"Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen enfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say--Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up."

Shakspeare: _Midsummer Night's Dream_.

"Nicht Blitzen gleich, die schnell vorueber schiessen,
Und ploetzlich von der Nacht verschlungen sind,
Mein Glueck wird seyn."

Schiller: _Die Braut von Messina_.

G.

Greenock.

* * * * *{331}

ERRORS CORRECTED.

_I._--Sharon Turner's _Hist. of England_ (Lond. 1814. 4to.), i. 332.

"The Emperor (Henry VI.) determined to extort an immoderate
ransom; but, to secure it, had him (Richard Coeur de Lion)
conveyed to a castle _in the Tyrol_, from which escape was
hopeless."--_Note_ "104. In _Tiruali_. Oxened. MS."

Ibid. p. 333:

"He (Richard) was removed from the dungeon _in the Tyrol_
to the emperor's residence at Haguenau."--_Note_ "109. See
_Richard's Letter to his Mother_. Hoveden, 726."

The fortress, here represented to be in the _Tyrol_, is about 220
miles distant ("as the crow flies") from the nearest point in that
district, and is the Castle of Trifels, which still crowns the highest
of three rocky eminences (Treyfels = _Three Rocks_), which rise from
the mountain range of the Vosges, on the southern side of the town
of Annweiler. In proceeding from Landau to Zweibruecken (Deux-Ponts),
the traveller may see it on his left. The keep is still in good
preservation; and it was on account of the natural strength of its
position that the imperial crown-jewels were formerly preserved in it.

I am unable to refer at present to the MS. of Oxenedes (Cotton, Nero,
D 2), which appears to give the erroneous reading of _Tirualli_
for _Triualli_ or _Trivalli_; but Mr. Turner might have avoided the
mistake by comparing that MS. with the printed text of Hoveden, in
which Richard is represented as dating his letter "de Castello de
Triuellis, in quo detinebamur."

_II._--Wright's _S. Patrick's Purgatory_ (Lond. 1844. 8vo.), p. 135.:

"On the patent rolls in the Tower of London, under the year
1358, we have an instance of testimonials given by the
king (Edward III.) on the same day, to two distinguished
foreigners, one _a noble Hungarian_, the other a Lombard,
Nicholas de Beccariis, of their having faithfully performed
this pilgrimage."

In a note on this passage, Mr. Wright reprints one of the testimon