De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars Part 6

51 20. undying worm. _Isaiah_, lxvi, 24.

51 29. "from morn till dewy eve." Paradise Lost, I, 742.

52 33. On a fine morning. Study this paragraph carefully with reference to the rhetorical effect. The entire scene is the product of De Quincey's imagination; do you consider it truthful?

53 24. yagers. German _Jager_; used of a huntsman or a forester, also in parts of Germany and Austria used to indicate light infantry or cavalry. Compare with _Polish dragoons_, p. 38, l. 10.

54 21. indorsed. Look up the etymology. Has De Quincey, in his note, quoted Milton accurately? See _Paradise Regained_, III, 329.

56 13. rather in a diagonal. This is another characteristic of De Quincey; he is sometimes tediously exact in his details; perhaps the minuteness is justifiable in this instance, as the statement increases the realistic effect of an imaginary scene.

56 18. a large fresh-water lake. The Lake of Tengis here referred to, mentioned by name in the paragraph following this, is evidently Lake Balkash, into which flows the river Ily. It is one of the largest lakes in the steppes, but its water is really _salt_.

59 21. globes and turms. Latinisms. Milton uses _globe_ in _Paradise Lost_, II, 512, and _turms_ in _Paradise Regained_, IV, 66.

60 4. retributary. What more common form is used synonymously?

60 21. "La nation des Torgotes," etc. "'The nation of the Torgouths (_to wit the Kalmucks_) arrived at Ily wholly shattered, having neither victuals to live on [_sic_] nor clothes to wear. I had foreseen this, and had given orders for making every kind of preparation necessary for their prompt relief; which was duly done.

The distribution of lands was made; and there was a.s.signed to each family a portion sufficient to serve for its support, whether by cultivating it or by feeding cattle on it [_sic_]. There were given to each individual materials for his clothing, corn for his sustenance for the s.p.a.ce of one year, utensils for household purposes, and other things necessary; besides some ounces of silver wherewith to provide himself with anything that might have been forgotten. Particular places were marked out for them, fertile in pasture; and cattle and sheep, etc., were given them, that they might be able for the future to work for their own support and well-being.'--This is a note of Kien Long subjoined to his main narrative; and De Quincey, I find, took the above transcript of it from the French translation of Bergmann's book.

That transcript, it is worth observing, is not quite exact to the original French text of the Pekin missionaries."--Ma.s.sON.

61 12. "Lorsqu'ils arriverent," etc. "'When they arrived on our frontiers (to the number of some hundreds of thousands, although nearly as many more had perished by the extreme fatigue, the hunger, the thirst, and all the other hardships inseparable from a very long and very toilsome march), they were reduced to the last misery, they were in want of everything. The Emperor supplied them with everything.

He caused habitations to be prepared for them suitable for their manner of living; he caused food and clothing to be distributed among them; he had cattle and sheep given them, and implements to put them in a condition for forming herds and cultivating the earth; and all this at his own proper charges, which mounted to immense sums, without counting the money which he gave to each head of a family to provide for the subsistence of his wife and children.'

"This is from a eulogistic abstract of Kien Long's own narrative by one of his Chinese ministers, named Yu Min Tchoung, a translation of which was sent to Paris by the Jesuit missionary, P. Amiot, together with the translation of the imperial narrative itself. The transcript is again by the French translator of Bergmann, and is again rather inaccurate."--Ma.s.sON.

63 17. lex talionis. Law of retaliation.

63 18. "lex nec justior," etc. "Nor is there any law more just than that the devisers of murder should perish by their own device."--OVID, _Ars Amatoria_, I, 655.

63 25. lares. The minor deities of a Roman household.

63 30. Arcadian beauty. Arcadian is synonymous with rural simplicity and beauty. Arcadia, the central province of Greece, was a pastoral district and lacked the vices--as well as some of the virtues--of the surrounding states.

64 1. extirpation. Etymology?

64 23. music. One who has listened to Mongolian attempts at harmony must suspect that De Quincey is again inspired by his imagination when he characterizes this part of the commemoration as "rich and solemn."

64 28. columns of granite and bra.s.s. This feature of the narrative, as well as many other details of apparent fact, including the entire inscription said to have been placed upon the monument, are evidently the pure invention of De Quincey's fancy, no mention of these details being found in his historical sources.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] "Some years ago I published a paper on the Flight of the Kalmuck Tartars from Russia. Bergmann, the German from whom that account was chiefly drawn, resided a long time among the Kalmucks," etc.--Essay on _Homer and the Homeridae._