NOTES.
L 2
Note 1, page 142, last line.
Dread knowledge of the pangs that ransom from the chain.
Cleopatra made a collection of poisonous drugs, and being desirous to know which was least painful in the operation, she tried them on the capital convicts. Such poisons as were quick in their operation, she found to be attended with violent pain and convulsions; such as were milder were slow in their effect: she therefore applied herself to the examination of venomous creatures; and at length she found that the bite of the asp was the most eligible kind of death, for it brought on a gradual kind of lethargy.—See Plutarch.
Note 2, page 145, last line.
Despair and die!
"To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword; despair and die!"
Richard III.
