[1] See 'Miscellaneous Essays,' p. 17.
[2] I am not sure whether Southey held at this time his appointment to the
editorship of the 'Edinburgh Annual Register.' If he did, no doubt in the
domestic section of that chronicle will be found an excellent account of
the whole.
[3] An artist told me in this year, 1812, that having accidentally seen a
native Devonshire regiment (either volunteers or militia), nine hundred
strong, marching past a station at which he had posted himself, he did not
observe a dozen men that would not have been described in common parlance
as 'good looking.'
[4] I do not remember, chronologically, the history of gas-lights. But in
London, long after Mr. Winsor had shown the value of gas-lighting, and its
applicability to street purposes, various districts were prevented, for
many years, from resorting to the new system, in consequence of old
contracts with oil-dealers, subsisting through long terms of years.
[5] Let the reader, who is disposed to regard as exaggerated or romantic
the pure fiendishness imputed to Williams, recollect that, except for the
luxurious purpose of basking and revelling in the anguish of dying
despair, he had no motive at all, small or great, for attempting the
murder of this young girl. She had seen nothing, heard nothing--was fast
asleep, and her door was closed; so that, as a witness against him, he
knew that she was as useless as any one of the three corpses. And yet he
_was_ making preparations for her murder, when the alarm in the street
interrupted him.
[6] 'Revolt of Islam,' canto xii.
[7] See his bitter letters to Lady Suffolk.