NOTES TO PART I.

Note 1. Page 186. Line 11.

Rome of the waters!

"The ocean-Rome."-Lord Byron.

Note 2. Page 188. Line 11.

Where in the zenith smiles the polar star.

At the pole, the stars of the northern hemisphere, alone, are visible; and the polar star is immediately over-head.

Note 3. Page 188. Line 17.

Where faints the magnet 'mid the burning zone.

As we approach the equator, the intensity of the magnetic quality gradually diminishes.

Note 4. Page 188. Line 19.

Where glow the midnight waves in liquid flame.

See Mons. Péron's description of the Pyrosoma, or fireflies, in the tropical seas.--Voyage aux Terres Australes.

Note 5. Page 189. Line 17.

Thou, who hast been, indeed, the pillared light. Exodus. Chap. xiii.

Note 6. Page 190. Line 10.

The lyre whose song should lull him to repose!

The statue of Memnon.

Note 7. Page 190. Lines 11 and 12.

Some lone memorials mark the silent spot

Where Memphis was, and tell that she is not!

The Pyramids are said to have stood in the neighbourhood of Memphis.

Note 8. Page 190. Line 13.

Balbec is shrouded in mysterious fame!

The ancient Heliopolis.

Note 9. Page 191. Line 8.

Thou dream-like city of the hundred isles!

"Where Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles !" Childe Harold.

Note 10. Page 191. Line 15.

Thy lion, looking, o'er the Adrian sea.

The lion was the standard of the Venetian republic.

Note 11. Page 194. Lines 1 and 2.

The first who sailed round each discovered shore,
And sealed a truth but darkly guessed before!

Luconia is one of the Philippine Islands, where Magellan was slain, in a skirmish with the natives. This celebrated Portuguese entered into the service of Spain; and, sailing from Seville, on the 10th August, 1519, is the first navigator who performed the circuit of the world. His ship returned to Spain, without him, after an absence of 1124 days, or three years and twenty-nine days. By this voyage, he completely ascertained the round figure of the earth;—although its shadow, in an eclipse of the moon, might have led to that knowledge, before.

Note 12. Page 194.

Lines 3 and 4.

Then, too, Columbus, of the giant mind,

Had left his sorrows and his fame behind.

Columbus died thirteen years before the voyage of Magellan :— thirteen years after his discovery of Cuba, and eight years after that of South America.

Note 13. Page 195. Line 14.

And far-off islets gemmed the sunny seas!

When De Brosses first proposed the classification of the islands scattered throughout the eastern seas, into the Polynesian and Australasian groups,-leaving those islands which are on the coast of Asia, and those in the Indian Ocean, under the old denomination of the Asiatic Islands, in analogy to that rule which assigns the general name of every other continent to all its adjacent islands,―he proposed, also, a fourth division, which he calls Magellania,' from Magellan, the discoverer,—and which was intended to follow the same rule, by including all those islands beginning at the southern point of America, and extending to the southern point of Africa, and supposed, in his day, to lie along the great unknown Terra Australis. This fourth division is rendered unnecessary, by the expulsion of that imaginary continent from modern geography.

Note 14. Page 195. Lines 15 to 18.

Till learning, stamping fancy's glowing cheat,
And fixing form and limits to its seat,

Gave to the airy nothing' of a dream

" A local habitation and a name' !*

The learned and ingenious President de Brosses, not much

* Midsummer Night's Dream.