Ein flucht’ger Gast in Erdenland:
Woher? wohin?—Wer wissen nur
Aus Gottes hand in Gottes hand.
[29]. Meaning, All is well, or good news.
[30]. Read from the bottom of the columns upward, commencing with the right.
[31]. Lucan’s Pharsalia. (Lib. 1.)
[32]. Knives were formerly inscribed, by means of aqua-fortis, with short sentences in distich.
[33]. It is not a little singular that Mr. Arvine, in his excellent Cyclopædia, gives Milton and Dryden, while boys at school, equal credit for originating, in the same way, this beautiful idea.
[34]. Mirabeau’s hasty temper is well known. “Monsieur le Compte,” said his secretary to him one day, “the thing you require is impossible.” “Impossible!” exclaimed Mirabeau, starting from his chair: “never again use that foolish word in my presence.”
[35]. A curious instance of bathos occurs in Dr. Mavor’s account of Cook’s voyages:—“The wild rocks raised their lofty summits till they were lost in the clouds, and the valleys lay covered with everlasting snow. Not a tree was to be seen, nor even a shrub big enough to make a tooth-pick.”