NOTES

Page 88.

That of our vices we can frame

A ladder.

The words of St. Augustine are, "De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus."

Sermon III. De Ascensione.

Page 90.

THE PHANTOM SHIP.

A detailed account of this "apparition of a Ship in the Air" is given by Cotton Mather in his Magnalia Christi, Book I. Ch. VI. It is contained in a letter from the Rev. James Pierpont, Pastor of New Haven. To this account Mather adds these words:

"Reader, there being yet living so many credible gentlemen, that were eyewitnesses of this wonderful thing, I venture to publish it for a thing as undoubted as 't is wonderful."

Page 99.

And the Emperor but a Macho.

Macho, in Spanish, signifies a mule. Golondrina is the feminine form of Golondrino, a swallow, and also a cant name for a deserter.

Oliver Basselin, the "Père joyeux du Vaudeville," flourished in the fifteenth century, and gave to his convivial songs the name of his native valleys, in which he sang them, Vauxde-Vire. This name was afterwards corrupted into the modern Vaudeville.

Page 109. VICTOR GALBRAITH.

Victor Galbraith was a

This poem is founded on fact. bugler in a company of volunteer cavalry; and was shot in Mexico for some breach of discipline. It is a common superstition among soldiers, that no balls will kill them unless their names are written on them. The old proverb says, “Every

bullet has its billet."

Page 112. I remember the sea-fight far away.

This was the engagement between the Enterprise and Boxer, off the harbor of Portland, in which both captains were slain. They were buried side by side, in the cemetery on Mountjoy.

At Pisa the church of San Francisco contains a chapel dedicated lately to Santa Filomena; over the altar is a picture, by Sabatelli, representing the Saint as a beautiful, nymph-like figure, floating down from heaven, attended by two angels bearing the lily, palm, and javelin, and beneath, in the foreground, the sick and maimed, who are healed by her intercession." - MRS. JAMESON, Sacred and Legendary Art, II. 298.

THE SONG OF HIAWATHA. This Indian Edda - if I may so call it—is founded on a tradition prevalent among the North American Indians, of a personage of miraculous birth, who was sent among them to clear their rivers, forests, and fishing-grounds, and to teach them the arts of peace. He was known among different tribes by the several names of Michabou, Chiabo, Manabozo, Tarenyawagon, and Hiawatha. Mr. Schoolcraft gives an account of him in his Algic Researches, Vol. I. p. 134; and in his History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Part III.

p. 314, may be found the Iroquois form of the tradition derived from the verbal narrations of an Onondaga chief.

Into this old tradition I have woven other curious Indian legends, drawn chiefly from the various and valuable writings of Mr. Schoolcraft, to whom the literary world is greatly indebted for his indefatigable zeal in rescuing from oblivion so much of the legendary lore of the Indians.

The scene of the poem is among the Ojibways on the southern shore of Lake Superior, in the region between the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable.

PAGE 144. In the Vale of Tawasentha.

This valley, now called Norman's Kill, is in Albany County, New York.

PAGE 149. On the Mountains of the Prairie.

Mr. Catlin, in his Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. II. p. 160, gives an interesting account of the Côteau des Prairies, and the Red Pipe-stone Quarry. He says:

"Here (according to their traditions) happened the mysterious birth of the red pipe, which has blown its fumes of peace and war to the remotest corners of the continent; which has visited every warrior, and passed through its reddened stem the irrevocable oath of war and desolation. And here, also, the peace-breathing calumet was born, and fringed with the eagle's quills, which has shed its thrilling fumes over the land, and soothed the fury of the relentless savage.

"The Great Spirit at an ancient period here called the Indian nations together, and, standing on the precipice of the red pipe-stone rock, broke from its wall a piece, and made a huge pipe by turning it in his hand, which he smoked over them, and to the North, the South, the East, and the West, and told them that this stone was red, that it was their flesh,

- that they must use it for their pipes of peace, - that it belonged to them all, and that the war-club and scalpingknife must not be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head went into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the rock for several miles was melted and glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women (guardian spirits of the place) entered them in a blaze of fire; and they are heard there yet (Tso-mec-cos-tee and Tso-me-cos-te-wondee), answering to the invocations of the high-priests or medicine-men, who consult them when they are visitors to this sacred place."

PAGE 156. Hark you, Bear! you are a coward.

This anecdote is from Heckewelder. In his account of the Indian Nations, he describes an Indian hunter as addressing a bear in nearly these words. "I was present,” he says, at the delivery of this curious invective; when the hunter had despatched the bear, I asked him how he thought that poor animal could understand what he said to it? 'O,' said he in answer, 'the bear understood me very well; did you not observe how ashamed he looked while I was upbraiding him?’” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. I.

p. 240.

PAGE 168. Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee!

Heckewelder, in a letter published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. IV. p. 260, speaks of this tradition as prevalent among the Mohicans and Dela

wares.

“Their reports,” he says, run thus that among all animals that had been formerly in this country, this was the most ferocious; that it was much larger than the largest of the common bears, and remarkably long-bodied; all over, (except a spot of hair on its back of a white color,) naked.

"The history of this animal used to be a subject of conversation among the Indians, especially when in the woods a hunting. I have also heard them say to their children when crying: 'Hush! the naked bear will hear you, be upon you, and devour you."

PAGE 183. Where the Falls of Minnehaha, &c.

"The scenery about Fort Snelling is rich in beauty. The Falls of St. Anthony are familiar to travellers, and to readers of Indian sketches. Between the fort and these falls are the 'Little Falls,' forty feet in height, on a stream that empties into the Mississippi. The Indians call them Mine-hah-hah, or 'laughing waters.' - Mrs. Eastman's Dacotah, or Legends of the Sioux, Introd., p. ii.

PAGE 238. Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo.

A description of the Grand Sable, or great sand dunes of Lake Superior, is given in Foster and Whitney's Report on the Geology of the Lake Superior Land District, Part II. p. 131.

"The Grand Sable possesses a scenic interest little inferior to that of the Pictured Rocks. The explorer passes abruptly from a coast of consolidated sand to one of loose materials; and although in the one case the cliffs are less precipitous, yet in the other they attain a higher altitude. He sees before him a long reach of coast, resembling a vast sand-bank, more than three hundred and fifty feet in height, without a trace of vegetation. Ascending to the top, rounded hillocks of blown sand are observed, with occasional clumps of trees, standing out like oases in the desert.'

PAGE 239. Onaway! Awake, beloved!

The original of this song may be found in Littell's Living Age, Vol. XXV. p. 45.