dedication tells how Cecilia, by her music, drew
an angel from heaven, who brought her roses of Paradise. The
ballad of King Cophetua and the beggar maid may be read in the
_Percy Reliques_. Hecate is a triple deity, known as Luna in heaven,
Diana on earth, and Proserpine in hell. In the reference to Milton
I think Lamb must have been thinking of the lines, _Paradise Lost_,
I., 27-28:--

Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell....

or, _Paradise Lost_, V., 542:--

And so from Heav'n to deepest Hell.

Alecto (Part I., Stanza II.) was one of the Furies.--Old Parr (Stanza
IV.) lived to be 152; he died in 1635.--Semiramis (Stanza XVII.) was
Queen of Assyria, under whom Babylon became the most wonderful city in
the world; Helen was Helen of Troy, the cause of the war between the
Greeks and Trojans; Medea was the cruel lover of Jason, who recovered
the Golden Fleece.--Clytemnestra (Stanza XVIII.) was the wife and
murderer of Agamemnon; Joan of Naples was Giovanna, the wife of Andrea
of Hungary, who was accused of assassinating him. Landor wrote a play,
"Giovanna of Naples," to "restore her fame" and "requite her wrongs;"
Cleopatra was the Queen of Egypt, and lover of Mark Antony; Jocasta
married her son Oedipus unknowing who he was.--A tailor's "goose"
(Stanza XXII.) is his smoothing-iron, and his "hell" (Stanza XXIII.) the
place where he throws his shreds and debris.--Lamb's own "Vision of
Horns" (see Vol. I.) serves as a commentary on Stanza XXVII.; and in his
essay "On the Melancholy of Tailors" (Vol. I.) are further remarks on
the connection between tailors and cabbage in Stanza I. of Part II.--The
two Miss Crockfords of Stanza XVIII. would be the daughters of William
Crockford, of Crockford's Club, who, after succeeding to his father's
business of fishmonger, opened the gaming-house which bore his name and
amassed a fortune of upwards of a million.--Semele (Stanza XXI.), whose
lightest wish Jupiter had sworn to grant, was treacherously induced to
express the desire that Jupiter would visit her with the divine pomp in
which he approached his lawful wife Juno. He did so, and she was
consumed by his lightning and thunderbolts.--The bard of Stanza XXV. is,
of course, Virgil.

* * * * *

Page 138. Prologues and Epilogues.

Writing to Sarah Stoddart concerning Godwin's "Faulkener" Mary Lamb
remarked: "Prologues and Epilogues wi