'And laid the storm,' &c.: the advice given to Augustus by Athenodorus
the Stoic philosopher.
See Shakespeare's _Love's Labour's Lost_, Act v, sc. i. Holofernes
'teaches boys the horn-book'.
P. 181. _Richardson._--In his preface to _Pamela_ Richardson claims to
give 'practical examples worthy to be followed in the most critical and
affecting cases by the modest virgin, the chaste bride, and the obliging
wife'. The heroine becomes Mrs. B----, and Billy is the first-born.
Locke's treatise was published in 1693, or forty-seven years before
Richardson's novel, and the philosopher observes 'That most Children's
Constitutions are either spoiled, or at least harmed, by _Cockering and
Tenderness_'. 'Mr. B.' recommended better than he knew.
P. 181. _Johnson_ ('At large in the library').--Ruskin gives the same
advice. See p. 208.
P. 183. _Gibbon._--The _Autobiography_, in Sir Archibald Alison's
opinion, is 'the most perfect account of an eminent man's life, from his
own hand, which exists in any language'.
P. 186. _Landor._--See the poem to Wordsworth on p. 21.
P. 187. _Hunt._--The friend referred to was Shelley.
P. 188. _Dickens._--Of this passage, Forster says in the _Life of
Dickens_, 'It is one of the many passages in _Copperfield_ which are
literally true.... Every word of this personal recollection had been
written down as fact, some years before it found its way into _David
Copperfield_; the only change in the fiction being his omission of the
name of a cheap series of novelists then in course of publication, by
means of which his father had become happily the owner of so large a
lump of literary treasure in his small collection of books.'
Apropos of Defoe, Macaulay, who could not 'understand the mania of some
people about Defoe', admitted that 'he certainly wrote an excellent
book--the first part of _Robinson Crusoe_ ... my delight before I was
five years old'.
P. 189. _Hazlitt._--It is reported (Dibdin relates in _Bibliomania_)
that a certain man, of the name of Similis, who fought under the Emperor
Hadrian, became so wearied and disgusted with the number of troublesome
events which he met with in that mode of life, that he retired and
devoted himself wholly to leisure and reading, and to meditations upon
divine and human affairs, after the manner of Pythagoras. In this
retirement, Similis was wont frequently to exclaim that '_now_ he began
to _live_': at his death he desired the following inscription to be
placed upon his tomb.
Here lies Similis;
In the seventieth year of his age
But only the seventh of his life.
In a note it is stated that 'This story is related by Dion Cassius and
from him told by Spizelius in his _Infelix Literarius_'.
P. 190. _Donne._--This is the title given by Donne's editors, but is
nonsense. Grosart explains that Pindar's instructress was Corinna the
Theban, and that Lucan's 'help' is probably his helpmeet--Argentaria
Polla, his wife who survived him.
P. 192. _Dante._--This is the famous passage in Canto V referring to
Paolo and Francesca.--(Cary's translation.)