[3.1] Mr Knight, in a note to the Landscape, having taken the liberty of laughing at a notable device of a celebrated improver, for giving greatness of character to a place, and showing an undivided extent of property, by placing the family arms on the neighbouring milestones, the improver retorted on him with a charge of misquotation, misrepresentation, and malice prepense.  Mr Knight, in the preface to the second edition of his poem, quotes the improver’s words:—­“The market-house, or other public edifice, or even a mere stone with distances, may bear the arms of the family:”  and adds:—­“By a mere stone with distances, the author of the Landscape certainly thought he meant a milestone; but, if he did not, any other interpretation which he may think more advantageous to himself shall readily be adopted, as it will equally answer the purpose of the quotation.”  The improver, however, did not condescend to explain what he really meant by a mere stone with distances, though he strenuously maintained that he did not mean a milestone. His idea, therefore, stands on record, invested with all the sublimity that obscurity can confer.

[3.2] “Il est constant qu’elles se baisent de meilleur coeur, et se caressent avec plus de grace devant les hommes, fieres d’aiguiser impunement leur convoitise par l’image des faveurs qu’elles savent leur faire envier.”—­Rousseau, Emile, liv. 5.

Chapter 4

[4.1] See Price on the Picturesque.

[4.2] See Knight on Taste, and the Edinburgh Review, No.  XIV.

[4.3] Protracted banquets have been copious sources of evil.

Chapter 5

[5.1] See Lord Monboddo’s Ancient Metaphysics.

[5.2] Drummond’s Academical Questions.

[5.3] Homer is proved to have been a lover of wine by the praises he bestows upon it.

[5.4] A cup of wine at hand, to drink as inclination prompts.

Chapter 6

[6.1] See Knight on Taste.

[6.2] This stanza is imitated from Machiavelli’s Capitolo dell’ Occasione.

Chapter 7

[7.1] Fragments of a demolished world.

[7.2] Took’s Diversions of Purley.

Chapter 8

[8.1] Some readers will, perhaps, recollect the Archbishop of Prague, who also was an excellent sportsman, and who,

    Com’ era scritto in certi suoi giornali,
    Ucciso avea con le sue proprie mani
    Un numero infinito d’animali: 
    Cinquemila con quindici fagiani,
    Seimila lepri, ottantantre cignali,
    E per disgrazia, ancor tredici cani, &c.

Chapter 9