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Page 35
28 21. the French retreat. It would be interesting to compare the
incidents and figures of this retreat, as furnished by biographers and
historians. Sloane's _Life of Napoleon_ is a recent authority.
28 26. vials of wrath. Compare _Revelation_, xv, 7, and xvi, 1. If
De Quincey had used the Revised Version he would have written _bowls_
instead of _vials_. Such borrowings of phrase or incident are called
"allusions." Make a list of the scriptural allusions found in the
essay,--of those suggested by Milton.
29 16. Earthquakes. "De Quincey here refers to such destructive
shocks as that which occurred at Sparta, 464 B.C., in which, according
to Thirlwall, 20,000 persons perished; that which Gibbon speaks of
during the reign of Valentinian, 365 A.D., in which 50,000 persons
lost their lives at Alexandria alone; that in the reign of Justinian,
526 A.D., in which 250,000 persons were crushed by falling walls;
others in Jamaica, 1692 A.D.; at Lisbon, 1755 A.D., with loss of
30,000 lives; and in Venezuela, 1812 A.D., when Caraccas was
destroyed, and 20,000 souls perished."--WAUCHOPE.
29 20. pestilence. Described by Thucydides; see also Grote's
_History of Greece_, Chap. XLIX. Of the great plague of London (1665)
the most realistic description is Defoe's _Journal of the Plague
Year_.
29 28. The siege of Jerusalem. Read Josephus, _The Jewish War_, Bks.
V and VI.
29 31. exasperation. Compare note on p. 26, l. 28.
30 3, 4. even of maternal love. The reference is to an incident
mentioned by Josephus (_The Jewish War_, Bk. VI, Chap. III), in which
a mother is described as driven by the stress of famine to kill and
devour her own child.
30 5. romantic misery. How _romantic_? Compare this phrase with
similar uses of the word _romantic_.
30 10. River Jaik. The Ural.
30 33. scenical propriety. Compare the statement with similar ones
made by the author elsewhere.
31 11. decrement. Compare with its positive correspondent, _increment_.
31 20. acharnement. Fury.
31 26. The first stage, etc. A time mark in the essay.
32 10. liable. Another instance of a word often misused, correctly
employed in the text. Compare note on _aggravate_, p. 26, l. 28.
32 23. Bactrian camels. There are two species of camel, the
dromedary, single humped, and the Bactrian, with two humps. The former
is native to Arabia, the latter to central Asia. The dromedary is the
swifter of the two. _Bactria_ is the ancient name of that district
now called Balkh, in Afghanistan.
33 7. evasion. Compare with its positive correspondent _invasion_;
compare _decrement_, p. 31, l. 11.
34 8. champaign savannas. Both words mean about the same, an open,
treeless country, nearly level. What is the linguistic source of both
words?
37 19. hills of Moulgaldchares. Spurs of the Urals running southwest.
38 10. Polish dragoons. "The adjective refers not to the
nationality, but to the equipment of the cavalry. Thus there was at
one time in the French army a corps called _Chasseurs d'Afrique_, and
in both the French and that of the Northern troops in our own Civil
War a corps of Zouaves. Similarly at p. 53, l. 24, De Quincey speaks
of _yagers_ among the Chinese troops. Perhaps both Polish dragoon and
yager were well-known military terms in 1837. At any rate there is no
gain in scrutinizing them too closely, since the context in both cases
seems to be pure invention."--BALDWIN.
38 11. cuirassiers. From the French. Soldiers protected by a
cuirass, or breastplate, and mounted.
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