43 2 SEVEN ATMOSPHERES OF SLEEP, ETC.: Professor Hart suggests that De Quincey is here "indulging in jocular arithmetic. The three nights plus the three days, plus the present night, equal seven." Dr. Cooper compares with this a reference to the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. But it seems doubtful whether any explanation is necessary.
43 17 LILLIPUTIAN LANCASTER: the county town of Lancashire, in which Liverpool and Manchester, towns of recent and far greater growth, are situated.
44 (footnote) "Giraldus Cambrensis," or Gerald de Barry (1146-1220), was a Welsh historian; one of his chief works is the Itinerarium Cambrica, or Voyage in Wales.
47 2 QUARTERING: De Quincey's derivation of this word in his footnote is correct, but its use in this French sense is not common. De Quincey, however, has it above, p. 11.
49 8 THE SHOUT OF ACHILLES: Cf. Homer, Iliad, XVIII, 217 et seq.
50 10 BUYING IT, ETC.: De Quincey refers, no doubt, to the pay of common soldiers and to the practice of employing mercenaries.
52 1 FASTER THAN EVER MILL-RACE, ETC.: the change in the wording of this sentence in De Quincey's revision is, as Masson remarks, particularly characteristic of his sense of melody; it read in Blackwood, "We ran past them faster than ever mill-race in our inexorable flight."
52 15 HERE WAS THE MAP, ETC.: This sentence is an addition in the reprint. Masson remarks "how artistically it causes the due pause between the horror as still in rush of transaction and the backward look at the wreck when the crash was past."
53 18 "WHENCE THE SOUND," ETC.: Paradise Lost, Book XI, 11. 558-563.
54 3 WOMAN'S IONIC FORM: In thus using the word Ionic, De Quincey doubtless has in mind the character of Ionic architecture, with its tall and graceful column, differing from the severity of the Doric on the one hand and from the floridity of the Corinthian on the other. Probably he is thinking of a caryatid. Cf. the following version of the old story of the origin of the styles of Greek architecture in Vitruvius, IV, Chap. I (Gwilt's translation), quoted by Hart: "They measured a man's foot, and finding its length the sixth part of his height, they gave the column a similar proportion, that is, they made its height six times the thickness of the shaft measured at the base. Thus the Doric order obtained its proportion, its strength, and its beauty from the human figure. With a similar feeling they afterward built the Temple of Diana. But in that, seeking a new proportion, they used the female figure as a standard; and for the purpose of producing a more lofty effect they first made it eight times its thickness in height. Under it they placed a base, after the manner of a shoe to the foot; they also added volutes to its capital, like graceful curling hair hanging on each side, and the front they ornamented with cymatia and festoons in the place of hair. On the shafts they sunk channels, which bear a resemblance to the folds of a matronal garment. Thus two orders were invented, one of a masculine character, without ornament, the other bearing a character which resembled the delicacy, ornament, and proportion of a female. The successors of these people, improving in taste, and preferring a more slender proportion, assigned seven diameters to the height of the Doric column, and eight and a half to the Ionic."