P. 148. The Claw.—­Originally published in The English Illustrated Magazine.

P. 151. Peter of Abano.—­Pietro di Abano, who took his name from his birthplace, a village near Padua, was a physician contemporary with Dante, whose skill in medicine and astrology caused him to be accused of magic.  It is nevertheless untrue that he was burned by the Inquisition or stoned by the populace; but after his death he was burned in effigy, his remains having been secretly removed by his friends.  Honours were afterwards paid to his memory; and there seems no doubt that he was a man of great attainments, including a knowledge of Greek, and of unblemished character, if he had not sometimes sold his skill at too high a rate.  For his authentic history, see the article in the Biographie Universelle by Ginguene; for the legendary, Tieck’s romantic tale, “Pietro von Abano” (1825), which has been translated into English.

P. 156. Alexander the Rat-catcher.—­This story, to whose ground-work History and Rabelais have equally contributed, was first published in vol. xii. of The Yellow Book, January, 1897.

P. 157. Cardinal Barbadico.—­This cardinal was actually entrusted by Alexander VIII. with the commission of suppressing the rats; an occasion upon which the “sardonic grin” imputed to the Pope by a detractor may be conjectured to have been particularly apparent.  Barbadico was a remarkable instance of a man “kicked upstairs.”  As Archbishop of Corfu he had had a violent dispute with the Venetian governor, and Innocent XI., equally unwilling to disown the representative of Papal authority or offend the Republic, recalled him to Rome and made him a Cardinal to keep him there.

P. 177. The Rewards of Industry.—­Appeared originally in Atalanta for August, 1888.

P. 194. The Talismans.—­First published in Atalanta for September, 1890.

P. 202. The Elixir of Life.—­Published July, 1881, in the third number of a magazine entitled Our Times, which blasted the elixir’s character by expiring immediately afterwards.

P. 226. The Purple Head.—­Appeared originally in Fraser’s Magazine for August, 1877.

P. 228. The purple of the emperor and the matrons appeared ashy grey in comparison. “Cineris specie decolorari videbantur caeterae divini comparatione fulgoris” (Vopiscus, in Vita Aureliani, cap. xxix.).

P. 230. All these sovereigns.—­“Diligentissime et Aurelianus et Probus et proxime Diocletianus missis diligentissimis confectoribus requisiverunt tale genus purpurae, nec tamen invenire potuerunt” (Vopiscus, loc. cit.).

P. 241. Pan’s Wand.—­Published originally in a Christmas number of The Illustrated London News.

P. 249. A Page from the Book of Folly.—­Appeared in Temple Bar for 1871.

P. 282. The Philosopher and the Butterflies.—­One of the contributions by various writers to “The New Amphion,” a little book prepared for sale at the Fancy Fair got up by the students of the University of Edinburgh in 1886.