Page 27. The plangent wars. Latin plango, to strike, to beat. word is rather unusual in English.

Plangent is from the Stevenson's use of the

Page 27. The old shepherd telling his tale.. See Milton, L'Allegro :

"And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale."

"Tells his tale" means of course "counts his sheep," not "tells a story." The old use of the word "tell" for "count" survives to-day in the word "teller" in a parliamentary assemblage, or in a bank.

Page 29. Colonel Newcome... Fred Bayham ... Mr. Barnes...Falstaff ... Barabbases... Hazlitt ... Northcote. Colonel Newcome, the great character in Thackeray's The Newcomes (1854). Fred Bayham and Barnes Newcome are persons in the same story. One of the best essays on Falstaff is the one printed in the first series of Mr. Augustine Birrell's Obiter Dicta (1884). This essay would have pleased Thackeray. One of the finest epitaphs in literature is that pronounced over the supposedly dead body of Falstaff by Prince Hal-“I could have better spared a better man." (King Henry IV, Part I, Act V, Sc. 4.) Barabbas was the robber who was released at the time of the trial of Christ. ... William Hazlitt (1778-1830), the well-known essayist, published in 1830 the Conversations of James Northcote (1746-1831). Northcote was an artist and writer, who had been an assistant in the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Stevenson projected a Life of Hazlitt, but later abandoned the undertaking. (Life, I, 230.)

Page 30. The quality of mercy. See Portia's wonderful speech in the Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I.

Page 32. Joan of Arc. The famous inspired French peasant girl, who led the armies of her king to victory, and who was burned at Rouen in 1431. She was variously regarded as a harlot and a saint. In Shakspere's historical plays, she is represented in the basest manner, from

conventional motives of English patriotism. Voltaire's scandalous work, La Pucelle, and Schiller's noble Jungfrau von Orleans make an instructive contrast. She has been the subject of many dramas and works of poetry and fiction. Her latest prominent admirer is Mark Twain, whose historical romance Joan of Arc is one of the most carefully written, though not one of the most characteristic of his books.

Page 32. "So careless of the single life." See Tennyson's In Memoriam, LV, where the poet discusses the pessimism caused by regarding the apparent indifference of nature to the happiness of the individual.

"Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life."

Page 23. Shakespeare Sir Thomas Lucy. The familiar tradition that Shakspere as a boy was a poacher on the preserves of his aristocratic neighbor, Sir Thomas Lucy. See Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare. In 1879, at the first performance of As You Like It at the Stratford Memorial Theatre, the deer brought on the stage in Act IV, Scene 2, had been shot that very morning by H. S. Lucy, Esq., of Charlecote Park, a descendant of the owner of the herd traditionally attacked by the future dramatist.

Page 32. Atlas. In mythology, the leader of the Titans, who fought the Gods, and was condemned by Zeus to carry the weight of the vault of heaven on his head and hands. In the sixteenth century the name Atlas was given to a collection of maps by Mercator, probably because a picture of Atlas had been commonly placed on the titlepages of geographical works.

Page 33. Pharoah . . . Pyramid. For Pharoah's experiences with the Israelites, see the book of Exodus.

Pharaoh was merely the name given by the children of Israel to the rulers of Egypt: cf. Caesar, Kaiser, etc. ... The Egyptian pyramids were regarded as one of the seven wonders of ancient times, the great pyramid weighing over six million tons. The pyramids were used for

the tombs of monarchs.

Page 33. Young men who work themselves into a decline. Compare the tone of the close of this essay with that of the conclusion of Es Triplex. Stevenson himself died in the midst of the most arduous work possiblethe making of a literary masterpiece.

III

TH

ES TRIPLEX

HE changes wrought by death are in themselves so sharp and final, and so terrible and melancholy in their consequences, that the thing stands alone in man's experience, and has no parallel upon earth. It outdoes all other accidents because it is the last of them. Sometimes it leaps suddenly upon its victims, like a Thug; sometimes it lays a regular siege and creeps upon their citadel during a score of years. And when the business is done, there is sore havoc made in other people's lives, and a pin knocked out by which many subsidiary friendships hung together. There are empty chairs, solitary walks, and single beds at night. Again in taking away our friends, death does not take them away utterly, but leaves behind a mocking, tragical, and soon intolerable residue, which must be hurriedly concealed. Hence a whole chapter of sights and customs striking to the mind, from the pyramids of Egypt to the gibbets and dule trees of medieval Europe. The poorest persons have a bit of pageant going towards the tomb; memorial stones are set up over the least memorable; and, in order to preserve some show of respect for what remains of our old loves and friendships, we must accompany it with much grimly