NOTES. NOTES TO CANTO THIRD. (a) Page 58. As if the fiends had come, Prepar'd with Lapland wizard's drum, To beat such awful note, as ne'er Fell harmless on a christian ear. The famous Magical Drum of the Laplanders, is still in constant use in that nation; and Sheffer, in his History of Lapland," has given us the following account of its structure. "This instrument is made of beech, pine, or fir, split in the middle, and hollowed on the flat side, where the drum is to be made. The hollow is of an oval figure, and is covered with a skin, clean dressed, and painted with figures of various kinds, such as stars, suns, and moons, animals and plants, and even lakes and rivers, mountains, &c. and of later days, since the preaching of christianity among them, the acts and sufferings of our Saviour, and his apostles, are often added to the rest. All these figures are separated by lines into three regions or clusters. There is, besides these parts of the drum, an index and a hammer. The index is a bundle of brass or iron rings, from the largest of which all the rest are suspended. The hammer, or drumstick, is made of the horn of a rein-deer, and with this they beat the drum so as to make the rings move, which are laid on the top for that purpose. In the motion of these rings about the pictures figured on the drum, they fancy to themselves some prediction, in regard to the things they wish to enquire about. "What they principally enquire into by means of this instrument, are three things, viz: 1st. What sacrifices will prove most acceptable to their gods. 2d. What success they shall have in their several occupations, as hunting, fishing, &c. 3d. What is doing in places remote from them. On these occasions they have several peculiar ceremonies, and place themselves in various odd postures, as they beat the drum, which influences the rings to the one or the other side, and to come nearer the one or the other set of figures. After doing this, they have a way of calculating a discovery, which they keep as a great secret, and in which consists the skill of the magician." (b) Page 65. Haply to catch such scaly prey Pack'd in the heavy laden boat. Taunton, a town of Massachusetts, the staple commodity of which is smoked herring, and with which, in the proper season, the inhabitants of said town, deluge the country around. These herrings are, in the opinion of those who deal in the article in question, so much superior to all other kinds, that they have dignified them by the name of "Taunton Turkies," thereby challenging the sapid qualities of that christmas fowl; in the same manner as the inhabitants of Albany bid defiance to the ribs of the ox, by entitling their sturgeon Albany Beef." " Those people, however, who have smelt the boats of the Taunton traders, will still prefer the true turky at dinner, to the Taunton substitute, as much as a man who has ground the cartilaginous substance of the sturgeon between his wearied jaws, will prefer the sapid juices of the sirloin to the ligamentous whitleather; fish, that in respect to tenderness and deli cacy, bears no more proportion to a steak, than the flesh of a jerked porpoise does to an egg. 6* |