Notes 



ment of Prophecies, translated by Heath, Oxford, 1613. In the same volume of The 

 Phoenix the reader will find a curious paper, xvi., tending to show that Charles II. 

 died a Catholic. B. 



Page 43. And an ingenious Spaniard says. This passage is supposed to be 

 quoted by memory from John Valdesso, an old soldier of Charles V., who after 

 his master's abdication retired to Naples, where he wrote in Spanish, The Hundred 

 and Ten Considerations of Signer Valdesso, which were translated into Italian by 

 Curio, and thence into English by Nicholas Farrar, Ir. Oxford, 1638, 410. M. 



Hawkins could not find the passage in Valdesso, and therefore doubted Browne's 

 opinion that Valdesso was the " ingenious Spaniard ; " but Walton, as we have said, 

 quoted from memory and incorrectly. B. 



Page 43. a river in Epirus, that puts out any lighted torch, etc. From evolving 

 sulphuretted hydrogen. B. 



Page 43. The river Belarus. Properly Silarus, the modern Silaro, on the 

 banks of which stand the ruins of Paestum. The waters retain the quality to this 

 day. Lochmere is Loch Neagh. It requires more than a few hours to produce 

 the petrifaction. B. 



Page 43. a river in Arabia. The river referred to was probably the Adonis, 

 running out of Mount Libanus, which turns red, from the red soil of the mountain, 

 at the time of freshets. This the Biblyans connected with the story of the death 

 of Adonis, in honour of whom they kept the Adonia. The reader will find a full 

 account in Lucian's Syrian (goddess, and in Dupuis, Qrigine des Cultes, vol. iv. B. 



Page 43. a merry river. A report no doubt taken from some bubbling spring. 

 RENNIE. 



Page 44. a river in Surrey (it is called Mole), etc. This notion of the Mole 

 is-found in Drayton's Poly-Olbion, Milton on Rivers, and Pope's Windsor Forest. 

 It arises from the bed of the river being of absorbent earth, into which in dry 

 seasons it seems to disappear. Defoe's Tour through England; Dallawafs Lethe- 

 raum sive Horti Letherteani. B. 



Page 44. a river in Judea, etc. Josephus tells a story of a river between 

 Arcea and Raphanea, and says that Titus saw it. (Jewish War, vii. 5.) He, 

 however, reverses Walton's account, making it run on the seventh day, and stand 

 still six days; but Pliny (Nat. Hist., xxxi. u) makes it run six days and stand 

 still on the seventh. Instances of intermitting fountains are given by geographers 

 (Uarenius, i. 17). This stream has been found by no traveller but Purchas. See 

 The Land and the Book, by the Rev. W. M. Thomson, vol. i. pp. 406 et seq. B. 



Page 44. baleena or whirlpool. Balaena properly means a whale. Pliny's 



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