“Chamberlain,” cried the monarch, “bring me a strait waistcoat.”

Driven into a corner, Mithridata flung herself at the King’s feet, taking care, however, not to touch him, and confided to him all her wretched history.

The venerable monarch burst into a peal of laughter.  “A bon chat bon rat!” he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered himself.  “So thou art the daughter of my old friend the magician Locusto!  I fathomed his craft, and, as he fed his child upon poisons, I fed mine upon antidotes.  Never did any child in the world take an equal quantity of physic:  but there is now no poison on earth can harm him.  Ye are clearly made for each other; haste to his bedside, and, as the spell requires, rid thyself of thy venefic properties in his arms as expeditiously as possible.  Thy father shall be bidden to the wedding, and an honoured guest he shall be, for having taught us that the kiss of Love is the remedy for every poison.”

NOTES

The first edition of these Tales was published in 1888.  It contained sixteen stories, to which twelve are added in the present impression.  Many originally appeared in periodicals, as will be found indicated in the annotations which the recondite character of some allusions has rendered it desirable to append, and which further provide an opportunity of tendering thanks to many friends for their assent to republication.

P. 5. The divine tongue of Greece was forgotten,—­Hereby we may detect the error of those among the learned who have identified Caucasia with Armenia.  “Hellenic letters,” says Mr. Capes, writing of Armenia in the fourth century, “were welcomed with enthusiasm, and young men of the slenderest means crowded to the schools of Athens” ("University Life in Ancient Athens,” p. 73).

P. 28. Who have discovered the Elixir of Immortality.—­The belief in this elixir was general in China about the seventh century, A.D., and many emperors used great exertions to discover it.  This fact forms the groundwork of Leopold Schefer’s novel, “Der Unsterblichkeitstrank,” which has furnished the conception, though not the incidents, of “The Potion of Lao-Tsze.”

P. 38. So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously.—­In A.D. 683, the Dowager-Empress Woo How, upon her husband’s death, caused her son to be set aside, and ruled prosperously until her decease in 703.  In our day we have seen China virtually governed by female sovereigns.

P. 50. Ananda the Miracle Worker.—­This story was originally published in Fraser’s Magazine for August, 1872.  A French translation appeared in the Revue Britannique for November, 1872.  Buddha’s prohibition to work miracles rests, so far as the present writer’s knowledge extends, on the authority of Professor Max Mueller ("Lectures on the Science of Religion").  It should be needless to observe that Ananda, “the St. John of the Buddhist group,” is not recorded to have contravened this or any other of his master’s precepts.