Page 3. _The Fortunate Islands_. This piece is a rhymed loose version
of a passage in the _Vera Historia_ of Lucian. The humorist was unable
to resist the temptation to introduce passages of mockery, which are here
omitted. Part of his description of the Isles of the Blest has a close
and singular resemblance to the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse. The
clear River of Life and the prodigality of gold and of precious stones
may especially be noticed.
_Whoso doth taste the Dead Men’s bread_, &.c. This belief that the
living may visit, on occasion, the dwellings of the dead, but can never
return to earth if they taste the food of the departed, is expressed in
myths of worldwide distribution. Because she ate the pomegranate seed,
Persephone became subject to the spell of Hades. In Apuleius, Psyche,
when she visits the place of souls, is advised to abstain from food.
Kohl found the myth among the Ojibbeways, Mr. Codrington among the
Solomon Islanders; it occurs in Samoa, in the Finnish Kalewala (where
Wainamoinen, in Pohjola, refrains from touching meat or drink), and the
belief has left its mark on the mediæval ballad of Thomas of Ercildoune.
When he is in Fairy Land, the Fairy Queen supplies him with the bread and
wine of earth, and will not suffer him to touch the fruits which grow “in
this countrie.” See also “Wandering Willie” in Redgauntlet.
Page 20. _As now the hutted Eskimo_. The Eskimo and the miserable
Fuegians are almost the only Socialists who practise what European
Anarchists preach. The Fuegians go so far as to tear up any piece of
cloth which one of the tribe may receive, so that each member may have a
rag. The Eskimo are scarcely such consistent walkers, and canoes show a
tendency to accumulate in the hands of proprietors. Formerly no Eskimo
was allowed to possess more than one canoe. Such was the wild justice of
the Polar philosophers.
Page 36. _The latest minstrel_. “The sound of all others dearest to his
ear, the gentle ripple of Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible
as we knelt around the bed and his eldest son kissed and closed his
eyes.”—Lockhart’s Life of Scott, vii., 394.
Page 45. _Ronsard’s Grave_. This version ventures to condense the
original which, like most of the works of the Pleiad, is unnecessarily
long.
Page 46. _The snow_, _and wind_, _and hail_. Ronsard’s rendering of the
famous passage in Odyssey, vi., about the dwellings of the Olympians.
The vision of a Paradise of learned lovers and poets constantly recurs in
the poetry of Joachim du Bellay, and of Ronsard.
Page 50. _Romance_. Suggested by a passage in La Faustin, by M. E. de
Goncourt, a curious moment of poetry in a repulsive piece of
_naturalisme_.
Page 55. _M. Boulmier_, author of _Les Villanelles_, died shortly after
this villanelle was written; he had not published a larger collection on
which he had been at work.
Page 61. _Edmund Gorliot_. The bibliophile will not easily procure
Gorliot’s book, which is not in the catalogues. Throughout _The Last
Maying_ there is reference to the _Pervigilium Veneris_.
Page 105. _Bird-Gods_. Apparently Aristophanes preserved, in a
burlesque form, the remnants of a genuine myth. Almost all savage
religions have their bird-gods, and it is probable that Aristophanes did
not invent, but only used a surviving myth of which there are scarcely
any other traces in Greek literature.
Page 134. _Spinet_. The accent is on the last foot, even when the word
is written _spinnet_. Compare the remarkable Liberty which Pamela took
with the 137th Psalm.
_My Joys and Hopes all overthrown_,
_My Heartstrings almost broke_,
_Unfit my Mind for Melody_,
_Much more to bear a Joke_.
_But yet_, _if from my Innocence_
_I_, _even in Thought_, _should slide_,
_Then_, _let my fingers quite forget_
_The sweet Spinnet to guide_!
_Pamela_, _or Virtue Rewarded_, vol. i.,
p. 184., 1785.