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The Purgatory of Suicides; A Prison-Rhyme. in Ten Books
The Purgatory of Suicides A PrisonRhyme in Ten Books Author:Thomas Cooper General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1853 Original Publisher: Chapman and Hall Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you ca... more »n select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: NOTES TO BOOK THE FIKST. 1. -- Page 4, Stanza iii. Beamtfrom the brows of Rollo's robber-brood "EoI. I. O's robber-brood" was intended as a compliment to the English nobility, so many of whom claim to be descended, in common with William the Bastard, their brigand chief, from the soldiers of Rollo the Norman. Mr. Disraeli, however, seems to be of opinion that these pretensions to chivalrous descent deserve no credit; and, surely, he is an authority on such a subject. "I have always understood," said Coningsby, "that our peerage was the finest in Europe." " From themselves," said Millbank, " and the heralds they pay to paint their carriages. But I go to facts. When Henry the Seventh called his first Parliament, there were only twenty- nine temporal peers to be found, and even some of them took their seats illegally, for they had been attainted. Of those twenty-nine not five remain, and they, as the Howards for instance, are not Norman nobility. We owe the English peerage to three sources: the spoliation of the Church; the open and flagitious sale of its honours by the elder Stuarts; and the boroughmongering of our own times." -- Coningiby, vol. ii., chap. 4. 2. -- Page 17, Stanza xlli. Scythians, with heel in front, and toes behind, The Abarimonides, and Blemmyse, will be recognised by readers acquainted with Pliny's portraits of human monsters. 3. -- Page 17, Stanza xlili. That breathing stone the Past to gem the Future leased. The author, it need scarcely be said, has never seen the Laocoon ; but doea not the imagination, on the mere receipt of tes...« less