[Footnote 1: A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared
suddenly in the heavens--attained, in a few days, a brilliancy
surpassing that of Jupiter--then as suddenly disappeared, and has never
been seen since.]


[Footnote 2: On Santa Maura--olim Deucadia.]


[Footnote 3: Sappho.]


[Footnote 4: This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort.
The bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated.]


[Footnote: Clytia--the Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a
better-known term, the turnsol--which turns continually towards the sun,
covers itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy
clouds which cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat
of the day.--'B. de St. Pierre.']


[Footnote 6: There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a
species of serpentine aloe without prickles, whose large and beautiful
flower exhales a strong odor of the vanilla, during the time of its
expansion, which is very short. It does not blow till towards the month
of July--you then perceive it gradually open its petals--expand
them--fade and die.--'St. Pierre'.]


[Footnote 7: There is found, in the Rhone, a beautiful lily of the
Valisnerian kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four
feet--thus preserving its head above water in the swellings of the
river.]


[Footnote 8: The Hyacinth.]


[Footnote 9: It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first seen
floating in one of these down the river Ganges, and that he still loves
the cradle of his childhood.]


[Footnote 10: And golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of
the saints.--'Rev. St. John.']


[Footnote 11: The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as
having really a human form.--'Vide Clarke's Sermons', vol. I, page 26,
fol. edit.

The drift of Milton's argument leads him to employ language which would
appear, at first sight, to verge upon their doctrine; but it will be
seen immediately, that he guards himself against the charge of having
adopted one of the most ignorant errors of the dark ages of the
Church.--'Dr. Sumner's Notes on Milton's Christian Doctrine'.

This opinion, in spite of many testimonies to the contrary, could never
have been very general. Andeus, a Syrian of Mesopotamia, was condemned
for the opinion, as heretical. He lived in the beginning of the fourth
century. His disciples were called Anthropomorphites.--'Vide du Pin'.

Among Milton's minor poems are these lines:


Dicite sacrorum praeesides nemorum Dese, etc.,
Quis ille primus cujus ex imagine
Natura solers finxit humanum genus?
Eternus, incorruptus, aequaevus polo,
Unusque et universus exemplar Dei.

--And afterwards,

Non cui profundum Caecitas lumen dedit
Dircaeus augur vidit hunc alto sinu, etc.]


[Footnote 12:

Seltsamen Tochter Jovis
Seinem Schosskinde
Der Phantasie.

'Goethe'.]


[Footnote 13: Sightless--too small to be seen.--'Legge'.]


[Footnote 14: I have often noticed a peculiar movement of the
fire-flies; they will collect in a body and fly off, from a common
centre, into innumerable radii.]


[Footnote 15: Therasaea, or Therasea, the island mentioned by Seneca,
which, in a moment, arose from the sea to the eyes of astonished
mariners.]


[Footnote 16:

Some star which, from the ruin'd roof
Of shak'd Olympus, by mischance did fall.

'Milton'.]


[Footnote 17: Voltaire, in speaking of Persepolis, says,

"Je connais bien l'admiration qu'inspirent ces ruines--mais un palais
erige au pied d'une chaine de rochers steriles--peut-il etre un chef
d'oeuvre des arts!"]


[Footnote 18: "Oh, the wave"--Ula Deguisi is the Turkish appellation;
but, on its own shores, it is called Baliar Loth, or Al-motanah. There
were undoubtedly more than two cities engulphed in the "dead sea." In
the valley of Siddim were five--Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah.
Stephen of Byzantium mentions eight, and Strabo thirteen (engulphed)
--but the last is out of all reason. It is said (Tacitus, Strabo,
Josephus, Daniel of St. Saba, Nau, Maundrell, Troilo, D'Arvieux), that
after an excessive drought, the vestiges of columns, walls, etc., are
seen above the surface. At 'any' season, such remains may be discovered
by looking down into the transparent lake, and at such distance as would
argue the existence of many settlements in the space now usurped by the
"Asphaltites."]


[Footnote 19: Eyraco-Chaldea.]


[Footnote 20: I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of
the darkness as it stole over the horizon.]


[Footnote 21:

Fairies use flowers for their charactery.

'Merry Wives of Windsor'.]


[Footnote 22: In Scripture is this passage:

"The sun shall not harm thee by day, nor the moon by night."

It is, perhaps, not generally known that the moon, in Egypt, has the
effect of producing blindness to those who sleep with the face exposed
to its rays, to which circumstances the passage evidently
alludes.]


[Footnote 23: The Albatross is said to sleep on the wing.]


[Footnote 24: I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am
now unable to obtain and quote from memory:

"The verie essence and, as it were, springe heade and origine of all
musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde which the trees of the forest
do make when they growe."]


[Footnote 25: The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be
moonlight. The rhyme in the verse, as in one about sixty lines before,
has an appearance of affectation. It is, however, imitated from Sir W.
Scott, or rather from Claud Halcro--in whose mouth I admired its effect:

O! were there an island,
Tho' ever so wild,
Where woman might smile, and
No man be beguil'd, etc. ]


[Footnote 26: With the Arabians there is a medium between Heaven and
Hell, where men suffer no punishment, but yet do not attain that
tranquil and even happiness which they suppose to be characteristic of
heavenly enjoyment.

Un no rompido sueno--
Un dia puro--allegre--libre
Quiera--
Libre de amor--de zelo--
De odio--de esperanza--de rezelo.

'Luis Ponce de Leon.'

Sorrow is not excluded from "Al Aaraaf," but it is that sorrow which the
living love to cherish for the dead, and which, in some minds, resembles
the delirium of opium.

The passionate excitement of Love and the buoyancy of spirit attendant
upon intoxication are its less holy pleasures--the price of which, to
those souls who make choice of "Al Aaraaf" as their residence after
life, is final death and annihilation.]


[Footnote 27:

There be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon.

'Milton'.]


[Footnote 28: It was entire in 1687--the most elevated spot in Athens.]


[Footnote 29:

Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
Than have the white breasts of the queen of love.

'Marlowe.']


[Footnote 30: Pennon, for pinion.--'Milton'.]