Gomor, a Hebrew measure

458.18. The subject of this excellent piece of easy criticism is the poem of Parny given above.

455. 32. The four friends have 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 have 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 present extract—S¢r.-

Notes. 555

em cr

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.

Hierro, 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 orate, abounds in unusual words—a ‘Romantic’ habit. But they are all to be found in Littré’s smaller dictionary. This is noticeable as an instance of Gautier’s abstinence from mere argot.

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

. This singular piece 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 representative of the eccentric side of Romanticism.

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

. 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.

Salle,sc. d'armes. Faire mouche, not, as we say, ‘ snuff a candle,’ but ‘hit the small black bull's-eye of a pistol gallery target.’

The scene has shifted to the house of Chaudieu’s father-in-law, and Laboissière has carried out his threat of insult.

Jean Bélin = Giovanni Bellini.

Noces de Cana, the masterpiece of Paolo Veronese in the Louvre.

Palmes vertes, the official badge of Academicians.

St. Julian in his youth is immoderately addicted to the chase, and has committed a brutal slaughter of beasts. He is supernaturally punished.

Aspidiques ; this very unusual word will be found also at p. 27, L 4. It is probably a reminiscence of that passage.