No longer now resist the attraction of gunpowder
But flew to where the merry orchestra played louder. —[MS. erased]
Gunpowder is said to have been discovered by this friar. [N.B. Though Friar Bacon seems to have discovered gunpowder, he had the humanity not to record his discovery in intelligible language.] ↩
—whose short breath, and long faces
—[MS. erased]
Kept always pushing onwards to the Glacis.
1 Henry IV, act III sc. 1, line 53. —Editor ↩
And that mechanic impulse—.
—[MS. erased]
Hamlet, act III, sc. 1, lines 79, 80. —Editor ↩
“Talus: the slope or inclination of a wall, whereby, reclining at the top so as to fall within its base, the thickness is gradually lessened according to the height.”
—Milit. Dict.
—Editor ↩
“Appelant ceux des chasseurs qui étaient autour de moi en assez grand nombre, je m’avançai et reconnus ne m’être point trompé dans mon calcul; c’était en effet cette colonne qui à l’instant parvenait au sommet du rempart. Les Turcs de derrière les travers et les flancs des bastions voisins fasaient sur elle un feu très-vif de canon et de mousqueterie. Je gravis, avec les gens qui m’avaient suivi, le talus intérieur du rempart.”
—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, II 210
—Editor ↩
Baron Menno van Coehoorn (circ. 1641–1704), a Dutch military engineer, the contemporary and rival of Vauban, invented a mortar which bore his name. He was the author of a celebrated work on fortification, published in 1692. ↩
“Ce fut dans cet instant que je reconnus combien l’ignorance du constructeur des palissades était importante pour nous; car, comme elles étaient placées au milieu du parapet,” etc.
—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, II 211
—Editor ↩
They were but two feet above the level. —[MS.]
“Il y avait de chaque côté neuf à dix pieds sur lesquels on pouvait marcher; et les soldats, après être montés, avaient pu se ranger commodément sur l’espace extérieur et enjamber ensuite les palissades, qui ne s’élevaient que d’à-peu-près deux pieds au-dessus du niveau de la terre.”
—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, p. 211
—Editor ↩
Friederich Wilhelm, Baron von Bülow (1755–1816), was in command of the 4th corps of the Prussian Army at Waterloo. August Wilhelm Antonius Neidhart von Gneisenau (1760–1831) was chief of staff, and after Blücher was disabled by a fall at Ligny, assumed temporary command, June 16–17, 1815. He headed the triumphant pursuit of the French on the night of the battle. For Blücher’s official account of the battles of Ligny and Waterloo (subscribed by Gneisenau), see W. H. Maxwell’s Life of the Duke of Wellington, 1841, III 566–571; and for Wellington’s acknowledgment of Blücher’s “cordial and timely assistance,” see Dispatches, 1847, VIII 150. See, too, The Life of Wellington, by the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart., 1899, II 88, et passim. —Editor ↩
—as feminine of feature.
—[MS.]
Led him on—although he was the gentlest creature,
—[MS. erased]
As kind in heart as feminine of feature.
Pistol’s “Bezonian” is a corruption of bisognoso—a rogue, needy fellow. Byron, quoting from memory, confuses two passages. In 2 Henry VI, act IV sc. 1, line 134, Suffolk says,
“Great men oft die of vile bezonians;”
in 2 Henry IV, act V sc. 3, line 112, Pistol says,
“Under which King, Besonian? speak or die.”
—Editor ↩
“Le Général Lascy, voyant arriver un corps, si à-propos à son secours, s’avança vers l’officier qui l’avait conduit, et, le prenant pour un Livonien, lui fit, en allemand, les complimens les plus flatteurs; le jeune militaire (le Duc de Richelieu) qui parlait parfaitement cette langue, y répondit avec sa modestie ordinaire.”
—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, II 211
—Editor ↩
The Task, Bk. I line 749. It was pointed out to Cowper that the same thought had been expressed by Isaac Hawkins Browne, in “The Fireside, a Pastoral Soliloquy,” lines 15, 16 (Poems, ed. 1768, p. 125)—
“I have said it at home, I have said it abroad,
That the town is Man’s world, but that this is of God.”
There is a parallel passage in M. T. Varro, Rerum Rusticarum, lib. III i 4,
“Nee minim, quod divina natura dedit agros, ars humami aedificavit urbes.”
—See The Task, etc., ed. by H. T. Griffith, 1896, II 234. —Editor ↩
Sulla spoke of himself as the “fortunate,” and in the twenty-second book of his Commentaries, finished only two days before his death, “he tells us that the Chaldeans had predicted, that after a life of glory he would depart in the height of his prosperity.” He was fortunate, too, with regard to his funeral, for, at first, a brisk wind blew which fanned the pile into flame, and it was not till the fire had begun to die out that the rain, which had been expected throughout the day, began to fall in torrents.—Langhorne’s Plutarch, 1838, pp. 334, 335. See, too, “Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte,” stanza VII Poetical Works, 1900, III 308, note 1. —Editor ↩
Daniel Boone (1735–1820) was the grandson of an English settler, George Boone, of Exeter. His great work in life was the conquest of Kentucky. Following in the steps of another pioneer, John Finley, he left his home in North Carolina in May, 1769, and, after numerous adventures, effected a settlement on the Kentucky river. He constructed a fort, which he named Boonesborough, and carried on a protracted campaign with varying but final success against the Indians. When Kentucky was admitted into
