Gomor, a Hebrew measure

453. 18. The subject of this excellent piece of easy critidsm is the poem of Parny given above.

4,m. 22. The four friends hâve caught Mordaunt (their personal enemy, and identified with the masked executioner of Charles I) in a solitary house where he has been conferring with Cromwell. The latter has just departed, and the friends hâve surprised Mordaunt.

458. 1. Balzac’s chief characteristics are not of style, except in a few of his works, of which the source of the présent extract — Sera-

Notes.

phita — is by far the best. His faculty of character-analysis could only be shown by extracts of a length altogether beyond the limits of such a book as this. But his absence from a collection of specimens of French literature would be justly remarked upon.

473. 10. Hierrc , in Span. ‘iron.’ This extract, which is as remarkable an example of Gautier’s later and easier style as the preceding is of his earlier and more ornate, abounds in unusual words — a ‘ Romantic ’ habit. But they are ail to be found in Littré’s smaller dictionary. This is noticeable as an instance of Gautier’s abstinence from mere argot.

492. 17. Gérard de Nerval was especially given to wandering about the ciCes and villages of the old metropolitan province, and much of his most charming work is the resuit of this habit.

501. 1. This singular pièce of fantastic allegory is extracted from the verse-preface of Madame Putiphar. The whole is too long for insertion, but even thus reduced the piece shows excellently the faults and the merits of the most eccentric représentative of the eccentric side of Romanticism.

503.2 2. Main de gloire, a well-known device for discovering hidden treasure, consisting of the hand of a dead man treated according to receipt.

507. 10. Laboissière, an adventurer of the worst class, has endeavoured

to swindle Chaudieu and his father-in-law, and to pay dishonourable court both to Madame Chaudieu and her mother. Having obtained possession of a forged bill, Chaudieu checkmates him, and in the first place forces him to disgorge his booty in exchange for the document.

508. 36. Salle, sc. d'armes. Faire mouche, not, as we say, ‘ snuff a candie,

but ‘ hit the small black bull’s eye of a pistol gallery target.’

509. 18. The scene has shifted to the house of Chaudieu’s father-in-law,

and Laboissière has carried out his threat of insult.