140. The loss of her father, mother and brother is mentioned in
Bradford’s _History of the Plymouth Plantation_. See note, line 85.
206. _Astaroth_, _Baal_. Divinities of ancient Syria, mentioned in the
Old Testament. Milton refers to them:
“With these came they, who, from the bordering flood
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baalim and Ashtaroth,--those male,
These feminine.”
--_Paradise Lost_, Bk. I, 419-423.
210. _Mayflowers._ In England this name is applied to the hawthorn; in
America to a trailing plant “having white or rose-colored flowers.”
“The trailing arbutus or mayflower grows abundantly in the vicinity
of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after
their fearful winter.” (_Whittier._)
212. _Children lost in the woods._ The pathetic story of the cruel
destruction of two children by exposure and desertion is told in an
ancient English ballad:
“No burial this pretty pair
Of any man receives,
Till Robin-red-breast piously
Did cover them with leaves.”
--From Percy’s _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_.
224. _The hundredth Psalm._ The music to which the words were being
sung was the same as “Old Hundred.”
232. Many English books and translations were printed by the early
Dutch printers of Amsterdam and Leyden, notably by the Elzivirs of the
latter place.