THE WEIRD OF THE WANDERER
THE WEIRD OF THE WANDERER
BEING THE PAPYRUS RECORDS OF SOME INCIDENTS IN ONE OF THE PREVIOUS LIVES OF MR. NICHOLAS CRABBE HERE PRODUCED BY PROSPERO & CALIBAN
LONDON WILLIAM RIDER & SON, LIMITED CATHEDRAL HOUSE, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1912
First Published in 1912
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
TO THE MAGNIFICENT MAN
DOMENICO COMPARETTI
ROMAN OF ROME, SENATOR OF THE KINGDOM, KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF CIVIL MERIT OF SAVOY, OFFICER OF THE ORDER OF ST. MAURICE AND ST. LAZARUS, COMMANDER OF THE ORDER OF THE CROWN OF ITALY, D.C.L. (honoris causâ) in the Universities of Oxford, Athens, Cracow; Professor Emeritus in the University of Pisa and the Royal Higher Institute of Florence; National-Member of the Royal Academy of the Lincei, and of the Royal Academies of Sciences of Naples and Turin; Academic-Correspondent of the Royal Academy della Crusca; Correspondent-Member of the Royal Institute of Lombardy and the Veneto, of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Bologna, of the Royal Academies of Munich and Copenhagen, of the Imperial Academies of Vienna and Petersburgh; Foreign Member of the Institute of France; Ordinary Member of the German Archæological Institute of Rome, of the Archæological Society of Athens, of the Syllogos Filol. of Constantinople, of the Ugro-Finn Society of Helsingfors, of the Estone Society of Dorpat, etc. etc. etc.
THIS LITTLE BOOK,
WITH OBSERVANCE AND WITH REVERENCE,
IS DEDICATED,
TO DIVERT HIS LEISURE.
[_Misce stultitiam conciliis brevem Dulce est desipere in loco._
HORACE TO VERGIL, Od. 13, Lib. iv.]
PROSPERO loq. . . . . . I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other: when thou didst not (savage) Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I informed thy purposes With words.
CALIBAN loq. . . . . . Remember, First, to possess his books: for, without them, He’s but a sot, as I am.
Shakespeare’s TEMPEST.