Chapter 13

[Footnote 8: Modern astronomers differ very much both with Dante's and Ariosto's Moon; nor do the "argent fields" of Milton appear better placed in our mysterious satellite, with its no-atmosphere and no-water, and its tremendous precipices. It is to be hoped (and believed) that knowledge will be best for us all in the end; for it is not always so by the way. It displaces beautiful ignorances.]

[Footnote 9: Very fine and scornful, I think, this. Mighty monarchies reduced to actual bladders, which, little too as they were, contained big sounds.]

[Footnote 10: Such, I suppose, as was given at convent-gates.]

[Footnote 11: The pretended gift of the palace of St. John Lateran, the foundation of the pope's temporal sovereignty. This famous passage was quoted and translated by Milton.

"Di varii fiori ad on gran monte passa Ch'ebbe già buon odore, or putia forte. Questo era il dono (se però dir lece) Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece."