator. It has been treated, however, with so much ability by an elegant author of our own times,[15] that, if not altogether exhausted, little more seems left to the ingenuity of any succeeding writer, than to avail himself, as his occasions may require, of the store of information thus amply afforded him. No maxim being more certainly founded on truth, than that early impressions are generally the most lasting. Would it not be highly meritorious in any one equal to the task, to favour the public with new editions of these invaluable productions, Satan’s Invisible World, and Glanvil’s History of Witchcraft, rendered, on the modern and improved plan of juvenile education, into easy ditties, to be sung or said by nurse or child? Might we not then expect to see the pure principles of poetic taste reared on the solid basis of useful knowledge?