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1. Francis Bacon in His Dedication to the 1625 Edition of His Essays Said That They Were Widely Read Because They 'Come Home to Men's Business and Bosoms'

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1. Francis Bacon in His Dedication to the 1625 Edition of His Essays Said That They Were Widely Read Because They 'Come Home to Men's Business and Bosoms' NOTES CHAPTER I PRE-NOVEL WRITINGS 1. Francis Bacon in his dedication to the 1625 edition of his essays said that they were widely read because they 'come home to men's business and bosoms'. 2. Milton's 'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity': 'And kings sat still with awful eye,/ As if they surely knew their sov'reign Lord was by.' 3· Isaac Newton (1642-1727), scientist and mathematician, discovered the law of gravitation; Frederick Herschel (1738-1822), astronomer, made important discoveries in the solar system and the Milky Way. 4· This reference to fossils exemplifies the author's scientific interests, and her way of drawing on them for incidental illustrations. 5· In his Novum Organum Bacon distinguishes between four types of idola or mental habits which lead to erroneous conclusions; the idola theatri arise from accepted systems of thought or philosophy. 6. During her widowhood Madame de Sable (159g-1678) held, at her residence in the Place Royale, a salon which was attended by men and women of distinction, including Pascal and La Rochefoucauld. Discussions ranged from theology, physics, metaphysics, and morals to society and topical questions. 7· On 7 September 1838, with her father William Darling, lighthouse keeper on one of the Farne Islands off the Northum brian coast. 8. David Teniers (16IO-go), Flemish; Murillo (1618-82), Spanish. g. One of Holman Hunt's pre-Raphaelite works (1852). 10. The picture has not be identified. The popular and profuse poetess Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802-38) was best known as L. E. L. from her contributions to magazines and to such annuals as The Keepsake (cf. M.xxvii). For primo tenore, compare the passage on opera peasants (p. 13). 11. The sentence alludes to familiar lines in Thomas Gray's 'Elegy' and Milton's 'L'Allegro'. 12. Modem Painters, III, v. 13 (1856). 13. Scott, The Antiquary (1816) xxvi (Elspeth Mucklebackit; 'Luckie' was a familiar name for an elderly woman, especially a grandmother) and Chronicles ofCanongate, First Series (1827);Wordsworth, 'The Reverie of Poor Susan'; Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke (1850) xi; 'The Little Chimney-Sweep' by Joseph Hornung, a Swiss painter (1792-1870). 174 A George Eliot Miscellany 14. By Lady Caroline Lucy Scott (1856). 15. Harriet Beecher Stowe became famous with her first anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin; her second, Dred, appeared in 1856, and was reviewed by Marian Evans in the same number of The Westminster Review as that in which 'Silly Novels' appeared. 16. Night Thoughts had been Mary Evans' favourite poem in her youth. She refers to 'The Last Day' as one of Young's first two poetical performances, both bombastic. 17· This alludes to the wild hopes of speculators in the 'South Sea Bubble', which passed their peak in 1720, when, after numerous imitation companies had proved fraudulent, shares in the South Sea Company fell rapidly, and many investors were ruined. 18. Night Thoughts: viii,738-43 and iii,375-g3. 19. If there is no reward in heaven for pain and endurance, then virtue is contrary to reason, Young argues, rather like St Paul, I Corinthians, xv .32: 'what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die'. 20. George Eliot's revision of this sentence (as it appears in the 1884 edition) is preferred for directness and clarity. 21. In their beliefthat the penitent could attain salvation, the Arminians rejected the Calvinist doctrine of eternal damnation for the non­ elect. To the former, predestination was conditional; to the Calvinists, absolute. CHAPTER II TWO CONTRASTING STORIES 1. The original (28.ii. 73) has 'save' (1.3) for 'beyond'; 'heaven' (I.e.) has been retained, since it expresses the author's intention. 2. Inscription on the tomb ofjonathan Swift: 'where fierce indignation can no longer tear the heart'. 3· Recollected from Byron's Manfred, III.iv. 4· Robert Potter, The Tragedies of Aeschylus (I! vols, translation, 1777) 6th ed. (1833). Philip Francis's translation of Horace (1757). 5· Satire is implied not only in the name 'Letherall' but also in his phrenological aptitude tests. George Eliot's interest in the subject had been stimulated by Charles Bray's enthusiasm after reading George Combe's Elements of Phrenology. The originator of this 'science' was Franzjoseph Gall (1758-1828). 6. Rousseau, on the Bieler See (le Lac de Bienne). See his fifth 'promenade' in Reveries du Promeneur Solitaire (1782). 7· In which Elijah 'went up by a whirlwind into heaven' (II Kings, ii.u). 8. The pen-name of Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772-1801), a poet who died of consumption and was regarded as the 'prophet' of Romanticism. George Eliot knew enough about his life and work to draw her own conclusion. g. Antonio Canale, Venetian painter (1697-1768). Notes 113 10. One possessed by an evil spirit (cf. M.xlvi), from Scott's The Abbot, xxxxii : 'Energumene or possessed demoniac'. 11. The authenticity of many works attributed to the Italian painter Giorgione (c. 1478-1511) has been disputed. Lucrezia Borgia (148o-1519), though respected by her subjects, has been represented as the embodiment of wantonness and crime. 1~. An allusion to the story of Dr Faustus (see Marlowe's play). 13. For the same image, comparejane Eyre (xi); it probably derives from the parable of the sower (Matthew, xiii.3-8) and the opening words of Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. 14. Italian poet (1544-g5l. 15. With this incidental detail compare the more elaborate parallel in natural surroundings when Dorothea and Casaubon return from their honeymoon in Rome (M.xxviii), a scene which probably inspired Hardy to write a similar but more intensified and dramatic scene in Far from the Madding Crowd (xi). 16. From 'Le Renard et Ia Cicogne', one of the fables of La Fontaine (16~.n-g5l: 'Deceivers, I write for you; expect a similar fate.' 17. They provided books for the education of workers. 18. A popular story in England, France, and Germany, based on Richard Steele's in the eleventh paper of The Spectator (q11-14), where Thomas Inkle appears to be a man after David Faux's heart: he remembers to put self-interest first, selling Yarico, the North American Indian girl who has loved him devotedly, to a Barbadian merchant, as soon as they reach English territory and his mercenary ambition returns. 19. From biens (Fr.), goods, property; here, substance; usually, money. ~o. The Chubb firm was well known for the locks it patented. n. The 'mind free from guilt' (adapted from Virgil, Aeneid, l.6o4l. ~~. Nephew of Napoleon, and Emperor of France when this story was written. 23. Shakespeare, The Tempest, II.ii. 24. Honore de Balzac (qgg-185ol wrote numerous novels, including Le Pere Goriot and Euginie Grandet. 25. Cf. Proverbs, iii.q (on wisdom), 'Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.' 26. Gorgon is not one of the three-headed monsters of Greek mythology, but a creation of the Christian era, the same as Demogorgon. Spenser describes him in The Faerie Queene (I.i.37l as 'Great Gorgon, Prince of darknesse and dead night', and Milton associates 'the dreaded name' ofDemogorgon with Night in Paradise Lost (1I.g61-5l. 27. A long robe worn as a uniform in some of the charity schools for boys. ~8. More and more J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) chose his subjects to show amazing colour effects produced by light. ~g. Cf. Hamlet, I.ii.18o-1: 'The funeral bak'd-meats/Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.' 176 A George Eliot Miscellany go. Food from heaven (Exodus, xvi.1-15l. 31. The nightingale of the East, associated with romance. When Byron set the fashion with oriental tales in verse ('The Corsair' and 'The Siege of Corinth' among them), Thomas Moore followed suit with Lalla Rookh (1817). 32. An allusion to Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), where 'division of labour' implies specialization. 33· Although Joseph Addison wrote most of The Spectator papers (see 18 above), this refers to another by Richard Steele (no. 431, 15July 1712). 34· The passage that follows reads almost like a parody of a speech in Othello. The irony here, as in the 'flat and stale' allusion to Hamlet (I.ii.133-4) which follows, derives from the association of an unprepossessing scoundrel with men of heroic mould. The valiant blackamoor Othello charmed Desdemona, daughter of a Venetian senator, with stories of his feats and strange encounters abroad (l.iii.128-6g). 35· Richmal Mangnall (176g-182ol, who became headmistress of Crofton Hall, a girls school near Wakefield, wrote Historical and Miscellaneous Questions for the use of Young People (18oo). By 1857 this general knowledge book had reached its 84th impression. 36. Cunning Faux had adapted lines from the popular hymn 'Sun of my Soul, Thou Saviour dear' (from 'Evening' in John Keble's The Christian Year, 1827). 3 7. Leviathan ... hook ... bridle: a mock -serious allusion to Job, xli. 38. Compare the old proverb: 'There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.' 39· In New South Wales, and once a penal settlement to which British felons were transported. CHAPTER III ADJUNCTS TO MAJOR WORKS 1. George Henry Lewes. Seep. ix. 2. John Blackwood, publisher, Edinburgh. 3· An author and popular London lecturer (1816-60). 4· After being a private secretary to ministers of the Crown, Arthur Helps (1813-75) was made Clerk of the Privy Council in 186o; he was one of Lewes's friends. 5· Agnes Jervis Lewes, wife of G.
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