Headlong Hall
Thomas Love Peacock
NOTES
Chapter 1
(1.1) Foster, quasi _Phostaer_,--from _phaos_ and _taereo_, lucem servo, conservo, observo, custodio,--one who watches over and guards the light; a sense in which the word is often used amongst us, we speak of _fostering_ a flame.
(1.2) Escot, quasi _es skoton_, _in tenebras_, scilicet, intuens; one who is always looking into the dark side of the question.
(1.3) Jenkison: This name may be derived from _aien ex ison_, _semper ex aequalibus_--scilicet, mensuris omnia metiens: one who from equal measures divides and distributes all things: one who from equal measures can always produce arguments on both sides of a question, with so much nicety and exactness, as to keep the said question eternally pending, and the balance of the controversy perpetually in statu quo. By an aphaeresis of the _a_, an elision of the second _e_, and an easy and natural mutation of _x_ into _k_, the derivation of this name proceeds according to the strictest principles of etymology: _aien ex ison--Ien ex ison--Ien ek ison--Ien 'k ison--Ienkison_--Ienkison--Jenkison.
(1.4) Gaster: scilicet _Gastaer_--Venter, et praeterea nihil.
Chapter 2
(2.1) See Emmerton on the Auricula.
Chapter 3
(3.1) Mr Knight, in a note to the Landscape, having taken the liberty of laughing at a notable device of a celebrated _improver_, for giving greatness of character to a place, and showing an undivided extent of property, by placing the family arms on the neighbouring _milestones_, the improver retorted on him with a charge of misquotation, misrepresentation, and malice prepense. Mr Knight, in the preface to the second edition of his poem, quotes the improver's words:--"The market-house, or other public edifice, or even a _mere stone with distances_, may bear the arms of the family:" and adds:--"By a _mere stone with distances_, the author of the Landscape certainly thought he meant a _milestone_; but, if he did not, any other interpretation which he may think more advantageous to himself shall readily be adopted, as it will equally answer the purpose of the quotation." The improver, however, did not condescend to explain he really meant by a _mere stone with distances_, though he strenuously maintained that he did _not_ mean a _milestone._ His idea, therefore, stands on record, invested with all the sublimity that obscurity can confer.
(3.2) "Il est constant qu'elles se baisent de meilleur coeur, et se caressent avec plus de grace devant les hommes, fieres d'aiguiser impunement leur convoitise par l'image des faveurs qu'elles savent leur faire envier."--Rousseau, _Emile_, liv. 5.
Chapter 4
(4.1) See Price on the Picturesque.
(4.2) See Knight on Taste, and the Edinburgh Review, No. XIV.
(4.3) Protracted banquets have been copious sources of evil.
Chapter 5
(5.1) See Lord Monboddo's Ancient Metaphysics.
(5.2) Drummond's Academical Questions.
(5.3) Homer is proved to have been a lover of wine by the praises he bestows upon it.
(5.4) A cup of wine at hand, to drink as inclination prompts.
Chapter 6
(6.1) See Knight on Taste.
Chapter 7
(7.1) Fragments of a demolished world.
(7.2) Took's Diversions of Purley.
Chapter 8
(8.1) Some readers will, perhaps, recollect the Archbishop of Prague, who also was an excellent sportsman, and who,
Com' era scritto in certi suoi giornali, Ucciso avea con le sue proprie mani Un numero infinito d'animali: Cinquemila con quindici fagiani, Seimila lepri, ottantantre cignali, E per disgrazia, ancor _tredici cani_, &c.
Chapter 9
(9.1) Me miserable! and thrice miserable! and four times, and five times, and twelve times, and ten thousand times miserable!
(9.2) Pronounced cooroo--the Welsh word for _ale._
(10.1) Long since dead.
(10.2) Georg. I. 199.
(10.3) Sat. XIII. 28.
(10.4) Carm. III. 6, 46.
Chapter 11
(11.1) Pistyll, in Welch, signifies a cataract, and Rhaidr a cascade.
(11.2) Rabelais.
Chapter 13
(13.1) Rousseau, Discours sur les Sciences.
Chapter 14
(14.1) Jeremy Taylor.
Chapter 15
(15.1) _It descends to the shades_: or, in other words, _it goes to the devil_.