9 24 VON TROIL'S ICELAND: The Letters on Iceland (Pinkerton's Voyages
and Travels, Vol. I, p. 621), containing Observations ... made during a
Voyage undertaken in the year 1772, by Uno Von Troil, D.D., of
Stockholm, contains no chapter of the kind. Such a chapter had
appeared, however, in N. Horrebow's (Danish, 1758) Natural History of
Iceland: "Chap. LXXII. Concerning snakes. No snakes of any kind are to
be met with throughout the whole island." In Boswell's Johnson, Vol.
IV, p. 314, Temple ed., there is a much more correct allusion, which
may have been in De Quincey's mind: "Langton said very well to me
afterwards, that he could repeat Johnson's conversation before dinner,
as Johnson had said that he could repeat a complete chapter of The
Natural History of Iceland, from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of
which was exactly thus: 'Chap. LXXII. Concerning Snakes. There are no
snakes to be met with throughout the whole island.'"
9 25 A PARLIAMENTARY RAT: one who deserts his own party when it is
losing.
10 16 "JAM PROXIMUS," etc.: AEneid, II, lines 311-312: "Now next (to
Deiphobus' house) Ucalegon (i.e. his house) blazes!"
11 27 QUARTERINGS: See p. 47, footnote, and note 47 2.
11 32 WITHIN BENEFIT OF CLERGY: Benefit of clergy was, under old
English law, the right of clerics, afterward extended to all who could
read, to plead exemption from trial before a secular judge.
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