aterial wealth
beyond any other people, at no time has the doctrine of universal labour
and repudiation of the fictitious riches of metallic hordes or usurious
accumulations been so invariably denounced. Harrison's simple evidence is
supported by all the records of the time.--W.

[135] Roger Bacon.--H. [The philosopher's stone is yet missing which is to
accomplish this miracle of making malleable glass, something which has had
a strange fascination as an inventor's dream in all ages. The account of
Tiberius Caesar dashing out the brains of the all-too-clever mechanic (who
had actually accomplished this feat), so as to prevent the Roman world
from emancipating itself from the rule of _iron_ (or _of gold_), is the
most startling legend in the imperial annals. Old Friar Bacon, who devoted
so much attention to optics, naturally put this feat in the forefront of
the list of wonders to be accomplished by his great elixir; and Harrison's
_slip_ yet remains beyond the eager grasp of men, though the grand
desideratum has been again and again announced in our own time.--W.]

[136] This was the first English idea of the potato as instanced in the
last scene of the _Merry Wives of Windsor_. This was not what is now
generally understood as the potato, but the sweet potato of Virginia
brought home by Raleigh. The common potato (which has been only _common_
even in North America for less than a century) is often mixed historically
with this other tuber. As a fact, our familiar vegetable of to-day is
largely a creature of artificial development, and nowhere grows in the
same quality wild, whereas the yam or sweet potato is very little altered
from its native state.--W.

[137] Sweet cicely, sometimes miscalled myrrh. Mure is the Saxon word. At
one time the plant was not uncommon as a salad.--W.

[138] Crosby Ravensworth in Westmorland is misnamed. It is either _Raven's
thwaite_ or _Raven's swarth_, but never _worth_, which is here
meaningless. _Swarth_ still lingers on the tongues of the mowers, and
_thwaite_ was the form adopted by a once famous family from this mountain
fastness. The parish is notable as the home of the Addisons.--W.

[139] A famine at hand is first seen in the horse-manger, when the poor do
fall to horse corn.--H.

[140] The size of bread is very ill kept or not at all looked unto in the
country towns or markets.--H.

[141] The wine which Scott has (from the Gallic tinge to everything
Caledonian) buried for al