by Michael Cox
*Rosa Mundi; and Other Poems (London: Edward Moxon, 1854), the first of the two works by Daunt (the other being The Heir: see note to p. 71) to be published in the year of his death. The concluding two stanzas of the poem in question, entitled From the Persian, were copied out by Daunts murderer, Edward Glyver; the piece of paper on which they had been written was later found thrust into the victims hand. A final irony is that the author had previously sent his murderer a former schoolfellow a complimentary copy of the book.
*Lucian Rawson Slake (180576), An Analytical and Descriptive History of the Gentile Nations (Smith, Elder, 1868), a comprehensive, but unfortunately almost unreadable history of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. A rival work, by George Smith (180068), had been published by Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans in 1853. This must have been a blow to Slake, who had been working on his magnum opus since 1833, but he continued with his work nevertheless. One fears it found few readers.
*Penelope: A Tragedy, in Verse (Bell & Daldy, 1853).
*Epimetheus; with other posthumous poems (2 vols, Edward Moxon, 1854 for 1855).
*Norwich: Jarrold & Sons, printed for private circulation, 1874.
*The Mount is better known now as the hill parish of Monte, famous for the toboggans that have long been provided for the descent to Funchal. The Palheiro de Ferreiro, or Smiths Cottage, was built, and the extensive area around it planted, by Joăo, 1st Count of Carvalhal.
*A peculiarly Madeiran form of conveyance, being a kind of covered sledge drawn by two oxen.
*A covered litter, normally carried by four bearers.
*Battleys Sedative Solution, a patent brand of laudanum containing opium, sherry, alcohol, calcium hydrate, and distilled water.
*Villa of the Rosemaries. Rosemary bushes grow to a large size in Madeira, large enough sometimes to form a hedge.
*The church, with its spectacular views, was completed in 1818 on the site of a fifteenth-century chapel destroyed in the earthquake of 1748. On the Feast of the Assumption (15 August) penitents still ascend the seventy-four steps on their knees.
*François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénélon (16511715), French Catholic prelate and writer.
*A dealer in artists colours.
*A reference to Ezekiels vision of the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezekiel, Chapter 37).
*Caroline Daunt, née Petrie (17971874). The 25th Lord Tansor was her second cousin. She married Achilles Daunt in 1821.
*Queen Mary: A Drama, first performed at the Lyceum Theatre in April 1876 and published the following month.
*The British military hospital (present-day Üsküdar, ancient Chrysopolis, in Turkey), made famous by its association with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War.
*Originally a fashionable theatre, with the main entrance on Oxford Street. Its attractions included a picture gallery, a toy bazaar, and, on the ground floor, numerous counters offering a wide range of clothing items and fancy goods.
*Edward Vernon Harcourt (182591), naturalist and MP for Oxford from 1878 to 1885. His Sketch of Madeira; containing information for the traveller, or invalid visitor had been published in 1851.
*Der Struwwelpeter[Shock-headed or Slovenly Peter] by Heinrich Hoffmann (180974), an illustrated book of cautionary tales for children first published in German in 1845, and in an anonymous and hugely popular English version in 1848.
*The Villa Eléonore-Louise, in the Avenue du Dr Picaud, built by Henry Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux (17781868), in 18345.
*Milton, Paradise Lost (i.302): Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks / In Vallombrosa
*Behold a god more powerful than I, who, coming, will rule over me. Dante, Vita Nuova (I, ii).
*Vincenz Priessnitz (17991851), a farmers son who founded the health cult of hydrotherapy, the centre of which was at the water university of Gräf-enberg in Austrian Silesia (now Lázne? Jeseník in the Czech Republic).
*The collapse of the discount bank Overend Gurney in May 1866, leaving debts of some Ł11 million, was the most spectacular of the nineteenth century.
*Presumably, Two on a Tower: A Romance, published in October 1882. Hardys next novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge, was not published until 1886.
*Let sleeping dogs lie.
